HP LaserJet 1160 Monochrome Printer

Rating:
Summary: A Superb Value
Review: I'm delighted with this printer. It's wonderfully compact and fits in tight spaces. The printer quality is excellent and it really feels solid. I expect it to be as reliable and long-lasting as my previous printer, an HP LaserJet 6MP. This printer worked right out of the box with my Macintosh running OS X 10.3.x and I suspect that setup for Windows is equally painless. Yes, it's a little more expensive than comparable laser printers, but I think that over time the slighly greater inital investment will have been worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent SoHo (Small office/Home office) Printer
Review: Pros:
- Dramatically improved design
- Improved print quality
- Speedy output
- Small footprint
- Solid paper handling

Cons:
- More expensive than competitors
- Cryptic LED status lights
- Does not accept higher capacity toner
- Flimsy single-sheet multipurpose input tray
- Poorly written printer driver and installer
- No printed manual (only PDF file on the CD)

HP LaserJet 1160 is a feature-stripped version of LaserJet 1320, replacing LaserJet 1150 and LaserJet 1300, respectively. 1160 and 1320 share the same engine and chassis (1320 features white-with-black-accents whereas 1160 is all-white). Perhaps the most dramatic change from 1150 and 1300 is a redesigned chassis. They no longer resemble DeskJet's L-shape box with protruding input paper tray, infamous for causing paper to curl up if many sheets are stacked on its output bin. Both 1160 and 1320 now look more professional and spiffier, all the while occupying even less desk space.

More subtle but just as dramatic is improved print quality. 1150 and 1300 were criticized for worse print quality than their predecessor (LaserJet 1200). 1160 restores the former glory with improved print quality. Graphics and photo outputs look noticeably smoother than LaserJet 1150 and 1300 with less noticeable dithering. Text looks sharp, and it looks slightly better defined in 600 dpi with FastRes 1200 turned off (graphics look far better with it turned on, however).

If you need more reasons to justify 10% price increase over 1150, how about 10% faster print speed? With double the memory (16 MB vs. 8 MB) and smaller footprint (measures about 14 inches by 14 inches vs. 16 inches by 19 inches), 1160 represents a superior value.

That said, 1160 could've been better. 1160 loses 1150's 10-sheet multipurpose input tray (1160 accepts only 1 sheet at a time). And multipurpose single sheet input tray feels a bit flimsy, although 250-sheet input tray feels very sturdy and should last a long time. And according to HP, 1160 can accept only the standard capacity toner (prints 2,500 pages at 5% coverage). Also disappointing are LED status lights (LCD alphanumeric display would have been more informative).

I have 1160 connected to Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station (via USB port) so that I can print wirelessly. Apple PowerBook G4 (Mac OS X 10.3.5), IBM ThinkPad A31 (Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2), and Compaq Presario X1000 (Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2) notebooks share the network and printer.

Included Windows installer did not make installation process any easy. If the printer is NOT directly connected to the computer via USB or parallel port, it will not let you install the driver (Mac OS X installer is more forgiving). Network detect feature did not work and I suspect it works only with JetDirect option. After reading the manual on the CD, I have discovered a workaround. Manually add the printer as a local printer, create a new TCP/IP port and specify wireless router's IP address (10.0.1.1 in my case), then click "Have Disk" to install the driver manually. The manual points to wrong directory path. The correct path for English-based Windows XP driver is English\Drivers\Win2003_XP\PCL5.

The driver is not any better. It is not that printer driver itself is that bad (although I have found few minor bugs). My issue is with hp toolbox, an application that supplements the driver. It is written in Java with embedded Apache web server (talk about bloated!). It feels rather sluggish with ugly interface.

That said, the printer works well and hp toolbox should not detract you from using the printer to full potential. And Mac OS X support is nice. When you print, a photo realistic LaserJet 1160 icon appears on the dock showing which page is printing.

If you are looking for true 1200 dpi printing (1160 prints at 600 dpi, only emulating 1200 dpi via REt and FastRes technologies), expandable memory, PCL 6 and emulated PostScript 2 compatibility (1160 supports only PCL 5e), automatic duplex printing, and higher capacity toner compatibility (6,000 pages at 5% coverage), consider 1320.