New York, NY -- Reviewed by PC Magazine's M. David Stone in April 2010, the LaserJet Pro P1102w is one of the latest offerings by HP in their Pro P1100 printer series. It is the replacement for the Laserjet P1006 from HP’s previous printer generation. Fortunately for us, they have added wireless connectivity, and lowered the price. It also offers an upgrade in speed and output quality over its predecessor. For these reasons and more, this is a perfect printer for those small businesses or home offices needing a personal laser printer.
Another convenient feature it retained from the previous model is its reasonable size. At only 7.7” x 13.7” by 9.4” (H x W x D) and weighing a mere 11.6 pounds it is smaller than a lot of inkjets. This becomes especially important if your desk space is at a premium. The downside the P1102w, however, is that it has limited paper capacity (150 sheets for the main tray), so even if you share it, depending on your printing volume, it may not be quite enough. It does at least offer a 10-sheet paper tray for printing on other media besides plain paper.
The P1102w can be connected to your PC or Mac wirelessly like we said above, or with a USB connection. No Ethernet connection is available in this model. There are drivers on the HP site for this model up through 64-bit Windows 7, Server 2008, and Mac OS X 10.6. In terms of print speed, while it is rated at 19ppm, the reviewer noted that in his tests it came in almost at 23ppm. As anyone who has read a printer review before knows, it is usually the opposite that happens. At either speed, however, it is faster than many other monochrome lasers with similar prices. Print quality was good for standard text documents, graphics were okay (but not good enough for external audiences), and photos were about standard for a laser printer.
One nice additional feature of this printer is its warranty. It is a one-year warranty, however over the course of that year if problems arise, HP will pick up the cost of shipping in both directions if a phone call doesn’t solve the issue. The cost-per-page is a little high at 4.2 cents, with the toner costing $67.00 and yielding 1,600 pages, but not unreasonable.
Overall, this should be a solid choice for a personal laser printer for someone with a lower monthly print volume.
