This professional desktop color printer is part of Brother’s lineup aimed at small to medium-sized business (SMB) so it comes with an impressive specification and all the trimmings. As with any of the best small business printers, that means a touchscreen display, NFC and a print speed over 30ppm (pages per minute). It’s also expandable with an optional paper tray available. 

The Brother HL-L8245CDW (called the HL-L8240CDW in Europe) is a color LED device, which is to say that it uses a static LED array rather than a moving laser to guide toner particles onto the drums, but Brother still classifies it as a laser printer, as do we. At around US$350 (or about £280) it’s at the upper end of the market for single-function printer, but it comes with enough features and inbox toner to make this look like a good deal. What’s more, the high monthly duty cycle of 40,000 pages, triple-layer security and its availability under Brother’s MPS (managed print service) should attract the interest of any SMB with a busy print load. 

Brother HL-L8245CDW/HL-L8240CDW: Design & build

Single-function laser printers vary little from the square box form-factor and the Brother HL-L8245CDW/HL-L8240CD is no exception. At 16.8kg, it feels very heavy and robust with rounded corners and flaps that feel like they will stay attached with heavy use. It’s quite squat and compact, given that it can hold 250 sheets of A4/Letter paper in the main tray and another 30 in its front-loading multi-purpose tray. If you’re a heavy user of paper, you can buy Brother’s lower paper tray accessory for US$250 (or £155) to add another 250 sheets. 

The out-tray on top holds 150 sheets of paper face down and beside that is a 2.7-in (6.8cm) touchscreen angled slightly up towards the user. There’s a USB Host port on the front panel and inputs for a USB data cable and gigabit Ethernet cable at the rear.  

Brother HL-L8245CDW/HL-L8240CDW: Features & specifications

The Brother HL-L8245CDW/HL-L8240CD is equipped for use in a shared office with heavy print demands so the spec-sheet is quite impressive. The print rate for Letter paper is given as 31ppm, or 30ppm for fractionally larger A4 paper. That’s slower than rivals like the Xerox VersaLink B600DN, but still fast. Perhaps more importantly, this machine can automatically turn the page quickly so two-sided printing is 12ppm, which puts it among the fastest printers for duplexing. 

The paper capacity is average at 250 sheets in the main tray, but the option to expand that to a whole ream of 500 sheets makes it attractive to growing businesses. Many print-only devices lack a multi-purpose tray, but here we have one that can take 30 sheets of paper or envelopes of any size up to A4. 5GHz Wi-Fi with Wi-Fi Direct and AirPrint compatibility is built in, as you might expect, but the NFC module and USB Host ports are welcome extra features. 

Even some of the best laser printers often come with setup cartridges which contain measly amounts of toner, but Brother has been generous here by bundling fully-filled carts yielding up to 2,600 black and white pages and 1,400 color. Even higher capacity cartridges are available for this model which can deliver up to 4,500 monochrome pages and 4,000 color and these super high yield carts bring the cost per page down to a very competitive rate.  

Brother HL-L8245CDW/HL-L8240CDW: Setup & operation

To set up the Brother HL-L8245CDW/HL-L8240CDW you need to remove all the transport plastic, which involves opening it up then removing and reinstalling the four toner cartridges. That takes a few minutes, then the printer takes a few more minutes to warm up. Getting it onto your Wi-Fi network and ready to print is a case of following the instructions that appear on the touchscreen. There is also a companion app called Brother Mobile Connect to help you. This app is also good for checking the toner levels, or printing files from your smartphone or the cloud. Between the touchscreen interface and this intuitive app, operating the Brother HL-L8245CDW/HL-L8240CDW is a breeze.  

Brother HL-L8245CDW/HL-L8240CDW: Performance

The Brother HL-L8245CDW/HL-L8240CDW prints quickly and quietly, especially in quiet mode, which is just 43dB. The quoted print rates are accurate enough, which means duplex printing is especially impressive at 12ppm. Monochrome text pages were churned out with no paper jams or smudging and our test fonts were all clearly readable down to point size 4. It looks like a professional dark black too, unlike the dark grey you sometimes get with black toner.

The C/M/Y toners are not especially vivid, so our mixed color documents looked fine rather than wow. The color balance looks right and there’s no sign of posterization which makes this a good printer for full color handouts with blocks of color. When it comes to photos, the muted colors make for a somewhat flat finish despite the accurate printing. Like most laser/LED printers, the resolution is 600 x 600dpi so the dots that make up the image are easily visible.

Printing on envelopes was perfectly fine, but heavy paper stock was a problem. Anything over 163g/m2, which is the surprisingly low recommended weight limit, got jammed inside while auto duplexing. I persuaded it to simplex print on some high quality 300g/m2 sheets, but it left quite a curl in the paper. In short, the print quality is perfect for text and mixed color documents, but not great for photos or heavy paper.

Brother HL-L8245CDW/HL-L8240CDW: Final verdict

For a small print-only LED/laser device, the Brother HL-L8245CDW/HL-L8240CDW looks a little expensive, but despite the size, it could easily support a busy workgroup in a shared office thanks to its quick print speed, high-capacity cartridges and its expandability. 

With a 250-sheet paper tray plus the optional 250-sheet tray, this high-spec machine would punch well above its weight. It is well equipped too, offering a 30-page multi-purpose tray, NFC connectivity and a USB Host port. Auto-duplex printing is among the quickest at 12ppm while the strong print quality gives you very professional-looking handouts. 

