Printer Reviews

I own a small accounting/consulting business...10 employees. Because each employee has such a large workload which is computer/printer-intensive, printer sharing is inefficient and ineffective. Therefore, I needed a high-quality, fast laser printer that would cost an arm and a let (inasmuch as I needed 10 printers!). When looking for a laser, I looked to the industry leader, Hewlett-Packard, if for no other reason than quality and simplicity. I started with the HP Laser II, moved to the Laser III, then the Laser IV and finally the Laser 4050...this, over a period of about 10 years. The move to the 4050 was the best move in terms of print quality and speed. As such, I purchased four. This was in 1999.

In 2001, enter the HP Laser 4100. When one of my Laser IIIs [stopped working], I bought a 4100 as a replacement. I set it up with my office manager as she seemed to have the greatest need. Over a period of two weeks, I found that she was generating reports and proposals in incredible time. I really thought she was getting help from another employee or had received some sort of divine assistance. However, after investigating further, I found that the printer (the 4100) was responsible for this NOTICABLE increase in output. After working with it for a short time myself, I purchased 4100s for everyone in the office. The 4100 is an workhorse for offices needing fast, large-capacity printers. I suspect that this printer would work in a sharing arrangement although I truly think it is at its best in a stand-alone environment.

The 4100 offers the user 1,200 dpi resolution, 16 MB RAM (expandable to 384 MB), and two high-capacity paper trays. As previously mentioned, the 4100 is networkable via JetDirect network cards. The 4100 delivers 25 ppm which keeps up with even the most efficient computer jockey or secretarial dervish. The paper trays, one with 100-sheet capacity and one with 500-sheet capacity, can be expanded up to an amazing 1,600 with available options. My personal printer is set up with two 500-sheet trays which supports my output very effectively. The 4100 is compatible with Windows 95, 98, Me, NT 4.0, and 2000 operating systems.

From a consumable standpoint, the toner cartridge supplies a reasonable level of output for the cost. I would like more but then, I don't know if I would ever be satisfied with the consumable cost!!

All-in-all, this is an outstanding laser printer... Frankly, for the quality, I would have paid more but I'm glad I didn't have to.

HP's LaserJet 4100 is perfect for a networked environment where a large volume of printing takes place. I use two of these for a computer lab and an office that I run and I have no complaints!!

SPEED

This baby is just unbelievably fast. It pumps out pages faster than any office copy machine I have ever dealt with at about 25 pages a minute. Prints jobs go in and they come right out just as quickly!!!

MANAGEABILITY

These printers were made to be networked and the printer management functions built into it are amazing. The printer is accessible via remote login or via secured web paged login (via IP address) and it tells you exactly how much toner is left in the cartridge, how many pages it has printed and when it should be serviced, etc. In other words, it is very easy to maintain.

THE VERDICT:

Overall, I cannot recommend any other printer if you are in an environment that requires multiple users print capabilities in a networked environment at a high-volume. Fast, reliable and easy to manage. What more can you ask for?

Highest Recommendation

Just recently upgraded from another HP Laser. Print quality is great -- even in econo (toner saver) mode. Run it at highest quality for excellent and crisp output. Have not had any paper jams or other problems. LCD on printer is great...you can adjust all of the settings and even get info on the toner cartridge. Standard 500 sheet input tray reduces replacing paper all the time. From my past experience w/ HP lasers, toner cartridge life is good. Very versatile w/ the option to add network components, duplexer, extra RAM. Printer is not [inexpensive], but you get what you pay for.

This is one of the best laser printers I have ever used. Highly
recommended.

I've had the opportunity to use this printer (home use) for the past 2 years (it was my roommate's). The thing is so fantastic and dependable I forget it's even there; I think that's the true measure of an excellent product - when using it becomes completely transparent. I've come to expect this top-notch quality and dependablility; I have no idea what I'm going to buy to try and replace it now that I'm moving out.

Changing the toner cartridge is a walk in the park. It takes longer to fill an ice cube tray. There are so many flaps and doors on the thing that clearing a paperjam (of which we had one over the past 2 years, and it was my fault for loading the paper crooked) was simple and quick. I especially like the separate loader tray that easily accepts envelopes, cards and (my favorite) CD labels. After you're done with the loader tray, it folds up into the unit.

We also have the 4050 TN's (has an additional paper tray) at work - I can attest that these puppies can handle a seriously high volume of print jobs - flawlessly. I don't know what the pages-per-minute number is, but I can't imagine you needing anything to be much faster.

I recently purchased the 4050 from Amazon and couldn't be more pleased with the quality, ease of installation and use of this printer. The 1200 dpi is spectacular and halftones look great. The built-in Postscript capability is a godsend and I can't believe the speed with which the 4050 delivers copies! Although a printed manual would have been an asset, I haven't needed to look at the documentation disk. I highly recommend this printer for those who need a high-volume, top quality machine.

