With some printers, the drawer won’t work, but the bypass tray will as less rollers to navigate. Worth checking into. That was true on at least one HP I bought for the company in 2012 or so. They only had occasional need and not constant need.
Good point, HP has a nasty habit of default loading a lot of extra crap and then working less than well. You have to not use the auto-install and look for the universal HP print drivers.
With the Xerox most of the controls are via a web link to the IP address instead. This is far better.
I think the Windows spooler is partially to blame too. They’re like the two brothers that haven’t spoken to each other for 30 years and they don’t even remember why except they’re sure it’s the other brother’s fault.
If 43lb stock works for you, look at the Brother products. Otherwise there are few printers that can handle 110lb stock and I think some are inkjet printers (because they don’t curl the paper over the rollers but instead keep it flat).
It’s sad to hear the negative comments about HP, because years ago their LaserJet printers were generally regarded as excellent. I have a low-end model that’s at least 20 years old and has never given me a problem, but I have no experience with new models and readily acknowledge that they may longer be any good. As a company, HP has gone through a lot of turmoil over the years.
But certainly no complaints about my ancient one. I don’t do a lot of printing and in all that time have only replaced the toner cartridge once, and only because the one it came with was only partially filled, which I believe is standard practice. It was a genuine HP cartridge (probably the only kind available) and wasn’t cheap – well over $100 I think – but as it has lasted more than 10 years, well, an averaged cost of less than $10 a year isn’t going to break the bank! So if you don’t do a lot of printing the cost of a toner cartridge shouldn’t be a big concern compared to overall quality and reliability.
I stress that I’m not trying to recommend HP. I suppose if there’s any moral here it’s that things change, and folks should evaluate stuff based on recent information.
I’ll add to the many +1’s in favor of Brother. One thing I like about them, that I mentioned in another thread, that if you want a wired connection, you can still get one. I know wireless printers are nice and all, but IMHO it’s the one thing that will most often fail about the damn things. Oh, not unrecoverably, but wanting to print something and finding out you have to reset the wifi connection is a pain sometimes compared to plug-n-play.
I sympathize, I have an old B&W laser printer of theirs of nearly that vintage, and it still runs, although it’s long since been replaced. But two years ago, the printer for my wife’s department (while she was finishing her PhD) dyed, and they couldn’t get a modern printer to deal with their vintage Windows boxes. So we lent out the old HP until she left, and it just -worked- the whole time.
But when I’ve looked into HPs of the modern era for family, they were all about e-toners that locked you into refill contracts that killed paid-for toner if you dropped the contract, and similar horror stories. Sure, some, if not most of it may be exaggerated, but damn it was hard just finding a printer that didn’t come with a “free” 6 month “just in time” toner contract. Zero confidence.
The HP Laserjet IV was their last decent office / small biz printer. It dates from the early 1990s and I have no doubt my old one would still be working today if I still had it.
About 1995 the company entered the financialized enshittification doom spiral and shows no sign of recovering, or of wanting to recover, here 30(!) years later.
Now I’m confused. It says “laser quality output” (and it uses toner), but as far as I can tell it never actually says it’s a laser printer. So is it or isn’t it?
I believe “laser quality output” is supposed to mean “quality like you can only get with a laser printer”. The use of toner pretty much confirms that it’s laser, not ink-jet.
ETA: I had a colour ink-jet printer once. When it was working properly, it produced acceptable colour pictures even on ordinary paper, and close to photo-quality on special (expensive) glossy paper. But it often was not working properly. The ink jets tended to dry out and clog, and it was generally a nuisance to maintain. With today’s laser technology I would not get an ink-jet again.
Two years ago I decided to give up on inkjet and buy my ‘last’ printer. We used HP at work and I thought they were good printers. I bought an M283 model (laser, color, scanner, copier). It works okay, but the software can be really clunky and I find myself rebooting the printer more often than I think is necessary.
Print quality is fine, and I think it does a really good job of scanning. But I don’t think it’s the best bang for the buck. I spent about $400 on the printer, IIRC.
Lol, that is some whack copywriting. Some marketer must’ve thought “laser is too jargony, let’s call it laser QUALITY!”. Makes no sense, as traditionally lasers have worse quality than inkjets…
With Refresh EZ Print Subscription smart ink & toner service […]
Oh, okay, so it’s an all-in-one printer that uses color LEDs to make laser-quality prints. It takes toner, but you can optionally subscribe to a “smart ink & toner service”. Wonder what you do with the leftover smart ink…
Aaaaanyway, just nitpicking. They make far better printers than websites, thankfully
I have an HP laserjet 200 from about 10 years ago, and it’s still on its black ink cartridge, but the yellow is spent. I havent had any issues with it, but wouldn’t recommend it for photo printing-- an inkjet is better.
The absolute WORST printer I have ever encountered was an HP laserjet 6L, that I ended up throwing away in total frustration, while it still worked. It would never feed paper properly.
I have a simple Brother monotone laser printer and it’s great. I think it was $89 about 15 years ago.
You either inadvertently reversed the meaning, or you’ve had some very unusual experiences that are contrary to everyone else’s.
I agree with the general consensus in this thread, and to add and emphasize:
Ink-jet: antiquated and trouble-prone. Developed as a stopgap when laser was still too expensive for mass markets.
Laser: much superior and generally maintenance-free, and now quite inexpensive. If you use it a lot, replacing the toner cartridge generally also replaces many of the crucial moving parts. For decades now, high-resolution laser printers have been producing copy that is indistinguishable from typeset masters.
I’m not @Reply, but I happen to agree situationally. For monochrome and simple graphics such as charts, the laser typically outperforms most inkjets, but for full color photographic prints, inkjets do better than most lasers. Inkjets mix the ink, while many lasers use halftone dots to handle colors. More here.
About the quality, yeah exactly that. For photographs, inkjets used to have much nicer color accuracy and often resolution, at least in the past. I don’t believe that’s changed, but maybe I’m wrong and that’s no longer the case…?