Photo printing may not be such a strong suit and it’s not great at printing on thick paper (up to 163g/m2 is all it can handle) but overall, I was impressed by its output. Considering the generous amount of toner in the box, this premium printer has a low TCO (total cost of ownership).  

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Epson is always expanding its hugely popular EcoTank family and this feature-laden four-in-one is aimed at SMB (small to medium sized business) and the home office. The Epson EcoTank ET-4850 is small enough to fit on your desk at home, while offering sufficient capacity and print speed to serve a pretty busy workgroup. 

Like many of the best inkjet printers, it can print on coated photo paper, and while it cannot keep up with any of the best laser printers, the 15.5ppm (pages per minute) print rate is not bad for an inkjet. Business users might be interested in the fax facility and certainly the ADF (automatic document feed). 

Best of all though, this is a refillable supertank inkjet, so the running cost will be around 90 percent lower than cartridge-based rivals and as usual, there’s loads of bottled ink in the box. Sounds like the all-in-one we’ve been waiting for, so let’s run an in-depth test.  

Epson EcoTank ET-4850: Design & build

In the US, the Epson EcoTank ET-4850 comes in white, while the otherwise identical European model pictured here is black. It’s a pretty compact A4/Letter printer with a paper tray that projects forward a few inches. The high-capacity ink tanks also bulge forward on the right hand side with clear plastic windows at the front. Another advantage over cartridge printing is that you can see for yourself how much ink is left in the tanks and that’s important because if one runs dry, you could damage the print head.

The large 6.1cm touchscreen is mounted in the center of a tilting control panel for easy access, while connections for Ethernet and USB data cables are located at the rear. The flaps of the ADF on top fold flush flat so you might not guess that it has one at first glance. Lift open this upper panel and you’ll see the A4-size scanner platen. It’s a very standard design for a desktop MFP (multifunction peripheral).

Epson EcoTank ET-4850: Features & specifications

As the model numbers suggest, our Epson EcoTank ET-4850 fits in between the basic Epson ET-2850 and the flagship ET-5850. As a middle-money proposition, it comes with all of the features essential to an office printer and few extras. Thankfully it possesses the frontal paper tray, touchscreen and ADF missing from the ET-2850, though it lacks the additional paper drawer, rear input tray and additional inkjet nozzles offered by the big ET-5850. 

An all-in-one printer, Epson EcoTank ET-4850 can auto duplex print, scan and copy a 30-page document using its ADF and send or receive a fax. There’s no USB Host port, or NFC on this model, but it does have a decent touchscreen, Wi-Fi with AirPrint compatibility and the ability to print on any paper up to A4 in size and 300 g/m² in weight. 

The ISO/IEC 24734 print speed is given by Epson as 15.5ppm for monochrome pages, but the same tech-spec sheet also claims a maximum print speed of 33ppm. That’s quite a discrepancy, but suffice it to say, that the Epson EcoTank ET-4850 prints relatively quickly and the FPOT (first page out time) of just 9 seconds is pretty good. The print quality is a step up from the cheaper ET-2850 because the PrecisionCore print head deploys more nozzles per color to achieve a resolution of 4,800 x 1,200 DPI (dots per inch). The stand-out feature is perhaps the amount of ink Epson has included. The five bundled bottles should give you up to 14,000 black and white pages and 5,200 color. 

Epson EcoTank ET-4850: Setup & operation

Getting started is a simple case of connecting the power cable, loading your paper in the main tray and turning on. Then follow the instructions that appear on the color display. After choosing the language, the next prompt suggests downloading the companion app called Epson Smart Panel onto your smart device. Using this app for the rest of the setup is slightly easier than using the printer’s own touchscreen. The app also makes it easy to print and scan remotely.     

Epson EcoTank ET-4850: Performance

We’ve tested a number of the best ink tank printers, and for us the Epson EcoTank ET-4850 printed quite quickly for an inkjet and without a hitch or a jam during our tests. With plain black and white text pages and the print quality set to normal, I was impressed by the sharp clarity of the characters at the smallest point sizes. Reprinting the same pages at so-called best quality causes the printer to slow down and deploy more black ink, which actually reduces the sharpness, so I’d recommend sticking in the default normal mode.

Mixed color documents looked similarly well defined, while photographs on coated paper showed great fine detail. This must be due to Epson’s superior Micro Piezo nozzle configuration which uses 400 black nozzles and 128 for each color compared with the measly 180 and 59 nozzles of the ET-2850. Despite the strong print quality, I still wouldn’t recommend the Epson EcoTank ET-4850 as a photo printer for photographers because the color accuracy seems to be slightly off so that the dye-based CMY inks just don’t achieve the same realism you come to expect from a dedicated photo printer.

If printing is overall very good, scanning is rather slow and with the ADF being unable to duplex scan, the Epson EcoTank ET-4850 does not make a particularly good photocopier. What it proved best at is churning out pages of monochrome text and mixed color documents. 

Epson EcoTank ET-4850: Final verdict

As an all-in-one inkjet, aimed at small business or a home office, the Epson EcoTank ET-4850 has everything it needs to fill the role well. It’s compact enough to fit on a desk at home, while having the paper and ink capacity to serve a small workgroup. The lack of a front USB Host port, dual scanning and NFC are minor disappointments compared to the fact that this is an EcoTank meaning a very low running cost and a huge amount of bottled ink in the box. And aside from photographs on photo paper looking a little disappointing, as a contender for best small business printer, the print quality with monochrome and color documents is excellent. 

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