Brother HL-P2000 review

With its latest multifunction device Brother has put together a package that looks like beating the opposition quite neatly, according to the specifications at least. When compared to the Hewlett-Packard 1100A (reviewed p179) on paper, the new HL-P2000 is both faster and cheaper. It doesn't break any moulds as far as design is concerned, however, featuring the familiar Brother bread-bin shape, with paper loaded at the rear and prevented from flopping back by a clip-on metal attachment. The HL-P2000 sports four of these supports - one each on the printer and scanner inputs and outputs. They certainly do the job but have the habit of falling off when inadvertently given a firm nudge.

The HL-P2000's print engine is rated at 10ppm - impressive for a device in this price range. Printing our 15-page mono text test bore this out, with the unit managing to achieve 9.9ppm. With a more complex 24-page document, containing text at various point sizes and with different fonts as well as photos and charts, the result was 10ppm, and it breezed through the task without any memory overrun errors.

This positive story continues with print quality, rendering sharp characters with good black density. Tonal balance on business graphics was also accomplished, with no discernible bias toward light or dark rendition of variously shaded bar charts and graphs. The dithering schemes for both solid graphics and photo reproduction were similarly impressive, with little regular patterning in evidence. On top of all that, running costs are pretty reasonable and work out cheaper than the HP 1100A at between 1.19p and 1.91p per page, depending on the average length of print jobs.

The HL-P2000 isn't called a multifunction device for nothing, however. Sitting on top of the unit is a scanner module, which, in conjunction with the printer, enables it to act as a rudimentary photocopier with a default resolution of 200 x 600dpi. The scanner module is an integral part of its design and isn't a detachable unit as with the HP 1100A. The front sports four buttons: copy, stop, enlarge/reduce and photo. The enlarge/reduce button cycles through four options: you can go from A5 or A6 up to A4, or from A4 down to A5 or A6. Pressing the photo button switches the resolution to 300 « 300dpi. This seems strange given that the photo mode then actually produces fewer pixels overall than the text mode. However, the increased horizontal resolution does give smoother photo reproduction.

Just like a photocopier, the process of copying simply involves placing the document on the input tray (which can also handle a stack of originals) and pressing the button. Pressing the copy button several times gives you several copies of one original, but the maximum you can make is nine without resorting to software control. Copy speed is rather more stately than print speed but still quicker than the HP 1100A, producing a single A4 copy in 35 seconds. On the downside, the shallow output tray will only handle ten originals before they start pushing others off the stack as they emerge from the scanning unit.

The scanner unit also functions as a normal document scanner under software control. There's a simple TWAIN driver included, but the scanning engine isn't what you'd call state of the art. It's a simple 300 x 300dpi 8-bit monochrome unit, and quality isn't up to that of even the cheapest flatbed. Geometry was poor, giving trapezoid-type distortion, and scans suffered from pronounced noise, resulting in a light dusting of 'snow' over images. Speed could also be improved, with an 8-bit greyscale, 300dpi A4 scan taking just over two minutes. However, the quality should be adequate for document scanning and management, and you only have to wait 24 seconds for a 1-bit A4 scan.