HP 9000 Super Deluxe
Written: Nov 17 '01
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Pros: High speed, very reliable, seldom jams
Cons: high price tag
The Bottom Line: Once you get by the high price tag, this is one printer that is worth every penny. I would recommend this to every business that needs a high volume printer.
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| opinionated3's Full Review: Hewlett Packard LaserJet 9000 Laser Printer |
As many of the people who read my review know, I work for a computer service company and we service mainly printers. This is how I have acquired my knowledge of printers and in my reviews I try to pass on some of that knowledge along with specific details of the printer I am reviewing.
In this review I will focus my attention to the newest printer I have had the pleasure to use and it is the HP LaserJet 9000.
The printer
The HP LaserJet 9000 printer an amazing printer that has so much to offer, it can be a high volume data processing printer that is used for one single use or can be used by a large number of users in a busy department. The HP 9000 series laser printer was created to enhance the large business size printer line that HP already offers. Until now the HP 8100 series printers were the top of the line for the high volume printing needs.
Size
When I first saw the HP Laserjet 9000 I thought it was a new copier. It didn't look like the usual laser printer that I was used to. I found out by asking the people in the office, that the reason it looked so much like a copier is due to the optional features that were added to it to expand the functionality of the printer. A little later I will explain the different optional features available for this printer. This is a very large printer and requires a heavy duty stand or table to set it up on. There is an optional stand available from HP that is designed to handle the size and weight of this printer. Not only is it a large printer but it is also a very heavy printer. It weighs in at a hefty 148 lbs for the this model and the weight increases as you add the options to it. The optional features will increase it's dimensions considerably, the standard dimensions 35.9" W x 31.1" H x 28.4" D.
Speed
This is the best feature of the whole printer as far as I am concerned. The HP 9000series prints up to 50 pages per minute on plain 8 1/2" x 11" paper and had a wide range of optional features that made it a versatile printer for a wide range of office environments. Note that I said up to 50 pages per minute, it's speed depends on couple variables. One thing that will slow down the speed of the printer is if you are using the optional duplex feature, this allows you to print on both sides of the paper without having to reload the paper. This will reduce the over all speed of your print job. Another thing that will slow the print speed down is the size of the paper. With this printers ability to print on tabloid size paper (11"x17") this will slow down your printing speed. We really love the speed of this printer for our office. In our business we are constantly having to print out large 200-500 page technical manuals and on our old IBM Network 24 it seemed to take for ever. Now with our HP Laserjet 9000 it is twice as fast.
Print quality
The print quality rating of is measured in DPI or dots per inch, which means simply how many dots can be squeezed into the smallest space. The closer you put the dot to the next dot will decrease the jagged look to characters of print. It will make the letters you print so much more crisp. For anyone that remembers the first laser printers, they would look so jagged on the edge of characters. That made it almost impossible to be used for those important letters for most businesses. As laser printers evolved so did quality of print or resolution of the print. Manufacturers started squeezing those dots closer together and the print quality started to get a lot more crisp. Today, the laser printer has achieved the 1200x1200 dpi range and the print quality is truly awesome. Even though this printer cannot print color, you would be amazed at the quality of black and white graphics comes out of this printer.
Consumable
The HP Laserjet 9000 uses a material called toner to create the image on the paper. Unlike inkjet printers that use a liquid ink to create the image. The toner is a dry material and it is mixed with a material that has a magnetic properties. Using the magnetic properties the toner is transferred to the page and then it is carried through a unit that uses pressure and heat to fuse the toner to the page creating the final image. The toner is contained within a closed cartridge and this cartridge contains enough toner to create up to 30,000 images. Now that number is based on a single sided page with only 5% of the page covered by toner. So your actual page count will depend on a whole lot of variables. These toner cartridges just like inkjet cartridges are not cheap, the cartridges from HP are costing $240.00. You maybe able to find them cheaper on the web, but I would recommend you stay away from the refilled cartridges or non-HP cartridges. Just from experience, you may save money in the short term. In the long run you will not get the same result from a refill or non-HP cartridge.
