HL-5370DW – Brother HL-5370DW Excellent Printer, Overall

Brother HL-5370DW Review by Good Person

This little boy is excellent. And you can’t beat it for the price too. Also extremely easy to set up.

I am coming from an HP LaserJet, also 30 papers per minute. So I was comparing it to the HP when I shopped.

My HP, while it served me good, was not as sharp black as the Brother is. I like the print results from the Brother much better. Plus, the Brother have settings whether you’re printing text only, graphics, general, or office documents, in addition you can choose “manual” and tweak the settings yourself to your liking. I also like that the size of the printer is pretty small.

The HP was a little faster from sleep mode (like 8 seconds), while the Brother 5370 takes approx. 14 seconds. Not a biggie. The processor was faster in the HP, but 99% of the time you won’t notice the difference. Once it starts printing, it spits out papers like crazy. Very fast. One important note, though: The fast 32 ppm is only if you are printing in 600 dpi mode. If you need the higher quality 1200 dpi mode, print speed will be down by half! But there again, 99% of the time the 600 dpi is more than enough. Some higher quality graphics may require 1200 dpi, though.

Printing envelopes thru the multi-purpose paper tray is very good, and they’re not getting curled (like many old Brothers did) as long as you open the rear output tray. It can not print thru the regular printing area (if you do, it will still print, but envelopes will get wrinkled). I miss the HP in that area. It’s much less cumbersome.

The printer is quite noisy. But most fast laser printers are noisy.

The duplexer worked beautifully. You just select “Duplex” or “Booklet”, and the printer does the rest. Very good job with that.

I did not use the wireless networking, but from the manual it seems to be a little complicated. Also from the manual, is the following: “…Although the printer can be used in both, wired & wireless network, only ONE of the connections methods can be used at a time…” So keep that in mind if you want to use both.

I would suggest the following improvements, if Brother is interested to listen:

- Make it quieter;
- Add a little high-quality display instead of all the lamps (also miss from my HP – all cheap inkjet have’em today!);
- If out of paper, it should beep, so I know to add paper (optional – not everyone will like beeps);
- Enable the multi-purpose paper tray to be opened with one hand (like my HP), not force me to use both hands.

Overall, though, it is a pleasure to use. Highly recommended.