REASONS TO BUY
Fast printing speeds
Low operating costs
Great text quality
REASONS TO AVOID
Tiny display
Poor quality photos
Brother discontinued this printer.
Brother HL-L2370DW Review
This affordable model is a great choice for those looking for fast printing and awesome text quality, though we recommend other options if you want high-quality photos
Great for fast document printing, but other models offer a better balance of performance.
Credit: Abriah Wofford
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Our Verdict
The Brother HL-L2370DW stands out as a great document printer tailored to homes and small offices requiring fast, high-quality document printing. This model is strictly a black-and-white printer, and while it can print images and graphics in grayscale, it is not the most impressive image and photo printer. In addition to some astonishingly fast print speeds and excellent text quality, the HL-L2370DW adds low operating costs and is a relatively easy-to-use, network-ready printer right out of the box. All you need is a couple of minutes to unbox, install toner, and connect it to a network before you are processing huge print jobs in the blink of an eye. This printer could be a bit better overall, but if you are looking for a printer to handle big documents quickly, it's well worth your consideration.
Our Analysis and Test Results
Performance Comparison
Fast black and white documenting printing is where this model shines.
Credit: Abriah Wofford
Text Quality
We started our printer testing by evaluating text quality. These tests observe each printer's ability to produce high-quality text while maintaining a high level of text clarity and resolution. The Brother HL-L2370DW did a great job compared to most of its peers, though it wasn't the best of the best.
Under intense scrutiny, using a microscope, we did observe some jaggedness on large bold fonts. However, in general, you can expect consistent, high-quality text, no blemishing or smearing, and no bleed-through. Overall, blacks are truly black, not washed-out gray tones, and the text is consistently crisp.
This model produces exceptionally sharp text far away, but up close can be a little jagged around the edges (like the left side of the T above).
Credit: Lesley Robinson
Graphics and Photos
The Brother HL-L2370DW did not perform very well in our graphics and photos testing, where it struggled to produce high-quality photos and graphic prints.
In our test graphic print, we observed text with pixelated edges, and in photos we observed pixelation and significant streaking. As a black-and-white-only printer, color gradients are translated into grayscales, but this model seemed to have a limited grayscale range while also over-darkening certain areas.
As you can see from our test images, photos produced by this printer are highly pixelated and can be difficult to discern.
Operating Cost
The Brother HL-L2370DW offers a lot of prints before toner cartridge changes compared to many of the other home printers in our test lineup.
Toner consumption costs for this model worked out to 4 cents per standard black and white print, while the entire test group average was 8 cents at the time of this update, meaning you'll get about twice as much mileage as you could expect from most other printers.
Toner is easy to install, and will last a long time with low printing costs.
Credit: Matt Lighthart
Ease of Use
The Brother HL-L2370DW proved to be easy to use and only required our test team to unbox the printer, install toner, and connect the unit to a network. The process took our testers 4 minutes. This simplified printer has just seven buttons and a small, single-line LCD screen, but a larger and more robust interface would be a big improvement.
The user interface on this model leaves a lot to be desired.
Credit: Matt Lighthart
Printing Speed
The Brother HL-L2370DW is as fast as they come, offering some seriously impressive print speeds. This unit is a great option if you have to print lots of black-and-white text documents and don't like to waste time waiting on a slow print job.
In our mixed text and photo speed test, the Brother HL-L2370DW accomplished a 10-page mixed photo and text test print in a swift 39 seconds, and while it is not the best photo and graphics printer, it accomplished the high-resolution photo speed test, in a mind-boggling 4 seconds.
The Brother HL-L2370DW also blew away the competition in both simplex and duplex text print testing. Using our standard 10-page document test using duplex settings, this model completed the task in 36 seconds, for an average of 17 pages per minute. In our test using simplex settings, it finished the task in a swift 16 seconds, averaging 33 pages per minute. In a brief comparison, the average speed for the test group was more modest 10 pages per minute with duplex settings and 17 pages per minute with simplex settings.
This model is impressively fast, making other printers look like they are operating in slow motion. Here, we are timing a text-only document.
Credit: Abriah Wofford
Should You Buy the Brother HL-L2370DW?
The Brother HL-L2370DW excels as a rapid and high-quality document printer for homes and small offices with black-and-white text-document printing needs. It impresses with fast speeds, excellent text quality, and low operating costs, but is a poor choice for graphics and photo printing. It's a worthwhile consideration for efficiently managing large documents, but there's room for improvement, and you'll need to look elsewhere if printing in color or higher-quality grayscale.
What Other Printers Should You Consider?
While the Brother HL-L2370DW is a decent option for fast document printing, there are other printers we tested that strike a much better balance of well-rounded features and cost. The budget-friendly HP OfficeJet 8015e Wireless Color is one such option that offers photo printing capabilities in addition to good overall performance. For those prioritizing economic long-term efficiency, the Epson EcoTank ET-2800 proves to be an excellent choice with remarkably low operational costs. Of course, if your aim is to enhance the versatility of a home office with an all-in-one, then the HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M283fdw is worth considering, offering scanning, copying, and faxing functionalities in a relatively compact design.
If all you need is fast text document printing, the Brother HL-L2370DW could be a decent option.
Credit: Abriah Wofford
—
Lesley Robinson and Benjamin Hickok
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