These tags are very durable and have survived several airline trips with me, and have also accompanied my laptop on many excursions. And I certainly have not lost any of my luggage or possessions that have been tagged with these tag protectors and loops. Funnily enough, these tags have withstood the wear and tear of travel much better than my luggage. Believe you me - if these tags can survive the rigors of being loaded on and off of an airliner, they can survive anything.

I'm a middle school band director. We use these tags for band instrument case tags. I make a business card with the school name, address and phone on one side. On the other side, we put the student's name and class period. If a student leaves the instrument on a bus or anywhere else, it can be safely returned to the school, without a stranger having to know the student's home address or phone number! Very easy product to use and much cheaper than any other solution I've found.

These luggage tags are very durable and easy to use. Just stick a piece of paper with your contact information (business cards work well) and place in between the two layers. Remove the paper on the adhesive side and press the two layers together. The only (cosmetic) drawback is that the tags are a bit large, I place my business cards in them on my luggage and I have to trim the tags down because of all the extra space around it.

Easy setup, I received this package and was eagerto install. Sharring a printer. One thing to mention it does require on regular printer cable and TWO male to male cables to hook two pc's up to one printer. So order an extra cable with it. Easy set up again, didn't have to install any HW for the printer. Seems to take jobs very fast.

The Bitronics Autoswitch works just as you'd expect. I boughtit at amazon.com to switch between a HP Laserjet 6L and an HP Officejet scanner/printer/fax... the Laserjet is my main printer, but occasionally I use the Officejet to scan pictures and the like. (And note that there's no problem using bi-directional devices like scanners.)

It works like a champ. No need to install the (optional) software, no need to plug it in-- just hook up the cables and you're good to go. You just press a button to switch between the two devices.

Only thing to know is that there's nothing "automatic" about this-- you need to do the switching yourself. The word "automatic" refers to another way you can use this switch-- to hook two PCs up to a single device. I don't need this capability, so I haven't tried it.

Good product.

I bought this model last year to switch between my HP Laser and Canon color ink jet. It's great -- very easy to switch back and forth, easy to hook up. I would recommend, however, purchasing the extra AC power plug (information on ordering should come with the AutoSwitch) -- without it I occasionally had problems with glitches in the data sent to one printer or the other.

I have one of your Brothers mfc1780 5in1 products and when I bought it from this person at a yard sale he did not have the disc to install it on my Computer. I have a Compac 5000 series. If there is something you could do to help me install this on to my Computer i would be grateful. Thank you, and by the way your product is great because i can do other things except get it to print it ie a great Fax, Copier, and Scanner. But like I said I can't get it installed on my Computer to print out documents. Thank you again.

Good value for the money. No problems with any of the features. Cheap enough that you won't mind if it becomes obsolete or gets destroyed in a move, as so often happens.

Iam well acquainted with this Mach as we have been useing it at my job for the passed year. We have incountered very few problems. I have found it to be very relible at all times.I wrk at a Apt complex where a lot of diferent people use the Mach an still no problems That gives 5 stars.

I'm using this product with my Canon i900D photo printer. I'm thrilled beyond words with the quality, the output (and lack of quickly drying up) that this cartridge offers. Per a prior experience (and recommendations of others), I wouldn't recommend the cheaper clone cartridge makers. Stick with this product, both for your warranty's sake, as well as minimizing your frustration level. The Canon products are worth the few extra $$ to purchase.

Although lower cost substitute ink cartridges are sold all over the web, and on this site as well, the few bucks you might save aren't worth the all-too genuine risks of replacing with generic "no-name" ink tanks. I've heard (but wouldn't wish to try it, frankly) that generic inks fade faster when exposed to daylight, could clog the print-head spray nozzles, don't spread properly on top-quality paper, and simply can't compare with the uniquely formulated dyes that have been specially researched for your printer and its matching photo papers. The one exception might be if you use a black-ink-only inkjet [hard to imagine anyone could screw up black ink]. I concur that printer manufacturers use that old hoary "razor trick" (give away the razor, profit on the blades), but with Canon's individual ink tanks -- where you replace only those tanks that run dry, you aren't out a lot. My Canon photo printer uses an array of six ink tank colors. Of these six tanks (all available on this site), 'photo cyan' and 'photo magenta' seem to be used up 2 to 3 times faster than 'black'. In other words, rather than replacing an entire set of six ink tanks, you can replace just those tanks that run empty the soonest -- thus not having to toss out a 3-ink tank [as used by HP] where 2 of the 3 remaining inks still are far from used up. Just a word of caution here - make certain that every cartridge you order from Amazon clearly states its eligibility for SuperSaver shipping. If you have to add shipping charges to this low-cost item, you could end up paying more than you would have at the local office supply store.

