HP LaserJet 1012 Printer

Rating:
Summary: Great Printer, Unbeatable Price!
Review: I got this printer on sale for about $150 delivered to replace an aging HP 5L. The print quality is excellent and significanly better than the old 5L. This printer is also exceptionally compact and fits nicely on the shelf of my computer desk. Overall, the printer is extremely fast and appears to print at the stated rate. I printed a 35 page document and had no problems with the printer slowing down. Setup is a breeze and took lest than 5 minutes. Feeding envelopes or indvidual sheets is simple as well; there's a small icon stamped on the plastic paper tray to guide your way. Alas the only downside is you'll have to buy a USB cable since one isn't included -- this is probably a non-issue since most free USB cables are usually too short. Bottom line, this printer works great for home and small office use. This is a wonderful monochorme printer for a college or high school student as well. HP quality at a rock bottom price, I don't see how you can go wrong. I highly recommend this printer.

Rating:
Summary: Bye Bye Inkjet
Review: This is a perfect replacement for an inkjet if you are tired of finding cartridges dried out and streaky before you barely get to use them. The LaserJet 1012 is very fast and whisper quiet, is very easy to set up, is relatively low-power, has space-saving design, and outputs beautifully sharp text and lineart that does not need drying time (no smearing). All this and the price is right, not much more expensive than cheap injets. With my old Canon inkjet, it was costing me close to .50 per page for occasional printing due to dried-up cartridges; the HP costs almost nothing per page. The old inkjet is now on its way to Goodwill.

Rating:
Summary: Great printer!
Review: I bought this printer after reading many reviews from consumers who loved it. I agree! I've had my printer for 6 months now and have had no problems with it. In addition, it will print on both sides...it needs to be done manually, but the printer sets up the pages so that all you need to do is pick up the printed stack and place it back in the paper feed. There's no manipulation needed. I would highly recommend this printer.

Rating:
Summary: Great little printer
Review: After wasting far too many $$$ on inkjet cartridges, we decided to go with a laser printer. If your needs are basic -- occasional printing, nothing fancy, and no need for color -- this printer is perfect. It doesn't come with a USB cable, but most if not all of the (many) printers I have bought in my life didn't come with cables. Installation is quick -- it took me more time to unpack the box then to actually hook it up and get it running. My only complaint is the inconvenient placement of the power switch on the back. I'd rather have it on the front, where I can easily turn the printer off when I'm finished with it rather than leaving it on all the time. I have it hooked up to a G4 Powerbook running OS X 10.2.8, and I haven't experienced any software/driver problems yet.

Rating:
Summary: A great little laser printer
Review: I bought this laser printer when I realized I will need to print out dozens of pdf research papers. Laser printers can churn out black and white prints much faster than ink jets. As a low end laser printer, I was surprised at how good the quality of its print outs are. The printer is quiet and compact. Toner cartridges cost around 70 bucks for 2000 pages, which is a bit more expensive versus that from other brand names. But I am very satisfied with my purchase. A great laser printer to have at home for printing out forms, documents and homeworks! I'd give it a 4.5 if i could, but its more 4 than 5 because it prints a bit slow and is a bit on the expensive side versus other budget printers.

P.S. I also own a Konica Minolta 1350W, I find the LaserJet 1012 a much better product.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: Do you ever get the urge to print something but decide not to because your printer is too slow? If so, then this printer is for you. After 9 months of using this printer, if I have any urge to print anything, I print it. The print speed is so fast that now I have a habit of wasting paper just because it's fun to print. 10 pages of lecture notes? Fine, no problem, print it. 50 page lab manual? Print it. 100 pages worth of sample midterms for a class? I'll print that without hesitation.

About that 2000 or 2500 page toner capacity: I've printed 3500 pages and the text still comes out nice and black.

The only complaint I have is that the 150 sheet tray is too small. The printer keeps running out of paper and I have to refill it. Maybe it's annoying to me because of my paper wasting habit.

Rating:
Summary: So far so good
Review: I just got the printer yesterday so I can't comment on the long term quality. The only reason I gave it 4 stars is because I have only used it a few times so far. I loved my Minolta 1250w but the drum went bad before I replaced the first toner cartridge, and a replacement costs &110, which is absurd. I bought the 1350W but it caused the lights to flicker in my home office and idled loud! Well, the HP1012 does not do this!! It's small, quiet, fast, and simple!

I too had trouble installing the drivers with Windows ME. I found the best way around it was to add the printer through my computer. Do not run the easy installation off the disk. If the box says it's compatible with your computer than there is a way to somehow do it. I think I did the custom intallation. Either way I was able to figure it out.

I called HP tech support today and they answered immediately. The 600dpi economy toner saver looks the same as the 1200dpi when just printing text. Also, do not try to pull the two little plastic pieces that stick out of the paper out area. I tried to pull them out, and the HP said they are sensors and I'm lucky I didn't damage them :-).

Overall, it's great so far!

UPDATE! Still working excellent after printing a few hundred pages!! WOO HOO.....

Rating:
Summary: Troubles with Windows XP SP2
Review: The printing preferences window contents does not fit into the visible window area. It looks like a driver compatibility problem with the new Windows XP Service Pack 2. I didn't install SP2 on my other computer, and the driver is working fine.

The Email technical support was terrible. They suggested me to download a "newer" driver from the HP website. However, this so called "newer" driver is more than one year old (September 2003) and is identical as that coming with the installation cdrom. They also referred me to the driver installation web page which was not suitable for the USB printer installation.

The printer itself is working fine. Also, I believe that they will update the driver some time in the future and the problem will go away.

I'm giving this product a single star mainly because of the HP technical support incompetence and the bogus and outdated driver software.

Rating:
Summary: Installation may be a problem.
Review: Fortunately for me, I read the Amazon reviews before buying this printer. I was prepared with my USB cable that did not come with the printer. Also, many Amazon reviewers have had problems with installation, so when the printer failed to properly install on my new Dell, I quickly called expert help (thanks Scott).

The expert went on-line for the necessary fixes from HP and the printer was soon up and running with good print quality for an inexpensive machine.

The expert who installed my printer said that HP should do a better job providing software to support their products. I think many of the people who wrote reviews on Amazon would agree.

Bottom line: If your printer does not immediately install, it may have nothing to do with you or the procedure you followed. Get some help instead of wasting your valuable time if you are not an expert. Good luck.

Rating:
Summary: Think twice before buying this one
Review: Warning: you will not be able to use this product without buying a separate USB cable. This is like buying a new car and first having to push it to the nearest gas station before you can use it. Apparently the USB from my digital camera is not the right size. There appears to be a parallel port but it is covered in a removeable-looking plastic bracket that I have so far been unable to pick off with my fingernails. I do not know how to reconfigure the printer to use the parallel port or how much force is too much to remove the plastic bracket, because the documentation / driver CD, which the instruction leaflet tells you to install first, fails the installation because it can't find the printer.

I would cheerfully have forked over the extra - what - $5, to actually be able to use the product. HP used to be such a fine company, what happened?

Buy this product only if it's cheaper than its competition.