9 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
Acceptable Low-Volume Workgroup Printer
Date of Review: Oct 12, 2005
The Bottom Line: Looks promising out of the box, but its shortcomings make it a poor choice for any but the smallest workgroups.
My company purchased two HP LaserJet 1300n printers, one for our Customer Service department and one for our Accounting department. Both of ours have the optional secondary paper cassettes.
As with most HP laser printers these days, setup is almost a no-brainer. The LaserJet 1300n's JetDirect, by default, will obtain a TCP/IP address from your network's DHCP server. A word to the wise: devices like printers should always be assigned a static IP address, so after a minute or two, follow the directions to print a test page to find out what the automatically-assigned address is. Then either reserve that address in your DHCP server so it never gets reassigned, or reserve a new address for the printer. (I did the latter so that all my reserved addresses fall into a specific range.) Finally, use the JetDirect interface to permanently assign the IP address to the printer.
These printers generally work well, although the design of the main (front-mounted) paper cassette could be better. It's too easy to overload the printer or knock the paper guides out of place, which causes misfeeds and printer errors. Print quality is fantastic, as with most newer laser printers. These use HP's newer-style cartridges, which have microchips in them that help the printer keep better track of how much toner is in the printer. A note to people who prefer to buy recycled or knock-off toner cartridges: Those microchips also identify the cartridge to the printer, so recycled and knock-off toner cartridges may not work!
Unfortunately, there are several things about the LaserJet 1300n that prevent me from recommending it:
1. Too many parts of it were made in China by factories that turn out low-quality products. Both of my printers needed repairs, one of them twice, within the first year of purchase. The optional second paper cassette is a trouble spot.
2. This printer has no LCD readout, and its control panel consists of a single button with two LEDs next to it. When a problem occurs, there is no obvious way to see if there's a paper jam, if you're out of toner or if something else has gone wrong. If you deploy this printer, you had better also deploy HP Web JetAdmin so that you can troubleshoot and control it.
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