Brother HL-L2400D

Mono laserTonerBrother Refresh EZ Print

USB cable, 250 sheets, automatic duplex, thirty-two pages a minute, no network of any kind. The HL-L2400D is deliberately the least connected printer in this catalogue and that is why people buy it: plug it into one computer, it prints, and there is no app, no account, no firmware update that changes the terms. It is also the entry point to the machine the internet has recommended for a decade — a cheap Brother mono laser that sits in a cupboard for six months and prints perfectly on the first page. Worth knowing before you buy: the toner in the box is a 700-page starter, and the high-yield TN830XL that replaces it is $98.29 for 3,000 pages, or about 3.3 cents a page. That is roughly eight times what a refillable tank printer costs per page, which is the part the recommendation usually leaves out.

Approx. price: ~$134
Cost per mono page: 3.3¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$298
Print speed, mono: 32 ISO ppm

Best for

One computer, one cable, black-and-white documents, and no interest in an app ever being involved.

marks an estimate. Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. Purchase price plus ink or toner over the pages shown, assuming four mono pages for every colour page. Price is an approximate snapshot from our last catalogue update.

What it costs to own

Black consumable: Brother TN830XL high-yield toner · 3,000 ISO pages · ~$98.29
Cost per mono page: 3.3¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$298
Cost to own, 200 pages/month for 3 years: ~$370 (7,200 pages)

Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. How this is worked out

Cost to own · 5,000 pages

Brother HL-L2400D~$298
~$134 printer + ~$164 supplies
Brother HL-L2405W~$303
~$139 printer + ~$164 supplies
Brother HL-L2460DW~$343
~$179 printer + ~$164 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.

Specifications

Manufacturer-published figures. Cost lines are computed from the consumable figures above and are estimates.

Approx. price: ~$134
Cost per mono page: 3.3¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$298
Cost to own, 3 years: ~$370
Technology: Laser
Ink system: Toner
Inks: 1
Black consumable: Brother TN830XL high-yield toner · 3,000 pages
Ink in the box: 700 pages
Third-party ink lock: No
Ink subscription: Brother Refresh EZ Print
Print speed, mono: 32 ISO ppm
First page out: 8.5 s
Functions: Print
Two-sided printing: Auto
Document feeder: None
Paper capacity: 250 sheets
Max paper size: Legal
Borderless photo: No
Resolution: 1200 × 1200 dpi
Mobile printing: App only
Display: None
Dimensions: 14.0 × 14.2 × 7.2 in
Weight: 15.6 lb
Released: 2023

Features

32 ppm with automatic two-sided printing
1200 × 1200 dpi output
250-sheet tray plus a single-sheet manual feed
USB only — no network, no app, no account
No liquid ink, so nothing dries out between uses

Auto duplex No ink lock

In its favour

Prints on the first try after months unused — the reason lasers get recommended for light printing
32 ppm and automatic duplex for under $140
No network stack means no app, no account and nothing to update
Text at 1200 dpi is sharper than the 600 dpi budget lasers here
Nothing in the firmware rejects third-party toner

Against it

About 3.3¢ a page on genuine toner — eight times a tank printer's mono cost
The cartridge in the box is a 700-page starter, so the first real purchase comes fast
USB only: no Wi-Fi, no Ethernet, no phone printing
Black and white, print only, no display

What owners say

Distilled from owner discussions and long-term published reviews

Every discussion that starts 'which printer should I buy' ends with someone recommending a cheap Brother mono laser, and this is the plainest one in the range. No network stack, no account, no app — a USB cable and a duplexer. Owners who bought it for that reason are generally happy.

Two things temper the standing recommendation. The first is toner: a genuine TN830XL is $98.29 for 3,000 pages, which is around eight times what a tank printer costs per page and close to the price of the printer itself. The second is newer and more contentious — owners report recent Brother firmware refusing some third-party cartridges, which undermines the historic reason people chose Brother in the first place. Reports are inconsistent across models and firmware versions, and Brother has not made the behaviour easy to pin down.

What owners like

Owners who wanted a printer with no app, no account and no network describe it as exactly that
Prints immediately after weeks or months of sitting unused, which is the whole reason people buy a small laser
Automatic duplex at this price is unusual and gets mentioned often
Simple enough that nothing about it can break in software

Common complaints

Owners report Brother firmware on recent models rejecting some third-party toner, which was historically a reason to choose Brother over HP
Toner is the expense nobody mentions when recommending these: a genuine high-yield cartridge costs most of what the printer does
USB only — owners who assumed Wi-Fi was included are a recurring thread
The 700-page starter cartridge runs out fast

Questions that keep coming up

Does this printer accept third-party toner?

Historically yes, and that was a large part of why Brother lasers were recommended. Owners of recent models report firmware rejecting some third-party cartridges, with results varying by model and firmware version. Nothing here is documented by Brother as a lock, and plenty of owners still use compatible toner successfully — but it is no longer the certainty it was, and updating firmware is the moment people report it changing.

It has no Wi-Fi?

Correct — this model is USB only, and people are regularly caught out by it. The HL-L2405W is the same chassis with dual-band Wi-Fi, but it gives up the automatic duplexer to get it. The HL-L2460DW has both for about forty dollars more, which is where most people end up.

Is a cheap laser really cheaper than a tank printer?

For black-and-white printing it is cheaper than a cartridge inkjet by a wide margin, which is where the reputation comes from. Against a refillable tank printer it is not: a genuine TN830XL works out around 3.3¢ a page against roughly 0.4¢ on an EcoTank. The laser wins on reliability after long idle periods; the tank printer wins on running cost.

Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. Owner notes are a summary of what people who own the machine report, not a test result — there is no lab behind this site.