HP LASERJET 1150 TONER CARTRIDGE

HP LaserJet 1150 Review

Overview:

Touting sweeping curves in its case design not found in previous models, the HP LaserJet 1150 still delivers high-quality monochrome 1,200 x 1,200 dpi resolutions at speeds up to 18 pages per minute for the home or small office. The 1150’s higher capacity toner cartridges mean less downtime between toner changes.

Pros:

Anyone familiar with Hewlett-Packard’s previous LaserJet models may do a double-take with the LaserJet 1150. In 2003 HP decided to soften the look of this monochrome laser printer. Simple curves gave the 1150 a more polished and less institutionalized look, than other 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 1150 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 1150 has a 10-sheet multi-purpose slot for labels, single-feed envelopes, and transparencies.

With HP’s FastRes 1200, the LaserJet’s 600 x 600 dpi resolution is enhanced to produce prints of 1,200 dpi quality, without appreciable loss in speed. This keeps printed text relatively sharp and does a decent job with photographs. Like all LaserJets, the 1150 comes with a Toner Save feature to conserve on toner.

HP got their act together from the LaserJet 1020 by bumping the non-expandable memory on the LaserJet 1150 up to 8MB. Eight megabytes is great for personal printing and the single high-res graphics job, but print speed and performance will start to strain if this model is being used as a shared printer over a network.

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 1150. The USB also makes it easy to quickly connect a laptop to the printer.

Unusual for printers of this class is the availability of HP’s PCL5e emulator and 26 PCL fonts, increasing its printing flexibility.

Cons:

The LaserJet 1150 has no upgradability or options. Nada. Zilch. This is good news if you only keep a printer for a few years or if your printing requirements never change. But most users will eventually want to upgrade to a printer that can talk to multiple computers and have more memory, which means having to buy another printer.

At 18 pages per minute, this laser printer is a little on the slow side of printing speeds. With inkjets today exceeding print speeds of 20 ppm, the 1150 has some stiff competition.

There comes a time when function should take precedence over fashion. While the 1150’s control panel is quite unobtrusive and simple, interpreting the controls is not. The 1150 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 up to 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 1150 produces 63dB during power, wakeup, and printing.