The Brother HL-4040CN is a moderately priced single-function laser printer for workgroups or small offices. This is a good, cost-effective printer for offices with standard printing needs.
The entire front panel of HL-4040CN’s printer contains four cheap toner cartridges, lined up in a horizontal row. The four cartridges include three colors and one black cartridge. Black cartridge is good for about 2,500 prints and each of the three color cartridges will last for about 1,500 prints. Brother also offers high-capacity versions cartridges at a very cheap price: the black one print about 5,000 pages ($93) and the color ones print about 4,000 pages in just $130 each. Using the high-capacity cheap cartridges, per-page costs work out to about 1.9 cents for a black-only page and 11.7 cents for a full-color page–inexpensive for black prints and about average for color prints. The recommended monthly duty cycle (that is, the suggested monthly print volume) is 35,000 pages, making it better suited for busy workgroups or small offices than for home users. The printer’s driver also has a Toner Save mode, which helps reduce your print costs by using less toner; obviously, the print quality will take a hit.
Brother HL-4040CN cheap cartridge is the fastest with color text and graphics. The HL-4040CN gave a more consistently good performance with print quality. Black text obtained from the cartridge is dark, sharp, and clean. The mono graphics print showed excellent handling of the grayscale, smooth blocks of black color, and excellent handling of photo elements.