Setup and Connectivity
Setting up the HP Laserjet 9000 printer is a snap, it comes with the parallel cable and the driver CD-ROM. If you have already installed printers onto a PC before than it will be just as easy for you. If not, there is a step by step installation procedure in the printer manual. The printer has a LCD display on the front for operator to easily setup all needed functions. It will also display error messages in the event there is a problem. This specific model of the 9000 series printer can be connected to either a stand alone PC or it can be connected to a network. The down side of this model is that it doesn't come with the ethernet card installed, you would either have to set it up as a shared printer on your network connected to a workstation (PC on the network) or connect it to a print server. Either way you are using the printers parallel port on the back of the printer and the supplied parallel cable. The alternative is to have an optional HP JetDirect ethernet card installed and this will allow you to connect directly to the network.
Duty Cycle
The last thing I would like to mention about this printer is something I mention in all my laser printer reviews. It has to do with the duty cycle, this is a term used by the manufacturers of all printers. It means simply how much a printer can print in a given month without cause undue wear on the mechanical parts inside the machine. The duty cycle of this printer is 300,000 pages per month. You might look at that number and say that is a lot of pages. Well, I am here to tell you for a medium to large business that prints 10's of thousands of invoices or insurance billing's that number can be reached pretty quick. Now like I said a little earlier, the reason for the duty cycle rating is because of mechanical parts can fail under stress. All laser printers use rubber rollers to pick up the paper out of the paper trays and use other rollers to move the paper through the printer. These rollers will eventually wear out and will need to be replaced. If you exceed the duty cycle you run the risk of wearing these rubber rollers out too fast and you end up with all kinds of paper jams and lost productivity. So a little helpful advice, do some research before you decide on a laser printer. Make sure you know in advance what kind of workload the printer will be asked to do and then match the printer to the workload.
Likes and Dislikes
I as I said earlier I just love the speed of this printer. It makes are large print jobs such a breeze and it is very versatile. We can print our large tech manual and I can print my poster size ads to my sales floor. With all it's optional features you are not likely to find a more versatile printer.
The downside of the printer to be the price tag, at a hefty $3000.00 starting price it is not for the faint at heart. But, it is well worth the money if you can fit it inside your companies budget.
Now for the dry part of the review, the technical specifications and optional features.
The HP Laserjet 9000
300 MHz Processor
50 pages per minute
1200 dpi print quality
Monochrome print (Black and White)
300,000 duty cycle
2 paper trays
1000 sheet input - Standard
3100 sheet capacity
Letter, Legal, tabloid and Envelope size paper
3x9 to 11x17 paper size
64 MB of memory
Max. memory is 384 MB
Parallel port (with supplied cable)
3 EIO slots for expansion
Light gray exterior
Optional features
500 sheet paper tray
100 sheet multipurpose tray
2000 sheet paper tray
3000 sheet stacker unit
Duplex unit (2-sided printing)
Upgrade memory modules (100 pin DIMM SDRAM), 16MB, 32MB, 64MB, 128MB
Jetdirect 600n/610n Ethernet card (EIO)
5.0 GB Hard Drive (EIO)
Fast infrared port
Models that make up the 9000 series
HP 9000 model:
Includes all the standard features listed above.
HP 9000n model:
Includes all the standard features listed above plus it includes an HP JetDirect card for Fast Ethernet 10/100 and a 100 sheet multipurpose tray.
HP 9000dn model:
Includes all the features of the HP 9000n plus an auto duplex unit for double sided printing.
HP 9000hns model:
Includes all the features of the HP 90000dn plus it includes a 5 GB hard disk and it includes the 2000 sheet paper tray and the 3000 sheet stacker unit.
In conclusion, I would recommend this printer to a company that has a need for high production printing.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 3400.00
Operating System: Windows and Macintosh
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