The Brother HL-5040 brings new meaning to the phrase personal printer. The unit comes with a 17-page-per-minute (ppm) print engine, a maximum resolution equivalent to 1,200 by 1,200 dots per inch (dpi), and an external Ethernet option that lets you plug directly into a network. And the printer takes up only a 15- by 15-inch square on your desktop—less than most ink jets need after you add room for paper to exit.

Unlike other low-cost laser printers, which skimp on paper handling, the HL-5040 offers a 250-sheet paper drawer standard, with an optional second drawer. The only obvious corner-cutting is the use of status lights for the control panel (instead of an LCD menu), but these are clearly labeled. You'll also find a Job Cancel button.

Setup consists of installing the toner cartridge, loading paper, running the installation program, and following the directions on screen. Brother provides a printed quick-start guide, but you can also just insert the CD-ROM and work through the video clips. The HL-5040's highest resolution is 600 by 2,400 dpi, which is a close visual match to 1,200-by-1,200. (We used the default setting of 600 dpi because the unit's standard 8MB of RAM wasn't enough to print some of our test photos at the highest resolution.)

Text was crisp, dark, and easily readable at sizes as small as 5 points. We saw posterization in some particularly demanding graphic gradients, but output quality for graphics and photos was generally good to excellent.

On our performance tests, the printer lived up to its claims. We clocked a 100-page Microsoft Word document at a hair over 16 ppm for the first 30 pages and 17 ppm for the entire document. A full-page Excel chart took just under 13 seconds, a 2-page Excel worksheet with embedded charts took 16.5 seconds, and 8- by 10-inch photos took 15 to 23 seconds apiece.

This combination of output quality, performance, and paper handling makes the Brother HL-5040 a personal printer in price, size, and name only: It delivers enough capability to serve a small office.