HP LASERJET P1005 TONER CARTRIDGE

HP LaserJet P1005 Review

Overview:

Unless you’re in college, most people don’t use their printers on a regular basis. Having an inkjet printer at home that hasn’t been used in a couple of months, the ink likely has dried and needs to be replaced. Laser printer toner starts out as dry ink, allowing for a longer shelf life and lower printing costs. If you don’t need color printing, the HP LaserJet P1005 is the ideal solution for the casual printer user. Able to emulate 1,200 dpi resolution at 15 pages per minute, this lightweight USB printer won’t take up a lot of space on your desk.

Pros:

Coming out of the box at only 10 pounds, the rounded LaserJet P1005 has a footprint of only 14” x 9”—with the paper flip-tray closed. When loaded with paper and the dust cover in place, you’ll need to add an additional 4 ½ to 7 inches to it’s total depth.

Unlike other laser printers where you may have to wait as long as 30 seconds after the printer wakes-up from sleep mode, the P1005 has one of the fastest warm-up times. After only an 8½ second delay, this LaserJet will start printing single-sided 8½” x 11” sheets at 15 pages per minute. With a fixed 2MB of memory, the P1007 will be able to handle typical personal print jobs.

The150-sheet flip-tray supports paperweights from 16# to 28# paper, and sizes ranging from 3” x 5” up to 8½” x 14” legal size.  The P1005 does not have a slot for multi-purpose media, relying solely on the cassette tray to do the job.

With HP’s FastRes 1200, the LaserJet’s native 600 x 600 dpi resolution is enhanced to produce prints of 600 x 1200 dpi quality without compromising performance. This keeps printed text sharp--even at 6-point font sizes--and does a decent job with printing photographs in B&W. Like all LaserJets, the P1005 comes with a Toner Save feature to conserve on ink.

Over time, the roller and separator pad will need to be cleaned or replaced—the roller moreso than the pad. If you’re mechanically inclined, replacement of these parts won’t be a problem.

Often HP is notorious for having installation software that is more bloat than substance, often taking up more computer resources and slowing startup time. Unless you want all those bells and whistles, it’s faster and more manageable to just install the printer drivers using your operating system’s printer configuration section.

Cons:

HP tends to be stingy with memory in their printers, and the P1005 is no exception. Having only 2MB of RAM, there is no space to add more. 2MB is sufficient memory for the student who only prints text and a page of graphics. However with most PDF and graphic printing that is done today by the non-professional single user, expect pausing while the printing large files.

While idling below 25 dB, the printer produces 50.6 dB of sound while printing. To give you an idea of what that means: 50 decibels is about the level of low conversations and 30 decibels is the sound of a quiet night in a desert (excluding the Las Vegas strip). While 50 decibels may not be loud, it is if the printer is sitting next to you chugging off 50 pages for that school report.

The control panel consists of a single Cancel button. There are just two LEDs for communication, so figuring out the various light patterns will be like having to read Morse code—or POST code from a BIOS. It might be a good idea to print a copy of the error codes and tape it to the side of the printer.

While HP claims the LaserJet P1005 is compatible with Mac OS X, there have been complaints from Mac users of problems with the printer drivers included with the CD. To get the latest (and correct) drivers for OS X (including 10.6 Snow Leopard) and for the released Microsoft Windows 7, go the HP’s home page on the Internet.