Remember in your exams when you were told to write on both sides of the paper? In printing terms that's called duplexing and not only helps cut costs (by halving the amount of paper needed) but also helps preserve the planet. Moreover, it's increasingly available on affordable desktop lasers, including those in the new HL-5100 family from Brother.

There are several models in the new Brother family and the cheapest, the HL-5130 at £139 plus VAT, doesn't have duplexing as an option. However, for just £50 more the HL-5150D does and, what's more, it's also got a faster engine - 20 pages per minute compared to 17 on the HL-5130 - and double the 8MB of memory of the entry-level product.

Another plus is that whereas the HL-5130 is a personal GDI printer and not easily networked, others in the range offer both PCL and PostScript emulation and can be shared with Apple Mac and Linux as well as Windows systems. There's even a network-ready model, the HL-5170D which, at £289 plus VAT, comes with a built-in Ethernet print server and remote management facilities for use on a small business network.

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Regardless of the model, installation is a doddle. Just unpack the printer, fit the combined toner/drum cartridge and plug it in. USB 2.0 and parallel ports come as standard, along with a 10/100Mbps Ethernet interface on the network-ready HL-5170D. The Windows drivers, provided on a CD-ROM, are self-installing too, with automatic printer discovery and sharing another bonus on the network product.

Remarkably compact for a duplex-enabled device, there's also a 250-sheet A4 paper drawer in the base of each HL-5100 plus a fold-out multi-purpose tray at the front for card, transparencies, labels and envelopes. Printed pages are ejected face-down into a well on the top and, on the HL-5170D, an optional second 250-sheet paper drawer can be fitted, boosting capacity to 500 sheets plus 50 in the multi-purpose tray. The standard toner cartridge is good for around 3,500 pages, with a 6,700 page high-yield cartridge also available.

Duplexing is turned off by default, but is easy to set from the printer properties, with several choices available. What you choose will depend on how the document is to be bound with, for example, the ability to flip pages on the left or right side or top or bottom edge. Multi-up and booklet printing facilities are also available and it all works smoothly. Indeed, all you see is each page being partially ejected then sucked back in to complete the second side before finally appearing in the output tray as normal.

On the downside, print performance is reduced, with output dropping to 9 sides (4.5 pages) per minute when duplexing. But that's a small price to pay and you do get a fast first page time of just under 10 seconds, whether duplexing or not. Print quality is excellent too, with a maximum resolution of 600 x 600 dpi, tweaked to a 'perceived' 2400 x 600, and no visible smudging on duplexed documents.

Network users will also appreciate the multi-protocol support on the HL-5170D, enabling the printer to be used in mixed platform environments. Plus there's a built-in Web interface for easy remote setup and additional Windows software (BRAdmin) to allow multiple networked printers to be managed together from a central console.

A one year on-site warranty is included with all the Brother printers, completing an impressive offering that brings not just duplexing but fast, high-speed, laser printing within reach of much smaller budgets. Of course, others are doing the same, but the Brother package is hard to match and, at these prices, there's never been a better time to start printing on both sides of the paper.

This is a neat and compact family of affordable laser printers that makes double-sided (duplex) printing an easy and affordable option for both small business and home users. Windows, Apple Mac and Linux support, a fast warm-up, 600dpi print quality and extensive optional networking features further enhance the product line-up.