Brother HL-1230

Brother is well known for its laser printers, so it's perhaps surprising that the HL-1230 falls behind this month's cutting edge when it comes to specs. It has only a 66MHz CPU and 2MB of buffer RAM, with a claimed throughput of 12ppm; compare this with the Lexmark E320, capable of 16ppm for only £37 more. The HL-1230 isn't the cheapest on test either, yet only has a parallel interface and no USB port. In fact, the Brother has the fewest features on test. Driver options are fairly comprehensive, though, and you can add a network card if you want to use the printer in a small workgroup setting.

In our performance tests, the HL-1230 was the slowest overall. It managed 11.6ppm in our 50-page test, closely matching its rated speed. However, a first-page time of 17 seconds was the slowest we saw, and was two seconds behind Brother's claims. Where the HL-1230 mainly fell down was in the Excel and DTP tests. In both, which are full of images and graphs, it was significantly slower than others on test (bar the HP), which was probably caused by the slow transfer rate of the parallel port.

Despite the lack of a resolution-enhancement option, quality didn't suffer and almost matched the excellent Kyocera overall. In particular, it excelled at printing our test photo, demonstrating good detail, no banding and smooth fades. It was also the only printer that managed to print the fine lines at the correct widths - others struggled here.

If you're after quality rather than speedy prints, the Brother HL-1230 is one to consider, but bear in mind that it's noisy when printing and only comes with a one-year, return-to-base warranty.