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A basic mono laser that prints for cheap
HP’s LaserJet 1018 is a basic mono laser printer designed for individual use on a desk.
When it's not printing, it has a small footprint, about the size of a plastic folder. Fold down the front panel to produce a paper feed tray for up to 150 sheets.
There's no cover for the paper when the machine is in use, though, so you're obliged to fold it up in between print jobs, or risk dust in the mechanism.
The HP LaserJet 1018 has just two indicator lights on the printer's top surface, to show power and any error conditions, like paper-out or a jam. Everything else is controlled from the printer software on a computer.
Maintaining the LaserJet 1018 is a simple matter; just open the top cover and slide in the integral drum and toner cartridge. This drops in and rotates slightly before locking into place.
The cartridge is good for around 2,000 pages and with the best price we could find being £37, it gives a cost per page of 2.35p.
This is a reasonable figure for this class of laser printer and is somewhat lower than, for example, the Lexmark E120n that comes in at just under 3p per page.
It's horses for courses, though, and the Lexmark E120n wins out over the LaserJet in other areas, such as its provision of a networking socket as standard.
The LaserJet 1018 comes with only a USB 2 socket and no provision for adding a network card as an option. As a personal laser printer, this may not be a problem, but you might still want to network it on a home network.
Text print quality is very good, with crisp and dense black characters, though areas of tint, such as in backgrounds to business graphics, are not so good.
There's quite a bit of variation in tone, which can make text printed over graphics, such as in a diagram, hard to read.
Photographs suffer from this uneven print of tints, too, though this is not a major task for most laser printers.
The LaserJet 1018 prints quickly, at just under 10ppm, which is close to its rating of 12ppm.
In all, a basic, yet solid mono laser printer.
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Dell Laser 1110
Verdict: A good value mono laser printer from a source that
might not spring to mind
Rating: 4
Price: £93
Our verdict
Good points • Clean black text • Easy-to-fit cartridge • Real-life speed of 10ppm Bad points • No networking option • Uneven grey tints Overall The HP LaserJet 1018 is a simple, but effective mono laser printer with fast, black text print.
£78
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HP 1018 & Canon LBP 2900 User review
After very brief use I am impressed by the cost effectiveness of this simple printer for home use alongside other lasers I have. Mine was less than £40 as a special at Comet and the text print quality is excellent. The very similar but more robust Canon LBP 2900 I bought for my wife some months ago was better value at the same price in PCWorld, esp. as this came with a full extra toner offer that month, but I haven't been able to find this again. The Canon one has a doct output tray which is more fiddly to fold out but gives much better dust exclusion. Both are as cheap as an inkjet for home use and much cheaper to run. The HP 1018 has 3000 page (Std. ones are 2000 only) refilled toner cartridges for less than £20 on eBay.
Posted by D Shoreman, 07 Nov 2008
Big problem with USB 2.0
Not work on USB 2.0 under win XP and LINUX
Posted by Dincher Isouf, 24 Jan 2009