Guide

Mono lasers for a home office

A mono laser is the right answer to one specific problem: printing black-and-white documents in bursts, from a machine that has been switched off for a month. Nothing dries out, the first page lands in seven or eight seconds, and the output cannot smear. What the recommendation usually leaves out is the toner bill, so it is in the table.

9 printers · Ordered by pages per minute, fastest first.

Printer	Price	Mono page	Colour page	5,000 pages	Speed
Brother HL-L2460DW	~$179	3.3¢	—	~$343	36 ppm
Brother DCP-L2640DW	~$209	3.3¢	—	~$373	36 ppm
Xerox B235	~$299	3.6¢	—	~$479	36 ppm
Brother MFC-L2820DW	~$269	3.3¢	—	~$433	34 ppm
Brother HL-L2400D	~$134	3.3¢	—	~$298	32 ppm
HP LaserJet Pro M209dwe	~$229	4.4¢	—	~$448	30 ppm
Brother HL-L2405W	~$139	3.3¢	—	~$303	30 ppm
HP LaserJet M110we	~$129	6.5¢	—	~$455	21 ppm
HP LaserJet MFP M140we	~$179	6.5¢	—	~$505	21 ppm

Cost figures are estimates computed from each consumable’s ISO page yield and list price. A dash means we could not source one of those two numbers.

Cost to own · 5,000 pages

Brother HL-L2460DW~$343
~$179 printer + ~$164 supplies
Brother DCP-L2640DW~$373
~$209 printer + ~$164 supplies
Xerox B235~$479
~$299 printer + ~$180 supplies
Brother MFC-L2820DW~$433
~$269 printer + ~$164 supplies
Brother HL-L2400D~$298
~$134 printer + ~$164 supplies
HP LaserJet Pro M209dwe~$448
~$229 printer + ~$219 supplies
Brother HL-L2405W~$303
~$139 printer + ~$164 supplies
HP LaserJet M110we~$455
~$129 printer + ~$326 supplies

purchase priceink or toner. An estimate: purchase price plus 5,000 pages at each printer’s computed cost per page, assuming 4 mono pages for every colour page. Printers whose consumable price we could not source are left out.