I recently purchased a Brother 2135W compact laser printer. This article is a summary of my experiences so far and hopefully this might help someone else make a buying decision.

Due to my increasing eBay activity I was starting to print lots of postage labels, packing slips and proof of postage certificates. This was not ideal for my trusty Canon inkjet as it was slow to start-up and potentially expensive for such a high volume of black and white printing.

I decided to buy a printer that offered :

- cheap black and white printing.
- wireless so it could be placed anywhere and be used by multiple devices.
- compact enough to fit the limited space I had available.
- quick start-up time.

There didn't seem to be much choice in compact laser printers with models from HP, Brother and Samsung being the most widely available. I ruled out Samsung as reviews I read suggested they didn't offer much saving compared to a standard inkjet. The Brother range caught my eye as they offered the features I wanted with cheaper toner cartridges than HP.

The Brother 2135W offered everything I wanted with the exception of automatic duplex printing. I decided that given most of my printing was always going to be single sided this was something I could live without. The extra feature that is a nice bonus is that the toner cartridge and drum are separate items. This keeps the cartridge price lower with the option of replacing the drum at a later stage.

The 2135W has an internal paper tray which holds 250 sheets. I much preferred this configuration to that offered by some rival models where the paper is held in a flip-out tray. This gets in the way and allows the paper to gather dust.

So far the printer has met my expectations. When I start a batch of printing it starts up quickly and pages are done before I've navigated to my next eBay item. It fits perfectly in the space I had available and I didn't have any issues setting up wireless using the provided instructions.

The only issue I have had is manually feeding labels and card into the manual slot in the front. If the paper isn't perfectly aligned as it pulls the paper in the resulting printing can be crooked. Paper feeding from the main tray is perfect.

The printer is quite noisy when it starts printing but this is what I expect from a laser. Once it finishes printing the noise level drops and after a few minutes it enters standby mode which is silent. It general the noise level isn't much different to my inkjet it is just a different type of sound.

At the time of writing the 2135W was £69.99 and original replacement toner cartridges were £30. Based on quoted capacities this would give 1000 average pages at 3p per page. So far I estimate that I have printed 200 pages using the cartridge that came with the printer. I've got a spare cartridge ready to go when I need to replace it.

Non-original toner cartridges are available for half the price but I'm not sure if I will ever use those or stick to the original Brother replacements.

In conclusion I'm happy with my purchase and feel the Brother 2135W is good value for money if you can live without automatic duplex printing.