9 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
Good value but some annoyances
Date of Review: Nov 2, 2007
The Bottom Line: If I could have my time again I wouldn't buy it. I'd buy an HP.
I have been using one of these for a year and its OK. It is economical to run, the print quality is good and the first page is ejected quickly. However:
Bear in mind it is a Windows only GDI printer. You can't print text directly, you can't use Linux, and using it on a network (e.g. from a remote WAN site) is difficult and slow. If you need to do this get a printer that supports PCL or Postscript.
There is no power switch. It is intended to be run permanently in 'standby' state. So it wastes power and the fast warm up is a bit of a con.
The paper tray is very flimsy and difficult to change. I have resorted to sliding paper into it while inserted.
The paper size handling is a menace. If you send a printed page (say letter) when you have a different size loaded (say A4) it won't print it. It throws an error message which can only be cleared by pulling the power cable out (no switch remember!). Most printers have an option to ignore this condition and force printing on the loaded paper. Why not this one?
Similarly changing paper size is a pain. Say you want to print on an envelope after typing a letter. Having loaded the envelope you have to navigate through the keypad menus to tell the printer "yes, I really did mean to load an envelope". Then you have to go through the same performance again to go back to A4.
These problems would be easier to live with if you could configure the printer from the PC by sending a printer control language. But you can't, you have to use the keypad.
