HP LASERJET 1200 TONER CARTRIDGE

HP LaserJet 1200 Review

Overview:

The 2002 HP’s LaserJet 1200 B & W laser printer delivers high-quality monochrome 1,200 x 1,200 dpi resolutions at speeds up to 15 pages per minute for the home or small office. The higher capacity toner cartridges mean less downtime between toner changes and memory expansion up to 72MB allows for this LaserJet to handle the demands of being shared across a network.

Pros:

In 2002 HP decided to soften the look of some of their smaller LaserJets, as more buyers were using them in homes and at the reception desk of many buildings. The addition of simple curves gave the 1200 a less institutionalized look than traditional HP laser printers.

While other manufacturers have warm-up times that can take as long as 30 seconds, HP resolves this by essentially keeping the fuser on standby. This results in the LaserJet 1200 to begin printing in less than 10 seconds. The 250-sheet cassette tray will support paperweights from 16# paper to 43# cardstock and sizes ranging from 3” x 5” up to 8.5” x 14” legal size. The 1200 also has a 10-sheet priority tray. Any paper, labels, single-feed envelopes, or transparencies placed in the tray the printer will automatically pull paper from that tray without you having to change printer settings.

In Hi-res 1200 x 1200dpi resolution, the Laserjet 1200 keeps text sharp--even at 6-point font sizes--and does a decent job with graphics. Like all LaserJets, the 1200 comes with an EconoMode feature to conserve on toner.

The LaserJet 1200 comes out the box with 8MB of memory and an extra DIMM slot to add up to 64MB more. The extra memory is great to have for large graphic print jobs and if you want to have the printer shared over a network for multiple users. While PC’s with a parallel interface are becoming few and far between, with the increase of USB devices, it’s nice to free up a USB port if your computer still has a parallel port. You get that choice with the LaserJet 1200. The USB also makes it easy to quickly connect a laptop right to the printer.

Understanding the printing needs of today’s businesses in providing support for the major software applications, HP has installed a full set for print emulators that should satisfy the most diverse office. Emulators include PostScript2, HP PCL5e, and PCL6.

Cons:

At 15 pages per minute, this laser printer is on the slow side of printing speeds. With inkjets today exceeding print speeds of 20 ppm, the 2002 laser printer is no longer the faster kid on the block.

There comes a time when function should take precedence over fashion. While the 1200’s control panel is quite unobtrusive and simple, interpreting the controls is not. The 1200 has a small lighted “Go” button, with two other lights for “Ready” and “Attention”. The Go button can do several things depending on the sequence and duration the button is pressed. All three lights are used in Morse Code fashion to communicate 7 different messages or errors. While it might not have been stylish, I would have opted for an LCD display on the printer.

60 decibels is the level of talking in a room. Now imagine that sound level in your office in the form of a printer. While practically silent in Standby, the LaserJet 1200 produces 60dB during power, wakeup, and printing.