For $50, seems to work well enough
Pros:
Small, cheap, fast.
Cons:
A little noisy.
The Bottom Line:
For $50, it works pretty darn well.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
This printer does more-or-less exactly what I bought it for: print text quickly and cheaply. I'm not sure there is much else to say about it.
A few notes:
It comes with a pretty puny "starter cartridge", which is only good for 1,000-ish pages. However, since a 3,000 page cartridge costs more than this printer did after rebate, this makes sense.
Several users have mentioned the noise. I suppose it is not the most silent printer ever made, but it is not an ear-splitting racket either. The funny thing about it is the fan makes more noise after you print for a couple of minutes prior to going into standby.
Speed: Warm-up takes about 10-15 seconds prior to cranking up the motors to spit out the first page. This is about on par with my old DeskJet.
Size: This think is pretty darn compact, but no more so than any other low-end laser from say, Lexmark or Brother.
Jams: Haven't had any yet, but on the other hand, this thing only has been fed paper. I figure that my DeskJet (still in use for color) is a little more "forgiving" of strange stock anyway.
Network connectivity: Not built-in, but I have connected it to a $10 D-Link print server, and it works just fine with that.
Operating systems: Has drivers for Mac, Windows, and Linux. This will be a plus for many users.
USB Cable: Like most printers for the last decade or so, it doesn't include one. This is a real racket for electronics stores... Before USB printers were popular, you could get a USB cable for under $10. Once USB was the standard, the price doubled to make up for the low margin on the printer. If you don't already have a cable, I suggest you look at your local "mom-n-pop" computer store which may have them for a reasonable price. I paid $8 for mine, where CompUSA, Circuit City, etc. wanted $20. The really silly part of all that is that a USB cable of the same length that hooks into anything other than a printer (i.e. Camera, Scanner, Disk Drive) is a sane price.
In short, if you want a printer that will last the next 10 years under heavy use, with cheap supplies and low maintenance, this is the wrong printer. You are going to have to pay more than $50.
If you need a printer for occasional use and you are sick of buying ink cartridges that clog and barely last for a ream of paper (if that long), this printer will do just fine.
We use this printer for all of our text, but still have the DeskJet around for greeting cards and the like...
