A low-cost laser printer with excellent quality and features
Pros:
cheap, excellent text print, small size, fast
Cons:
memory not expandable(minor)
The Bottom Line:
If you need a laser printer at very low cost. The HP 1020 is the best bang for the buck.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
Inkjet printers are dirt cheap nowadays, so why I threw away my inkjet Canon Pixma IP 1600 (which is only $20 brand new from ebay) to buy this $129 HP 1020 laserjet? Because in the long run it costs me much less with much less hassle, as you read below:
- Why I avoid inkjet printers: an inkjet printer requires you to print occasionally even if you don't need to print, otherwise the head dries up, causing printing problems or making the printer dead (and believe me it's easy to forget this, especially when you're on vacation). It's expensive to replace the ink cartridges. To make the matter worse, some printers require replacing the color cartridge even if you only need to print in black. This means you have to replace cartridges constantly since the black and color cartridges take turn to run out, driving you crazy. With laser printers you don't have to deal with all these hassles.
- Ink cost:
This is the most important thing to look at when you buy a printer. According to the manufacturer a cartridge (HP Laser Toner Q2612A) can print 2000 sheets and it cost $70 apiece. So it's 3.5 cents a sheet, an average cost, compared to 8 to 10 cents a page if using inkjet. However if you buy it from ebay it costs only $35 for a cartridge, so the cost per page is 1.75 cents (I never had any problem buying ink from ebay for the past 5 years, the quality is the same or even if different, it's not noticeable). An advantage of using laser toner is that when the toner runs out you can still print, the quality suffers but you still have the page. In inkjet when the ink runs out the printer stops cold.
- Printing:
Quality: Printing quality is excellent, much better than inkjets. I tried to print using different fonts with different sizes. Small characters like Times New Roman size 8 are well readable (most fonts have 8 as smallest size). I also tried size 8 in Booklet printing (which makes the characters become half in size), the result is still good. Printing photos on regular paper is surprisingly good, although the photos are probably useful for documentation only.
Speed: very good. According to the specs it can print 15 pages per minute, a fast speed to most personal needs and of course much faster than inkjets.
Noise: I have no chance to compare with other laser printers but compared with inkjets they are much less noisy.
- Features:
Trays: the output tray capacity is 100 sheets, enough for general use. The only thing you would concern is that it limits booklet printing to 400 pages if you need to print a book. There are 2 input trays, the lower one can accommodate up to 150 sheets. This tray is sizable; the 2 sliders allow you to adjust paper sizes from 5.8 x 8.27 to 8.5x14. The upper tray is for single sheet input, allowing sizes from 3x5 to 8.5x11.
Duplex printing: some reviews say the printer cannot print duplex (both sides of a sheet) but this is not entirely true. It's true that the printer cannot flip the sheets automatically for you like a professional printer but you can still print duplex by flipping the sheet manually. I also tried Booklet Printing to print a Microsoft Word document(this feature is used to print a book, each sheet is printed 2 sides, each side has 2 pages. You then cut the 8.5 x 11 in half to two 8.5 x 5.5 sheets and bind them as a book) . The result was excellent; the sheets were printed one side, then on the other side when I manually flipped them.
Media: when I bought this printer I though I could print only on regular paper but later on I learned that I could also use photo paper to print black-and-white photos. So this is like a bonus to me.
Memory: the printer comes with 2M of memory which is average. However a minor drawback is that it doesn't allow you to expand the memory if you want to. I say 'minor' because memory expansion will be a big deal if you print lots of pictures or graphics, which is not the case here (unlike inkjet printers, laser printers need to have enough memory to hold the entire picture before printing).
- Size:
I like the size of the HP 1020. It's small (HWD= 8.2 x 14.6 x 9.5 in), light (only 11 lbs). All tray extenders can be folded, making the printer compact and look neat. Most other lasers printer look bulky, more for office use than for personal use.
- Installation:
Is a breeze on Windows XP, as long as you follow strict instructions. One warning: don't turn on the printer first, as I did, which caused me trouble later. You need to put in the CD first, the installation program will be automatically started, and follow the instructions. You only turn on the printer and connect the cord when told by the instruction program.
- Cost: after all what sense does it make if an item is excellent in all aspects but costs you an arm and a leg? Fortunately this HP 1020 cost me only $129 at Fry's, a very affordable price for a laserjet. A minor complaint is that the printer cable is not included, so I had to shell out another $10, making the cost of the printer $139. However other printers do not include cables either, so I would not blame only HP.
Conclusion: I cannot find any major flaw with this printer. I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone provided that:
- You don't need to print color documents
- You don't need to print photos
- You need a printer for personal use or light office use, not for heavy office use
