HP LASERJET 2300 TONER CARTRIDGE

HP LaserJet 2300 Review

Overview:

In school classrooms and small businesses, there is no such thing as computer support when a printer stops working. And those that have often do not have the luxury to wait hours or days for someone from IT to fix the problem. Here’s where the HP LaserJet 2300 comes in. Not only is it is a desktop laser printer with sharp 1200 x 1200 dpi resolution, print speeds up to 25 ppm and options to keep up with future printing demands, but the intuitive control panel with text display will help the teacher or office assistant to troubleshoot problems confidently.

Pros:

Like buying an automobile, HP loves to offer “option packages” for their printers. The LaserJet 2300 comes in four different packages: the no-frills 2300; the 2300L (“lite” version) that prints at a slower 20 ppm; the 2300d with 2-sided printing and extra memory; the network ready 2300n; the 2300dn with duplexing and built-in network; and the “full house” 2300dtn. The duplex unit, network card, and stackable paper trays are available as optional accessories that can be easily added to the base printer with as little as a screwdriver.

The LaserJet 2300 has a modest 16” x 18” footprint for a business desktop printer. Yet this is not a lightweight printer. At 32 pounds you don’t want to put it on something that has collapsible legs. To reduce heat damage to parts, HP recommends 2” of space around the printer for proper cooling ventilation.

The LaserJet 2300 comes standard with a 250-sheet cassette tray, capable of supporting letter or legal-size paper. The flip-door reveals a 100-sheet multi-purpose tray that can handle transparencies, labels, post cards, envelopes, 3” x 5” postcards up to 8.5” x 14” legal paper of various bond weights. To handle situations where high-volume printing is required, you can buy a second 250-sheet paper tray, giving total capacity of 600 sheets.

The LaserJet 2300 offers 3 types of printing resolutions: standard 600 x 600, HP ProRes 1200 which is actual 1200 x 1200 dpi, and HP FastRes: software to let 600 x 600 simulate 1200 dpi quality. Considering there is no speed loss between ProRes and FastRes, I prefer using actual resolutions, not a calculated one.

At 1200 x 1200 dpi resolution, the LaserJet 2300 keeps text sharp--even at 6-point font sizes--and does a great job with graphics. To keep from consuming too much toner, the printer has a 600 dpi resolution with a text-enhance or image-enhance switch. The Toner Save feature allows for a 40% toner life increase while keeping images clear and readable. With the exception of the 2300L, all 2300 models can print up to 25 pages per minute.

A big step up from the earlier LaserJet printers, the 2300’s control panel is very easy to understand and use. A 2-line LCD text display and LED indicators provides enough visuals to easily troubleshoot problems. In addition to the traditional Start and Cancel buttons, the 2300 LaserJet also has four menu buttons, making configuration changes directly on the printer simple.

In addition to USB, all of the 2300’s offer support for legacy computers with Parallel connections. The 2300dn and 2300dtn also offer network capability with a 10/100 Tx network card. The non-network models have a slot for adding the HP network card.

This laser printer comes standard with 32MB of memory, and 2 empty DIMM slots to add an additional 288MB. With 32MB coming right out of the box, you can put this LaserJet to use in any business classroom where it will handle multiple text jobs without buffer delays. If you are planning to add a network card to the 2300 or 2300d, the printer will need at least 48MB of memory. More memory should be added for graphics printing.

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 for Windows users include PostScript3, PCL5e, and PCL6.

Cons:

The LaserJet 2300 is one of the noisier laser printers. HP always stressed in their marketing sheets how quiet their printers are in idle. Perhaps it’s to downplay how noisy their LaserJets are when printing. The 2300 is no exception. With an average sound level of 55 decibels, you don’t want to have this printer sitting next to you when it’s working—especially if it’s networked to twenty other people constantly sending print jobs to it.