Business Space Saving

The bakery in which I used to work had a small office downstairs to take care of all the non-delicious parts of the business. In addition to the small filing cabinet and small footprint computer wedged into the office, there was also a printer: the HP Laser Jet 1012. I ended having a lot of experience with that printer since I was often the one down there printing out emails and sales receipts and things of that nature.

I was also the one that recommended and installed the printer. After choosing the printer, installing it was a piece of cake. Anyone with some experience doing this will be able to accomplish the task without any help, but for those of you who are new to this, detailed instructions are included. Of course, as with any printer, one must tediously remove seemingly endless amounts of packing material the manufacturer puts into every orifice of the printer to ensure its safety en route to its destination.

Setting up the printer on the computer was very easy as well. Once the software is loaded on the computer, it walks you through every step of the process. There are advanced options that are essentially useless for most home users and should not be played with. There is also the option to install a web based tool box that I would recommend against as well.

After installing the printer, you can put it almost anywhere because it is so small. The width of the printer does not exceed 14" and was especially important in our decision to buy because of the already cluttered desk. The USB cable is not included and since one must be purchased I would recommend a fairly long one of at least 10 feet instead of the standard 6. This gives the user much more latitude in printer placement.

The print quality itself is as expected from a printer like this. The text is very sharp and looks just as good as much higher end printers. Where I think the printer really lacks is in the picture printing. I found that the image quality was nowhere near as good as the much more expensive printers. As a mostly small business printer though, it would be expected to have much heavier use in the text rather than the picture area. Keep this in mind though if you have a very fancy letterhead with a company logo. That will not look as good on this printer as it will on some better models.

I used the printer for about 6 months before I had to move on to my current educational destination and in that time I rarely came across a paper jam. Those that did happen were usually my fault - when the paper is tossed haphazardly into the tray it just isn't going to come out of that tray correctly. Despite the occasional jams, I never experienced one of those horrific paper jams that end with hours of pulling tiny pieces of ripped paper from between rollers. Having done that enough with my other printers, not having that problem with this one was a big plus.

Despite the rare jamming of the printer, it prints relatively fast for printers in this price range at a speed of 12-15 pages per minute. This is still fairly fast compared to the average printer in this price range and is more than adequate for most home users and is usually good enough for most small business users. I would not recommend that this be used as a shared printer. For use on a network as a destination for multiple users, you might want to step up to a printer with the ability to print at least 20-24 pages per minute, otherwise users end up wasting time waiting for copies.

Another important aspect of printers like this, besides their size and speed, is their paper capacity. The 1012 is fairly standard in that it can hold about 150 blank sheets of paper and its output tray can hold in excess of 100 sheets before the rollers are blocked. This can be especially useful if you are printing a lot from another room or while you are otherwise away or indisposed and unable to constantly attend to the printer. The printer requires neither constant unloading, nor reloading.

My biggest beef with the printer, and obviously not something intrinsically wrong with it, is that it is not a multi function device. Since I have bought the 1012, the printers that are capable of faxing, scanning, and copying have come a long way in quality with a significant reduction in average price. If I needed a new printer now, and with all the copying and faxing I do, I would definitely be inclined to purchase a printer that could accomplish all those tasks while taking up the same amount of space.