The Brother HL-5250DN offers the basic printer features that home office and small business users need, and then some. Its sticker price is also low enough to be affordable for families who want to share a laser printer on a home network.

Although it's no lightweight (nearly 22 pounds), the HL-5250DN is fairly compact, with a small footprint that doesn't demand too much in the way of desktop space. The paper tray tucks underneath the printer, which helps save even more real estate.

The HL-5250DN is network-ready out of the box, and it includes 10/100 BaseT Ethernet, parallel port and USB 2.0 connections. Connecting to a network is easy, and the included installation software will walk you through the set-up process.

The printer is rated for up to 20,000 pages per month, although its 250-sheet paper input tray is somewhat skimpy for business use. You can add up to two additional 250-sheet paper trays, but at $199.99 each, they're an expensive option. The HL-5250DN has a 150-sheet output tray, as well as a 50-sheet multipurpose tray. The printer lacks a rear exit for paper, which means you can set it up near a wall or partition. Unfortunately, this also means that there's no straight paper path for printing envelopes, cardstock and other non-standard media.

Output quality is excellent. The HL-5250DN supports print resolutions of up to 1,200X1,200 dpi. Text is a rich black and very sharp, even at small font sizes. Line art stays crisp and unbroken, even if the lines are very fine. Photos and other grayscale images are smooth, with little or no banding.

Output speed is also top-notch. The first page of a job will output in less than 9 seconds, even after a period of inactivity. The HL-5250DN is rated for output speeds of up to 30 pages per minute. Although you won't often (if ever) see those speeds, as printers never quite live up to manufacturer claims in the real world, you're unlikely to become impatient waiting for a job to finish printing.

The HL-5250DN ships with 32MB RAM, which is upgradeable to 512MB. The listed price of $249.99 is an estimated street price, as MSRP data was unavailable. Nevertheless, the Brother HL-5250DN is a fine network-ready laser printer at a great price.

Pros:  Speedy output, excellent output quality, expandable paper capacity and memory
Cons:  Paper tray has a low capacity, additional paper trays are expensive, lacks a straight paper path for printing specialty materials and envelopes

Warranty
1 year