The Brother HL-4070CDW handles all those chores with aplomb; and the inclusion of wireless is a major bonus, allowing the unit to be placed virtually anywhere in a home or small-business setting.

PLUS

• Connects by Wi-Fi, Ethernet, USB and parallel
• Quiet, compact, easy to load
• Excellent print quality single- or double-sided

MINUS

• Small single-line text display
• Inkjets still have the edge for photos

Brother's HL-4070CDW is the flagship single-function colour laser in the company's latest generation of printers. It's a compact, almost cube-shaped package, pleasantly styled in dark gray and light beige. Under the hood, it's got a razor-sharp 2,400x600-dpi print engine, with double-sided capability.

The HL-4070CDW is designed with convenience in mind. You can back it against a wall or put it under a shelf: everything loads through the front, and paper emerges right on top. No protrusions to get cracked. To load toner, drop the door on the front and pull out a long rack; the four cartridges drop into colour-coded slots. Shove the rack back in and you're ready to go.

Minimalist design goes a bit too far, though, with the tiny single-line text display. It's adequate for day-to-day operation, but during setup I had to enter my 26-digit WEP network password several times, using just up-down-left-right buttons and a lot of disgraceful language.

In fairness, you can also configure the Brother remotely over a wired connection, but I wanted to keep the process totally wireless. (Also, I was a wee bit spoiled by the huge LCD panel on the HP C8180.)

I had one other odd problem: whenever the printer went into sleep mode, my Windows XP computer would lose sight of it completely. An expert from Brother quickly pointed me to the solution, which was simply to re-install the driver software. After that, everything worked brilliantly.

Although I used only the Wi-Fi, the HL-4070CDW is unusually well endowed with connections, including USB, wired Ethernet and even an all-but-obsolete parallel port.

Print quality was excellent, though not dramatically superior to previous colour lasers. However, the software does allow more control than most, with extra toggles to give bolder blacks or more vivid colour.

For presentation-quality photos, inkjet remains the way to go. But even on plain paper, the HL-4070CDW acquitted itself very respectably. Image detail was good and colours were subtle and lifelike, with none of that old photocopier harshness. Documents with colour text and simple graphics look terrific.

The HL-4070CDW was remarkably quiet, producing only a subdued whooshing sound while actually printing. It can be set to go into sleep mode almost immediately, but is able to quickly power up and start spitting out pages.

For me, a colour laser has become a necessity. Lasers are excellent for printing the odd page of text, capturing a Web page, or making a permanent record of an online purchase. It's also great to have around the odd time you need a hundred newsletters for the local club, or a report for work the next day.

The Brother HL-4070CDW handles all those chores with aplomb; and the inclusion of wireless is a major bonus, allowing the unit to be placed virtually anywhere in a home or small-business setting.