Digital Trends

Printer and peripheral device maker Brother has introduced a new WiFi-equipped monochrome laser printer. The surprise is a street price under $150.

Printer and peripheral maker Brother is no strange to kicking out affordable printing products and other peripherals for home and small business use, but every once in a while they offer a new product that brings home how once-expensive technology can suddenly become affordable. The company has announced its new HL-2170W WiFi-equipped monochrome laser printer—which in itself wouldn't be too noteworthy, except for the fact the device carries a suggested retail price of $149.99.

"The demand for affordable personal laser printing for the home and home office remains strong," said Brother senior product manager for laser printers Linda Sanford, in a statement. "By continuing to offer printers with popular features including small footprints, fast print speeds, and built-in networking capabilities, our products are ideally positioned to satisfy those customers' demands."

The 2170W offers print speeds of up to 23 pages per minute, and resolutions up to 2,400 by 600 dpi using Brother's HQ1200 technology. The included paper tray handles 250 sheets, and a manual feed slot enables users to easily print on envelopes, letterhead, and thicker stock. The 2170W can connect to a local network using either 802.11g Wi-Fi networking or 100Base-T Ethernet; the printer also offers USB connectivity for direct connection to a computer. The printer sports 32 MB of built-in memory, PCL6 emulation, features 49 built-in scalable fonts, and supports WIndows, Mac OS X, and Linux.