HP Laserjet 1005W

Inkjets may have photo printing wrapped up, but they still have some way to go before they can match laser output.

For this reason home workers, and anyone who enjoys the luxury of a private office, will appreciate HP's latest sub-£200 personal laser printer.

The Laserjet 1005W is not as small as many other personal lasers on the market, but it's easier to install and maintain than most.

In particular, we like the way that swinging open the front engine cover causes the combined toner/developer cartridge to pop out and meet you.

Parallel and USB connectors are hidden under the left-hand side panel, so once they're plugged in and the panel replaced, there's little chance of your printer cable being yanked out by accident.

Another good feature is the power-on LED which very clearly flashes orange at you when the paper tray is empty.

Paper is loaded into an open tray which juts out at the front of the machine, protected by a see-through cover on which single-sheet multipurpose feeder guides are mounted.

Printed sheets churn out face-down on top of the printer, or can be ejected face-up across a fairly straight paper path to a door at the rear.

Printing is fast for text and graphics-heavy documents alike. In our tests, we output 20 copies of a Word document in one and a half minutes, with the first sheet completing in just 10 seconds.

Text and general graphics print quality is good too, although we had trouble with photo images even after experimenting with different resolutions and other print driver options. That said, you don't buy a personal mono laser for printing photos.

With this proviso, and the inevitable limitation of having no network upgrade path or Mac compatibility, the HP Laserjet 1005W is still a good product at a sensible price.

Contact: HP 08705 474 747
www.hp.co.uk

Specifications:

• 250-sheet input tray, single-sheet MP tray, 150-sheet output tray
• 14ppm mono
• 600dpi (1,200dpi quality with Ret)
• Single cartridge (2,500 sheets at 5 per cent coverage), toner cartridge £49.07 (£41.76 ex VAT)
• 1MB memory
• USB2 & parallel connections
• 7.3kg
• 415 x 486 x 254 mm (w x d x h)