HP Laserjet PRO P1102W Wireless Laser Printer
One of the recent technologies that has found its way into the printer market in quick time is wireless. No doubt that a Wi-Fi connection is integrated only on a fewer models in a range and then in the premium, more expensive product segment, but now it is becoming growingly ubiquitous. You can count on the HP’s sparklingly new £100 LaserJet P1102w built with wireless, complete with a button so that you can turn it on and off. Continue reading the review to find out what the HP Laserjet PRO P1102W Printer has in store for you.
Monochrome laser printer:
The HP LaserJet Pro P1102W (product code: CE657A) is a basic monochrome laser printer built with a few surprises, namely Wi-Fi and print speeds that seem better than you would have expected. As a matter of disappointment, its rather expensive toner offsets its quite affordable machine cost. The HP laser printer comes with very modest dimensions; basically its input and output trays fold out only when it is required. This laser printer is an entry-level, multifunction Wi-Fi black and white printer for the home and it guarantees print speeds of 18 pages per minute. The printer size can remind you of the ML-1660, which is particularly impressive for its quick ‘print screen’ button. A standard 802.11b/g wireless (including USB) offers a nice lift to an otherwise normally configured low-end laser printer.
Small & compact:
Small, compact and pretty cheap, this new PRO P1102W HP laser printer is built keeping the varied needs of home users and small work groups in mind. Measuring just 349 mm (W) x 238 mm (D) x 196 mm (H) in size, it weighs only 5.3 kg and should be perfect if space is at a premium. Decked out completely in an all-black chassis having a glossy front panel, the machine looks quite attractive.
Hardware features:
The 150-sheet input tray could fold down itself from the front panel of the machine where it seems to be a little out of place and you will find that the paper stop can slide out to the machine’s front and help keep the output documents neat. Whenever there is a paper in the input tray, you have to have a small flap at the machine’s front open. This seems to end up making it a bit messy, though unlike on other printer models, we have seen the flab is somewhat securely attached and should therefore be able to take a few knocks from passers-by.
The top panel of the HP Laserjet PRO P1102W Wireless Laser Printer is designed with a textured black insert, whilst the surround is simply high-gloss black plastic having a little control panel down the left side, plus indicators for wireless connection, two buttons, one for wireless and the other for job cancel, in addition to errors and power. The two buttons of the control panel and three LED’s all come with icons, but has no word icons and this means you have to check their meaning in the documentation that is HTML based which to its credit has appreciable animated translations of the LED sequences.
You may find that the blue wireless indicator tends to go off when the machine switches to ‘sleep’ mode and that is illogical because the printer would not wake to print ink if it finds the link still inactive. Most of the wireless printers tend to leave the connection light in the ‘ON’ state, even when sleeping.
Paper handling:
The 150-sheet main input area is a foldout front panel instead of a full-fledged tray having sliding width guides. There is a 10-sheet priority feeder for special media or envelope that is brilliantly positioned above the main tray and this is pretty unusual in a printer at this end of the market. The machine is also built with manual-feed slot for thicker form of media. The top-loading output tray is built with the capacity to hold 125 sheets. Though these parts have been impressively built and are sturdy, you will find that their markings that are stamped into the black plastic without any contrasting colour and are almost difficult to decipher. There is also the manual duplexing that is present on both Mac and PC with useful on-screen prompts. There is a small cut-out at the back of the left-hand side panel that could take a USB cable and if you intend to make use of the printer through Wi-Fi, a temporary USB connection is essential.
Setting up the printer:
Setting up the machine is a breeze. The drum and toner cartridge is small and discreet that slots rather deep into the bowels of the machine. You can access the toner cartridge by lifting the top cover of the printer. Rated at 1600 pages, you will find this to be the only consumable in the machine and can be fitted easily. Thanks to the easy step-by-step guide in the printer’s instruction manual as we did not face any problem when setting up the printer.
USB & wireless connections:
The Laserjet PRO P1102W printer is provided with both USB & wireless connections. If you go for the latter, you still have to connect the USB cable temporarily for configuring the wireless setting. Impressively, the HP has a USB cable in the package. We were a bit disappointed to find out that HP has only seen fit to integrate the LaserJet P1102w with 802.11b/g wireless, given that most businesses and homes now make use of the far-reaching 802.11n wireless standard. You are also not provided with the wired Ethernet option, which is a shame.
Operating system:
HP gives you 32-bit and 64-bit drivers for Windows Vista, Windows XP and OS X from version 10.4. There is also a Linux driver that is available for download and other than these, there is not much that you can say about other available software.
Printing Speed:
HP has rated this laser printer at 18ppm, which is comparatively good speed for a personal laser printer. Printing a 5-page text took 27s and that is equivalent to a speed of 11.1ppm, nevertheless increasing the page count to a 20-page document can take the speed up to 15.8ppm which is more than 75% of the rated speed. The 5-page graphics and text document that is printed at 13ppm and a 15 cm x 10 cm size photo on an A4 sheet consumed roughly about 13 seconds at the printer’s maximum resolution termed FastRes 1200. At the standard FastRes 600, it consumed just nearly 10 seconds. These speeds are comparatively good for an entry-level printer compared to the recent Samsung models namely the ML-1915 and ML-2525.
