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HP 1100DTN Business Inkjet Printer

HP 1100DTN Business Inkjet Printer

List Price: $373.00
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Hulking presence in the corner that does the job
Review: I installed this printer in a mixed (Windows/Linux) network in a SOHO. Setup was a drawn out affair, but the printer itself worked fine once I finished putting it together. The Windows driver install had trouble with automatic discovery of the printer. Using the "test" button on the print server (not documented in the quick setup, unfortunately) and entering the address by hand worked. Printing from Linux worked "out of the box" for recent versions of Linux. This is despite HP's statement that Linux isn't supported. If you're running an older version of Linux, you may need to get a PPD file for the printer (linuxprinting.org).

Print quality is better than I expected, considering some of the reviews I've seen. The printer is not blazingly fast, but it's considerably faster than the printer it replaced here (an HP 970CSE). I haven't seen any paper handling problems. Even double-sided printing on 24lb paper (a problem with earlier HP printers) works reliably.

My only complaints about this printer are physical. It's big for a SOHO printer. Right now it's hulking over in the corner. It's also unusually ugly for an HP product. Finally, it's fairly noisy while printing (it's dead silent when idle). But it works reliably and it's considerably cheaper than any of the alternatives I examined. Nothing else provided networking, duplex printing, higher capacity paper trays and individual ink cartridges at anything approaching this price.

One final note: I'm told that this printer has been discontinued by HP. It looks like the replacement will be the HP 1200dtn Business Inkjet Printer. It has more memory, a slightly faster engine, and is otherwise feature comparable with the 1100dtn, so perhaps it will be a better bet once it's available.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: You get what you pay for.
Review: My volume of printing has increased recently and I needed to purchase a printer which was more cost efficient. After shopping for months, I came across an excellent review of the costs of printing in PC mag. They reported the cost of the HP 1100 to be similar to laser printers and I was skeptical. HP has achieved this efficiency by placing the print heads separate from the ink and having four ink cartridges, yellow, magenta, cyan and black. You only replace what you use and you don't have to replace the print heads with every ink. I didn't want to buy a laser printer because of the warm up time and because I print pictures. This printer prints standard quality very quickly, but it does spool up longer than other inkjet printers I have owned. The duplex feature saves paper by printing on two sides automatically; however, printing time goes up because the printer needs to wait for the ink to dry before printing the second side. This printer is on my home network with three computers and Windows XP and 98 and I have had no problems yet. Setup was faultless, although lengthy. My relatives have invested in other brands of printers and although the print quality is fine they have spent endless hours troubleshooting. Except for the usual Windows type frustrations (while slogging through system upgrades, switching to networking, switching to USB, hard-drive crashes, cable changes and driver updates) my other HP inkjet printers have performed as advertised and even performed well on systems they were not designed for. While this printer is much more substantial than my other new inkjet printers, many parts are only plastic and I'm afraid it will not last under hard use. This printer would probably be fine for heavy home use or sharing in light business use but probably too light weight for higher volume types of printing such as newsletters and brochure production.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: You get what you pay for.
Review: My volume of printing has increased recently and I needed to purchase a printer which was more cost efficient. After shopping for months, I came across an excellent review of the costs of printing in PC mag. They reported the cost of the HP 1100 to be similar to laser printers and I was skeptical. HP has achieved this efficiency by placing the print heads separate from the ink and having four ink cartridges, yellow, magenta, cyan and black. You only replace what you use and you don't have to replace the print heads with every ink. I didn't want to buy a laser printer because of the warm up time and because I print pictures. This printer prints standard quality very quickly, but it does spool up longer than other inkjet printers I have owned. The duplex feature saves paper by printing on two sides automatically; however, printing time goes up because the printer needs to wait for the ink to dry before printing the second side. This printer is on my home network with three computers and Windows XP and 98 and I have had no problems yet. Setup was faultless, although lengthy. My relatives have invested in other brands of printers and although the print quality is fine they have spent endless hours troubleshooting. Except for the usual Windows type frustrations (while slogging through system upgrades, switching to networking, switching to USB, hard-drive crashes, cable changes and driver updates) my other HP inkjet printers have performed as advertised and even performed well on systems they were not designed for. While this printer is much more substantial than my other new inkjet printers, many parts are only plastic and I'm afraid it will not last under hard use. This printer would probably be fine for heavy home use or sharing in light business use but probably too light weight for higher volume types of printing such as newsletters and brochure production.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Works Great
Review: No problem setting up. Works great. I'm very happy with it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: So far so good.
Review: So far I am happy with this printer. I have had another HP for 5+ years and it still works just thought it was time to upgrade to a faster printer (not to mention I now have two networked printers and was cumbersome to keep changing cables to print). Just a copule of small things I have notice: takes 45+ sec from off state to print first page, I have yet to see the print cartridges sold in local stores (Office Depot, Office Max, WalMart), print head and ink are now seperate (supposed to make ink replacement cheaper in long run), in XP (home? which is what I use) do not enable ICF on the ethernet connection or you will not be able to print (not a big deal in most networks with a firewall built into the hub or router unless you take your laptop away from home often).

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Frustration in extremis
Review: The first two months I owned it I spent eleven hours on the phone with tech support trying to get my HP Business Inkjet 1100d to work properly. I gave up. It mangles paper, misfeeds envelopes, grabs multiple sheets of paper, etc. I've had it four months, but will throw it away as soon at it needs a new ink cartridge. Factoring in its initial cost and limited lifespan, the HP 1100d is on a cost-per-sheet basis the most expensive of the four printers I've owned by far, even without factoring in the cost of wasted paper, envelopes and time.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: slow for the money, expensive
Review: We've used this at our small business office since November.
I don't think I've ever hated a printer as much.
Although it is pricey, it is way slow. Maybe 40s per page and 10-20s to turn over the page to print the other side. You read that right - if we get more than a page a minute out we are doing good. The only way to get acceptable speed is to go to draft mode and turn off double sided printing. Not what you expect in a $300 printer.

The other thing we hate about it is that the cartridges are now coded so that remanufactured cartridges won't work. (It works by expiration date - a cartridge old enough to have been used up and re-filled gets rejected by the printer. I wonder what happens if you are unfortunate enough to buy a new cartridge that has been stockpiled somewhere.)

Overall, I have to believe there are better choices. Of our three printers, I only use this one when I really want double-sided.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: slow for the money, expensive
Review: We've used this at our small business office since November.
I don't think I've ever hated a printer as much.
Although it is pricey, it is way slow. Maybe 40s per page and 10-20s to turn over the page to print the other side. You read that right - if we get more than a page a minute out we are doing good. The only way to get acceptable speed is to go to draft mode and turn off double sided printing. Not what you expect in a $300 printer.

The other thing we hate about it is that the cartridges are now coded so that remanufactured cartridges won't work. (It works by expiration date - a cartridge old enough to have been used up and re-filled gets rejected by the printer. I wonder what happens if you are unfortunate enough to buy a new cartridge that has been stockpiled somewhere.)

Overall, I have to believe there are better choices. Of our three printers, I only use this one when I really want double-sided.


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