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33 of 34 found the following review helpful:
 Mangles envelopesDec 31, 2006
By arkman
Just unpacked and set up the printer. Initial results on 8 1/2 x 11 sheets are great. Excellent quality, good speed, setup went without a hitch.
Unfortunately, no matter what I do it mangles #10 envelopes fed through the manual feeder. I believe I've tried all the pertinent thickness settings in the driver, including envelopes, envelope thin, envelope thick, etc. Every envelope comes out badly wrinkled. The envelopes are ordinary Staples #10s, which I've used without much trouble in a Laserjet5 for years (the heat in that printer does glue the flap a bit, but just lightly. I'm debating returning the Brother HL-5240. The online FAQs from Brother seem completely useless, as they mostly repeat the manual's instructions for inserting the envelopes.
Anyone have ideas on getting around this? Are there special envelopes that will work?
If you don't need envelopes, I'd give this **** or maybe even ***** based on just a few hours use. For envelopes, it doesn't even rate one star, and that makes me nervous about the overall quality.
**UPDATE***: I've managed to get at least some envelopes to print cleanly. Thanks to the comments posted by John Bissel on the HL-5250, as those led me in the right direction. Anyway, what's worked for me is:
* Office Depot sells some #10 envelopes under their own brand name that are specifically listed as working with laser and inkjet printers.
I found those wrinkle a lot less than the many other #10s I tried.
* Use the com-10 size and envelope-thin media.
* Here's the tricky part. Those two fixes get you close, but there's still a bit of a wrinkle on the trailing edge. Thanks to Mr. Bissel, I found the secret pressure release flippers in the back of the printer. Yes they are documented. No, they are not mentioned under envelopes, or in the general guides to the printers features. No they're not in the printed documentation. You have to go into the PDF user guide that gets installed along with the printer (use the Windows Start/Programs to find it). Then you have to look in the troubleshooting section under crinkled pages or some such. Then you find the flippers. It warns you to fip them up only for envelopes, then down, which would be a huge hassel. Like Mr. Bissel, I've had fine luck leaving them up all the time. Perhaps my output on regular pages is a tad less dark.
So, now I'm happy. Printer is great. I should say that I sent a query to Brother's email-based support service. They promise response in 1 business day. It's been 4 days, and so far I've heard nothing.
30 of 32 found the following review helpful:
 Excellent Personal Laser for Business or HomeJan 21, 2006
By B. Hatch
"brian11944"
We have these on all of our executives desks at work, so the can print documents confidentially. They look nice, have a small footprint, are very quiet, and are trouble free. We have far fewer support incidents or erros on these as we do with other laser printers. With their price and performance, we couldn't recommend these highly enough.
46 of 52 found the following review helpful:
First Impressio: easy to use and very fast.Jan 02, 2006
By William Lester
I bought the Brother HL-5240 Laser Printer the last week of December,
2005. This is my first laser printer, and I wanted something to replace an
inkjet printer which became erratic after 25,000 cyles. I'm what I call serious
retired, I'm not going to use the printer in business but I do a lot of printing
pursuing my hobbies of genealogy, bridge, and photography. I wanted a
productive black and white printer mostly for text or line type art work, I do
my photo printing on an Epson R1800.
My first impression was that setup was a breeze. I am running Windows
XP Professional in a Hewlett Packard Workstation xw4100 computer. The
quick setup sheet led me through what to do, and everything loaded off the single
CD furnished with the unit. I understand that if I had Windows XP 64x version,
it would have been necessary to go to Brother's website for the printer driver.
I loaded up some paper, and ran a few prints of things I had in my hard
drive. Yes, it really DOES print 30 pages a minute, of printed text, by the stopwatch!
However, there is a ten second delay after sending a print command before the
first copy begins.
With regard to paper. I had LOTS of inkjet paper on hand, and I ran a
couple hundred sheets of Hammermill 24 lb inkjet through the Brother before
I discovered, buried in the Manual, a caution NOT to use inkjet paper! So I got
some house brand 24 lb printing paper from the local office supply.
I thought a good test would be to print out the manual for the unit, since it's
on the CD but there's no paper copy included in the box. Besides, I needed a
copy of the manual, and having it on the computer was inconvenient. So I
offer here a set of instructions for BROTHER HL-5240 owners who would
like to give their new unit a bit of a test, and get a manual besides: The Manual
for the unit runs 137 pages. My instructions will print it out in booklet mode on
35 sheets of paper, using both sides. It will take approximately six minutes.
I assume that you have the printer up and running, that you have loaded
the bottom tray with paper, and that you have located the Manual Print (upper)
tray, it folds down from the front and some flaps extend; it is light gray plastic.
Click on the HL-5240 Program from the program list on your desktop.
Click on USERS GUIDE IN PDF FORMAT. I assume you have Adobe Acrobat
and can read the user's guide. Click on your part of the World Map (USA Canada
for me). This will bring up the Manual for the HL-5240. Click on FILE. On FILE,
Click on PRINT; click on PROPERTIES. At Duplex/Booklet, select BOOKLET.
Click on ADVANCED; click on the A/B panel. Next click on BINDING OFFSET
and enter the figures 0.4 inches for the binding offset. Next, OKAY each window
in turn.
Now, I have just given you the instructions to the printer to print a booklet
with the left edge left unprinted for margin so you can punch and bind the result.
Give the print command for using lower tray paper.
The printer will begin printing after a minute or so, and should complete
printing one side. This will require about 90 seconds. Draw a light pencil arrow
on a corner of the pile of printout before removing it, pointing toward the printer.
Take the pile of printout, jog it so it is nice and even, and put it blank side
up in the upper tray with the pencil arrow pointing toward the printer. Click on MP
tray on the computer and the printer should complete its run in another 90 seconds.
24 of 27 found the following review helpful:
 Common Defect in this Printer - AVOID!Dec 15, 2006
By Joshua M. Bromley
I purchased this printer for it's fast printing speed and long life in toner and drum, but it's really been a let down. The printer has this habit of creasing and wrinkling the paper on the first 2 pages of every print out. So now I have to send 3 copies of everything I want to the printer, wasting paper and ink. I've tried different kinds of paper, and every troubleshooting option offered to me by the fine folks at Brother, but it continues to do this. I've looked around the Internet, and found this is a common defect in the 5240 and 5250 models. It's really an inconvenience, and now I have to purchase a new printer because it's such a pain. If you love to be frustrated and angered over print quality and paper use, this is the printer for you. Otherwise, avoid at all costs.
11 of 11 found the following review helpful:
 Great printer/interesting printer driver...Mar 23, 2006
By Judith M. Semon
"NightHawk59"
I replaced an ancient HP printer and this puppy certainly pumps the pages out! The printer driver has some interesting multi-page options (shrinking pages to fit on a single page and also expanding pages to fit on multiple pages). That said, I'm not too sure of the usefulness of such options. Very happy with this printer!
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