Print quality:
It is not easy to mention anything about the print quality of latest, monochrome laser printers, as almost all manufacturers have got the fundamentals sussed. Text at regular point sizes from 10-12 point shows no piece of art of any consequence and is black and dense. While home users may be able to point out the difference between letterpress print and this laser output, for many business users, there will be small obvious differences and the print quality is more than sufficient for printed materials that are meant for the general public and internal reports. Greyscale print is also somewhat good with normally smooth greyscales that are available for different types of business graphics, however for the most part, graphics and business chart look clean and smart.
Even photo images, something that no mono laser printer would like to work on, looks quite well detailed and realistic, whilst areas of sky look a little spotty, at least they are not covered in dark and light bands as is more often the case with less pricey laser engines. Also the level of detail in the darker areas of photo is far better than average, with not much of the image turning to black. Overall, on large text (60 pt and over), jagged areas were discernable on what should be curved, smooth edges. It is a big concern though and smaller text looks sharp, clear and it is just about readable reduced down to 2pt in Times New Roman.
Cost per page:
The single-piece toner and drum cartridge is available in only one capacity, although HP is able to more than halve by providing an introductory cartridge excellent for simply 700 pages. We suppose it is legitimate to provide a new machine with the lesser of two capacities of printer consumables, if both of them are available to purchase, however to produce an exclusive, low-capacity cartridge just to ship with a new printer strikes us as pessimistic. And the question that arises here is that why should new customers not enjoy the benefit of the standard yield cartridge? At the cheapest price, we were able to find for the consumable, the page cost is found to be 0.7p for paper. This is not especially good. When you compare this with two Samsung machines, you are looking at around 0.8p more per page with the HP Laserjet PRO P1102W Printer. The reason is that the HP cartridge is relatively new to market either or it has been already made use of in other HP machines.
Power consumption:
HP has made a good attempt to keep power consumption level down and in standby mode, the power draw was measured to be just 2W, which is quite low. In this mode, the machine just takes about 7 seconds for churning out the first page. The printer should be started from cold though and wait goes on to increase considerably to over 50 seconds, something that can prove to be a pain if you have to print in a rush.
What is in the box?
- Documentation on CD & Printer software
- Power cord
- Starter Cartridge: 700 pages according to ISO/IEC 19752
- USB install cable (of length 1m)
Manufacturer Warranty:
The HP PRO P1102W Printer carries a limited manufacturer’s warranty of 1 year from the original purchase date.
Bottom-line:
Before we move on to the end of the review, here is a quick glance at the pros and cons of the P1102w.
Positives:
- Low energy consumption both in running and standby mode
- First page is quick to print, even when coming out of standby mode
- Wi-fi connection
Negatives:
- Single function machine for the cost of an all-in-one printer
- Comparatively high price per page for laser which is 2.7pence
- Start-up toner provided which is 700 pages and is almost half the amount you may find in a standard.
Overall, the HP Laserjet PRO P1102W Printer is a worthwhile, low-cost, entry-level mono laser printer with good, fast print quality pages and wireless connection. This said, it is relatively pricey to run though and costs roughly about 25% to purchase than its competition. There is the Espon’s brilliant machine namely the Epson Aculaser M1200 which is available online for under £50, giving the user far cheaper cost of running. But the P1102w does seem to sound a lot more expensive. Unless you are a devoted HP customer, you will obviously find other printers that are solid contenders here.
HP Laserjet PRO P1102W Laser Printer – Technical Specification Table
| Manufacturer | HP |
| Model Name | HP Laserjet PRO P1102W Printer |
| Product Code | CE657A |
| Printer type/Technology | Personal printer – laser – monochrome |
| Dimensions | 349 mm (W) x 238 mm (D) x 196 mm (H) |
| Weight | 5.3 kg |
| Standard Memory | Std: 8MB, Max: 8MB |
| Max Printing Resolution | Up to 600 x 600 dpi (with HP FastRes1200: 1200 effective dpi) |
| Duplex print options | Manual (driver support provided) |
| Max Printing Speed | Black (normal, A4): Up to 18 ppm |
| First Print/Copy Out Time B/W | 8.5 sec (from Auto-Off) |
| Maximum paper input/ Output tray capacity | 10-sheet priority feed slot, 150-sheet input tray/ 100-sheet face-down bin |
| Supported Media Type | Paper (plain, laser, rough, photo, vellum), labels, envelopes, cardstock, postcards, transparencies |
| Media sizes supported | A4, A6, A5, B5, postcards, envelopes (DL, C5, B5) |
| PC Connection | WiFi 802.11 b/g, Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port |
| Custom media sizes | 76 x 127 to 216 x 356 mm (priority feed slot), 147 x 211 to 216 x 356 mm (150-sheet input tray) |
| OS Support | Windows Vista (32-bit/64-bit), Windows 7 (32-bit/64-bit), Server 2008 (32-bit/64-bit), Microsoft Windows XP (32-bit/64-bit), Server 2003 (32-bit/64-bit), Linux, Mac OS X v10.4, v10.6, v10.5 |
| Power Consumption | 370 watts (Wi-Fi enabled), 2.0 watts (auto-off), 0.6 watts (manual-off), 2.7 watts (Wi-Fi enabled) |
| Processor | 266 MHz |
| Operating temperature range | 17.5ºC to 25º C |
| Monthly page volume (recommended) | 250-1500 |
| Standard printer languages | Host-based printing |
| Package contents | Documentation on CD & Printer software Power cord Starter Cartridge: 700 pages according to ISO/IEC 19752 USB install cable (of length 1m) |
| Monthly Duty Cycle | Up to 5000 pages (A4) |
| Manufacturer warranty | 1 year (limited) |
Leave a Reply