Brother MFC-L2900DW - Best Monochrome All-in-One for Home Office
A versatile and cost-effective monochrome all-in-one laser printer that adds essential scanning, copying, and faxing to a proven, reliable printing foundation.
- +Adds a flatbed scanner and a single-pass duplexing automatic document feeder to a reliable print engine
- +Easy-to-use color touchscreen simplifies setup and operation compared to basic models
- +Maintains the same low 3.1-cent-per-page operating cost as the HL-L2460DW
- -Lacks color printing capability, limiting its use for graphics or presentations
- -Scan quality from the ADF can exhibit slight paper skew
- -Print quality degrades when using the Brother mobile app instead of native OS drivers
The Brother MFC-L2900DW is essentially the highly regarded HL-L2460DW printer enhanced with a full suite of multifunction capabilities, making it the ideal choice for a home office. It retains all the strengths of its print-only sibling, including fast print speeds, low operating costs, and reliable wireless performance, while adding a flatbed scanner and a 50-sheet automatic document feeder. The ADF is a significant upgrade, featuring single-pass duplex scanning, which allows both sides of a page to be scanned simultaneously—a rarity in this price range and essential for processing multi-page documents efficiently. The inclusion of a color touchscreen interface vastly improves usability for tasks like entering fax numbers or navigating settings compared to the basic button panels on cheaper models.
Print and scan quality are more than adequate for typical business documents, contracts, and forms. However, it remains a monochrome device, so any need for color printing must be addressed elsewhere. Some users note that scans from the ADF can be slightly skewed, and initiating prints from Brother's mobile app can result in lower output quality. For home offices, freelancers, or students who need to regularly digitize documents, make copies, or send faxes in addition to printing, the Brother MFC-L2900DW offers outstanding utility and value without a significant increase in ongoing costs.