Cons: None so far, has exceeded my expectations, especially regarding 'noise pollution,' my current hot button!
The Bottom Line: Buy it, try it, Costco.com plies it! Certified bargain at $129, if $50 coupon deal's still running (was as of July '04). I'd even buy it at $179 regular price!
tomminator's Full Review: Hewlett Packard LaserJet 1012 Printer
What I instantly grooved on:
1: No fan... so absolutely noiseless when in standby. Not at all objectionable when actually printing...instantly noiseless again when printing complete.
2: Draws only 2 (two!) watts in standby.
3: Fast, first page out in 8 seconds.
4: Gorgeous quality for a monochrome laser... no streaking or banding. I'm pretty into Photoshop and just for kicks tried a few pictures... and was pleasantly surprised! But don't expect it to compete with even the cheapest dedicated inkjet photo printer for B&W photo reproduction.
5: Small, fairly lightweight, with relatively tiny footprint (actually sits on top of my Dell microtower computer) and relatively elegant color scheme compared to the usual off-white box.
6: Never needs a $100+ drum replacement! It's print cartridge contains both toner and drum elements in one unit!
7: Easy setup: Plug it in after loading the software... and off you go!
8: Relatively inexpensive (for me, $129 at Costco after $50 instant coupon)
What was less than 'printacular':
1: $67 dollar cartridge covers 'only' about 2000 pages worth of printing...on the other hand... you never have to replace one of those notoriously expensive drums (which, parenthetically, I did on my previous laser, a Brother monochrome, to the tune of $140, only to have the same banding/streaking problems that prompted the original replacement!...Oh! Brother!) To keep this in perspective, however, I calculated that even with the fairly pricy print cartridge, it still pumps out pages at aprox. 1/3 the cost of my HP 'office caliber' inkjet.
2: As there's no fan, it can get a bit warm if you print say 50 copies in a row, but people buying this printer aren't (or shouldn't be!) expecting an office-capable, network ready, auto-duplexing, multi-trayed 95lb. stand-alone behemoth with a 2500 sheet capacity and 50,000 page per month duty cycle!
3: Issue of paper curling has been raised, esp. following long uninterrupted print runs... I personally have not seen this, but I do use a slightly higher paper grade/weight than the cheapest possible product (24lb paper from Costco)which may help matters. I have printed up to 17 pages in a row under these conditions with absolutely no trouble.(Moral: If you buy 500 sheets of ultra cheep paper, you may just get reamed!)
4: 150 sheet tray limitation. For me, not a big deal...I share this printer on my three computer home network, and we just don't print enough big jobs that it's even an issue...we fill it up every 2 weeks or so.
5: The '1200 dpi equivalent' print mode option doesn't seem to make all that much difference in text print quality (although, when printing photos, for which I admit, you undoubtedly did not consider purchasing this unit, they did tend come out appreciably better), and this mode does slow things down a bit.
6: No USB cable... everyone complains about this, but lets get real, hardly any printers include one these days... most of us have an extra lying around... if not, Costco (no, I don't work for them!) sells multi packs for less than the price that, say Office Depot or Circuit City, charges for just one!
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