Printer Reviews: Brother HL-L8360CDW An Economical Small Office Colour Laser Printer

Aimed largely at small offices with relatively heavy printing requirements, the Brother HL-L8360CDW is a colour laser printer that has been widely praised by reviewers.

Given that the Brother HL-L8360CDW is meant for businesses that do a lot of printing, the 250-sheet capacity of the standard tray might not be adequate. If that's the case, you can install up to three 250-sheet lower trays (for a total capacity of 1000 sheets), or a 500-sheet tray plus one more of each size (totalling either 1000 or 1250 sheets). Another option is the tower tray that combines four 520-sheet trays (for a total of 2330 sheets) and a stabilising base.

If you need to print on heavier stock, note that the limit is 105gsm for the standard and optional paper trays, but you can go up to 163gsm by using the multi-purpose tray. That's really thick paper rather than thin card, but it will do the job for flyers and brochures. The multi-purpose tray also accepts envelopes.

Common paper sizes – A4, A5 and A6, plus their North American equivalents – can be used in the standard and optional trays, while the multi-purpose tray accepts sizes from 76 x 216mm to 127 x 356mm.

Toner Cartridges for Brother HL-L8360CDW Printers

Just as you would rather not have to replenish the paper in your printer every few days, it's better if you don't have to change toner cartridges very often. This printer uses Brother TN-441, TN-443, TN-446 Toner Cartridges. The standard yield cartridges (as supplied with the printer) are rated for up to 1800 pages (cyan, yellow, magenta) and 3000 pages for black). Brother printer toner cartridges for the HL-L8360CDW also come in high yield versions offering up to 4000 and 4500 pages respectively, as well as super high yield toner cartridges with a nominal life of 6500 pages for all four.

Another benefit is that the higher the capacity of the toner cartridge, the lower the cost per page. You can save even more by purchasing cartridges of any size in sets of four or eight (two of each colour). When you need a Brother toner cartridge for the HL-8360CDW,  remember that Ink Depot offers free shipping on genuine Brother toner cartridges, plus loyalty points that save you money on future orders.

If you are looking to save even more money, Ink Depot has a range of compatibletoner cartridges at about half the price of the genuine equivalent, and you get double loyalty points. Buy two or more compatible cartridges at the same time to qualify for free delivery.

Features

As indicated by the "DW" part of the suffix, the Brother HL-L8360CDW features duplex printing and a Wi-Fi interface. Duplex printing is a great way to save paper as well as giving a more professional look and cutting down the space required when you need to carry printed materials in your bag.

Connectivity

The Wi-Fi interface is 802.11b/g/n (ie, not the newer and faster 802.11ac or 802.11ax, which have now been renamed Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 respectively). If data transmission speed was a particular problem for you (eg, due to the complexity of the documents you print), it might be worth trying the Ethernet interface instead, as that goes up to Gigabit Ethernet.

Support for Wi-Fi Direct means mobile devices can communicate wirelessly with the HL-L8360CDW without having to go through a router or access point. This is particularly convenient for allowing printing from devices that are not allowed to join the main network, but it can only be used in conjunction with the Ethernet interface – you can't use Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct at the same time.

The main mobile printing services supported by this Brother laser printer are AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Mobile Printing for Windows, and Mopria, plus the Brother iPrint&Scan app for Android, iOS, macOS and Windows.

A handy feature of iPrint&Scan on Android is that it takes advantage of NFC to print photos, PDFs and certain other types of data simply by touching the device to the NFC symbol on the printer.

The Brother Web Connect feature allows JPEG, PDF and Office files to be downloaded and printed without going through a computer or other device. Supported services include Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, and OneDrive.

WHAT THE REVIEWERS SAY

Pros

"Excellent." PC Magazine

"Best color laser printer." Digital Trends

"The first printer we'd choose for a small office that prints a lot (1000+ pages a month)." TechGearLab

"An excellent all-round printer for the office." TechRadar

"Top choice for a moderate-to-heavy volume color laser printer for a micro or small office or workgroup." PC Magazine

"One of the most hassle-free printers we tested." TechGearLab

"Fast print speeds" TechRadar

"It churns through massive print jobs with ease." Digital Trends

"An economical choice in the long run." TechRadar

"Competitively low running costs." PC Magazine

"Very economical in its use of toner" TechGearLab

"For all intents and purposes the text was perfect." TechGearLab

"NFC [support] ... allows you to print by touching your smartphone or tablet to a hotspot on the printer." PC Magazine

"Comes with a 2.7-inch color touch screen display that, among other things, allows easy connectivity to most popular cloud sites." PC Magazine

Cons

"Big and heavy." TechRadar

"No lightweight." Digital Trends

"Only a good value for those that print a lot." TechGearLab

"[A] tendency to make everything look a bit darker than it does on the computer screen." TechGearLab

"Slightly below average photo quality." PC Magazine