I have had my Canon BJC-8200 for more than a year now and I could not be happier with it. Not only does it produce photographs better than you can get developed from 35mm film it saves money while doing it. Since there are 6 separate ink tanks rather than one black ink tank and one 3-color tank; I have only to replace the tank which runs out of ink rather than one huge tank which has run out of red, but still has plenty of the other two colors.

And don't let the small size of the tanks fool you in to thinking that they will run out of ink frequently; since flow control is so precise I can print a huge pile of 4x6 pictures before the yellow or red runs out.

If you are looking for a great printer that will almost pay for itself with savings on ink; look at one of the Canon bubblejet printers with individual tanks.

...I bought it anyway. Parts is parts, right?

Wrong.

The print quality of the Dataproducts knock-off was *in no way similar* to Epson cartridges. Even after numerous nozzle purges, ink splattered all over the page, there were veritcal discolored lines in the photos.

Worst of all, it didn't quite fit properly. When I tried to remove it (following the instructions in the Epson manual meticulously) the Dataproducts cartridge got jammed in the cartridge housing (actually stuck onto the "spikes" the open the ink wells... my guess is the covering is not quite the same thickness as the original model) and so the cartridge cover (the purple plastic lid over the cartridge) wouldn't pop up. It took two printer techs almost an hour to extract it, and we were contantly in fear of ruining the printer.

I'll say it again: even if you're feeling frugal, buy the real brand product. My only criticism is that the price is so high that the knockoffs are almost too tempting.

We use 100's of these cartridges each year and we have tried every generic cartridge we could find. None of them have the same quality as the original.

I always bought Epson cartridges for my Epson printer from my local Sears store. Then one day Sears eliminated the Epson cartridges with generic substitutions. I decided to try them out since they were $10 cheaper. This turned out to be a big mistake. I had to constantly use the head-cleaning utility to unclog the nozzles. The print quality was also bad, especially with the color printing. I highly recommend paying more for the namebrand.

Only problem I have is copying and printing transparencies. I am an artist and have my work photographed on 8 x 10 transparencies (chromes). I was told that this machine can copy same by simply putting a white piece of paper over the back of the transparency. IT DOES NOT WORK and I can't seem to get an answer from anyone regarding this problem. Other than the above, I am satisfied with the machine.

I had been searching for replacements for my older flatbed scanner and HP 660C printer -- and, of course, on a budget.

The HP R40 met my requirements, and I got a color copier out of the deal, too. The scanner and associated software is pretty good, though certianly not HP's highest end. Print quality is excellent, with near-photo quality even on plain paper (and almost indistinguishable from photo quality when on glossy photo paper). The copier function allows you to select b/w or color from the front panel (and is much handier than the old-fashioned way of scanning an image in and then printing back out!). It lacks a document handler, but the R60 (at about $100 more) includes one, if you need it.

A tip: to really speed things up (especially scanning), make sure you go into BIOS and enable ECP on your parallel port(s).

Overall, a very good value, and, as usual, high quality from HP. I'm very happy with it, and it complements my HP PhotoSmart printer and photo scanner well.

I LOVE this machine! I use it for my graphics business for printing photos, artwork and text. I recommend for anyone using it to set up your computer to make 2-way communication with the R-40. My scan time of high-resolution images was cut to a fraction of the time it took before I adjusted it.

This cartridge works great with my Z31 (unfortunately not for my Z11, according to the Lexmark website). Yields great color for my photo prints!

If you like to print pictures you better have this cartridge. I printed some pictures with the regular cartridges that came with my Lexmark Z52 and they came out alright but skin tones didn't come out all that great. When I got this cartridge my pictures came out so good you couldn't tell the difference between them and a real print. The cartridge is kind of expensive when printing pictures it sometimes will be gone with 20 prints. But its no doubt worth it compared to actually paying for developing pictures.

I have a Lexmark Z22. I use the photo cartridge, along with the HP Premuim Plus paper (not the premium -- the premium PLUS), and I get fantastic results. Mind you, I'm not doing digital photography for sale; I'm printing baby pictures for framing and making memory books, but I'm really surprised. The quality is as good as what you get from WebShots, and I have the added advantage of being able to crop and edit at-will with Photoshop. Plus, you don't have the nonsense of trying to load all of the pages up onto the Web. I'm very satisfied, and I admit, really pleasantly surprised.

I used these sheets for save the date magnets for my wedding. The magnets turned out great and were so easy to do. I have a HP deskjet 882c and all I did was put the paper in one at a time & had no problems at all. I highly recommend trying these sheets.

We used these magnet sheets to print out favors for a family reunion. They were very easy to use and printed great!

These sheets give great results in my Cannon BJC 2000 printer. I use CompuWorks Lables with it. You can make great promo items, party favors, and all kinds of things. People LOVE them.