For some years the three giants in the printer arena have been Epson, Canon and Hewlett Packard (with a certain amount of competition from Xerox and Lexmark) but more recently Brother has launched a concerted attempt to challenge the big boys across the range in both dedicated printers and all-in-one machines.

Its latest 4000 series of laser printers is aimed squarely at the small to medium sized business market, which prizes fast delivery across networked systems. The HL-4050CDN's big sister, the HL-4070CDW, has the unique feature of being the only wireless network colour laser printer on the market, but if you don't want to pay the extra for the wireless capability, then the HL-4050CDN has everything you need for a busy office environment.

This is a very solid piece of equipment; weighing approximately 29kg you're going to need a colleague to help carry it into place if you don't want to risk back problems. Once in place, getting it prepared from the box is comparatively straightforward. The front cover drops down to reveal the drum unit, which is pulled forward and the four toner cartridges (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) are slotted into place. Once paper is fed into the paper tray, the software is installed and the connection with the PC is complete, you're ready to go.

The installed printer driver is tailored towards your connection, which can be via USB, parallel interface cable (and we don't see many of those these days!) or network interface cable. Once up and running (the printer is also Mac-friendly), your print options are handled through the LCD display on the adjustable control panel on the top and the pleasingly large control buttons below it.

This printer is ideal for presentations, booklets or reports, as double-sided output comes as standard. Using a 300MHz processor with 64MB memory (expandable to 576MB) and up to 2,400 x 600dpi print resolution, you can churn out up to 250 pages or double that if you purchase an additional optional tray. There's also an extra multi-purpose tray at the front that can be manually fed up to 50 sheets.

In terms of speed, you're looking at up to 20ppm for both monochrome and colour pages which, together with the duplex capability, is undoubtedly why you might be paying a bit more than comparable models from Brother's rivals. Not only is it PictBridge enabled but you can also print directly from a USB flash drive, thus dispensing with the need for a PC entirely; very useful when you're rushing to get that presentation to the boss ahead of deadline.

A fast, solid workhouse of a printer with USB flash drive, network capabilities and duplex as standard, thus being ideal for multi-page and multi-faceted presentations and documents.