Colour inkjets are so plentiful and cheap that they've been my last 2 printers. But I was always irked by the slow black-and-white output. Still, getting good photo printouts was the main thing, and I didn't do much text printing.

But I ran across reviews of the HL-1240 and HL-1440. Cheap to buy, cheap to run, and only a few seconds per page... if I had one, maybe I'd find other reasons to print things, instead of always squinting at a screen.

I shelled out the few extra bucks for the 1440. After all, if the objective is to save time waiting for pages to come out, why not go as fast as practical?

It doesn't disappoint, on speed or quality.

Once it starts, pages come out one after the other at a constant rate. Seems like less than 4 secs / page. Startup time is also shorter than I expected based on the specs. The only time there's a noticeable lag is when the printer is in power-saving mode after being idle a long time. In this mode, it seems to draw almost no power (not even any indicator light that I can see), so I leave it on all the time and any startup lag is offset because I don't have to hunt around for the switch.

Print quality is top-notch. I've made B&W prints of some of my digital photos, almost as impressive as the colour ones. And a B&W contact sheet (many small thumbnails on a page) is fine for reviewing and selecting photos.

The printer driver has a friendly duplex mode, with clear instructions on how to re-feed the paper.

My only nit is that when I leave it on a soft or low surface (e.g. on a carpeted floor), the paper tray is right at the bottom and might require tilting the printer to slide it out.

As I hoped, having this printer has prompted me to print out things like Palm to-do lists, and spend less time wedded to the screen. It also lets me work at home with no anxiety if I unexpectedly need to print out a big document.


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 250
Operating System: Windows