HP LaserJet 1200 Toner Cartridges
HP LaserJet 1200 Printer Review
Expert review of the HP LaserJet 1200 printer
Our Verdict:
The Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 1200 is not the cheapest LaserJet printer on the market, but it delivers plenty for its price. The 1,200 by 1,200 dpi output, combined with its speed of up to 15 pages per minute, makes this an ideal printer for small businesses and home offices. This printer is actually a vast improvement over its predecessor, the reliable 1100xi, both in terms of speed and print quality. Both text and graphics print clearly and rapidly, which is a rarity among printers. Like many HP products, the LaserJet 1200 can function without glitches or breakdowns for long periods of time, and the cartridges are fairly cheap, so it is an economical printer as well.
Design
The LaserJet 1200 is a compact machine that will easily fit in home offices. The toner cartridge is easier to reach than in the old 1100xi, since it simply slides out of the front after the face panel is removed. The printer comes with 8 MB of memory, but this can be upgraded to 72 MB. There is also a copy/scan attachment and a network print server option available. The cable setup can be tricky, and requires some digging around in the interior of the machine. However, the presence of both USB and parallel ports means that two computers can be hooked up to a single printer.
Advantages
Print quality is excellent, even for graphics, and it can print pages as quickly as any office requires. Even pages containing both text and graphics can print at a respectable 8 pages per minute. Printer cartridges can print around 2,500 pages, making it an extremely economical option for the office. The retry option for printing in the event of an error generally works, allowing documents to be printed even after something has gone wrong.
Disadvantages
The software installation can be buggy, and the documents with the printer are a bit hard to understand, which can make setup of the LaserJet 1200 somewhat difficult. The LaserJet 1200 has no power switch, swapping it for an energy conservation mode, but even this mode can still be a drain on power. Print capacity is only 250 pages, making the handling of any print jobs beyond the level of small workgroups difficult.