The printer that keeps on going! (HP Laserjet 6p)

Member Name: richard_richard

Product:	HP Laserjet 6p
Date:	08/06/04 (2355 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reliability, Value for money, Print quality

Disadvantages: Discontinued model

After a slight break, I?m back reviewing another printer!

I?ve chosen to review the Hewlett Packard Laserjet 6P, as this is a well know printer and we have a large number of these in the office I work at.

This laser jet printer is designed for office use and has certainly been a reliable workhorse in our workplace for a number of years.

The 6P printer was first introduced about 6 years ago and has long been discontinued by Hewlett Packard. This isn?t to say that it is an obsolete printer, as there is still a lot of use you can get out of these machines. They are very reliable and seem to keep going and churning out the print jobs!

The major downside with a printer that has been discontinued is that if you do get a breakdown, they are invariably very expensive to repair?

It?s rather difficult to give a price guide for these printers as they are no longer made by HP. Originally they would probably have set you back around £400, although now you might be able to pick up a second hand model for peanuts!


Specs
By today?s standards the 6P?s specifications are not particularly impressive. On board memory is 4mb. The printer will output at a maximum resolution of 600 x 600 dpi. The best printing speed you can expect with these printers is around 8 pages per minute. Ok, these figures may not seem that fantastic, but they are still more than adequate for most document processing in the workplace.

The printer features two paper trays. These consist of a slide out lower paper tray and an upper paper feeder tray. There is also a rear paper feeder, which generally tends to get little use in our workplace!

The 6P features six indicator lights to bring your attention to its various functions. These lights will indicate if the printer is in use, if the paper needs to be refilled in the trays, or if there are errors with printing.

There are two buttons on the top of the printer. The first of th
ese allows you to put the printer on or off line, and the other is a cancel button, which allows you to remove print jobs from the printer?s memory.

The printer features an input for a parallel cable and an infra red sensor, but no onboard network connection facilities. If you want this printer to run on a network, you?ll need one of HP?s Jet Direct boxes.

As usual the printer is the standard beige colour, which will surprise no one I?m sure!


In Use
Once connected up, these printers should function reliably without too many problems.

The printer warms up very quickly and can be ready to accept print jobs in about 20 seconds after first being switched on.

Print response times will vary according to the sort of documents you are sending to the printer. For standard letters the print speed is very acceptable, however when graphics are used, the print response times will slow down a bit. This is more than likely due to the fact that the printer only has 4mb memory, which is not quite sufficient to deal with large or complex graphics. For most day to day print requests, this printer performs admirably.

The resolution of 600 x 600 dpi is more than acceptable for printing documents. This resolution is still pretty decent by today?s standards and for printing text, it is pretty much all you need.

The print quality is clear and sharp for text documents and is well up to the standard required for professional office documents. However, when printing graphics or photos, things can become a little bit indistinct and murky as the printer lacks any clever photo enhancement technology on board. If you require this sort of thing, one of the latest HP laser jets would be more suited to the task.

Reliability is the bit plus point for these printers. They do seem to keep going and will take all sorts of abuse over the years. We have experienced few failures with these printers and most printer repair peo
ple I?ve spoken to will acknowledge that these printers are most impressive in the reliability stakes.

One thing to bear in mind is that the 6P can be susceptible to print jams, especially if the printer is not serviced and cleaned out on a regular basis. As with all laser jets, these printers can get very hot inside so turning them off occasionally to allow the workings to cool down is a good practice to get into.

Looking at disadvantages, well there are few to name really. The major one is that this model is now discontinued, so if you do happen to come across one you want to use, bear this in mind as if it breaks down, it will probably be rather costly to repair!


Conclusion
The Hewlett Packard 6P comes with a strong recommendation from myself. I have been most impressed with the performance of this particular model over the years. They represent bullet proof reliability, decent specifications and great value for money.

I think it speaks volumes that even after 6 years, this printer is probably the most prominent model in our workplace, and it?s only now that we are looking to start replacing them.

Thanks for reading!

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