A MUST HAVE FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS

We recently purchased the Hewlett Packard LaserJet1100 from a local office supply store in Florida for $299. We originally had a Desk Jet. We liked the Desk Jet, but we had problems of the ink smearing if we didn't let the paper air out for a few seconds and it was very slow and use a lot of ink cartridges. We went through about 1 ink cartridge a month. The Laser jet allows you to produce 8 pages per minute without the additional purchase of the memory for a faster production. We bought the printer approximately one month ago and we produce thousands of post cards for our business and the difference is amazing. The lettering is very crisp and is burned on to the card. The warranty is your standard 1 year parts and labor.

We were very interested in the amount of pages and how much the cost for the new cartridges are. After inquiring about numerous laser printers, we finally decided for the money, warranty, and the features that the Laser Jet 1100 was the best printer for our small business. The Laser Jet 1100's Toner Cartridge C4092A costs approximately $64 in your local office supply store. According to Hewlett Packard, they will warranty your toner cartridge for the life of the cartridge. You probably could get the cartridges a little cheaper on the internet. The Laser Jet 1100 gets approximately 2500 pages per cartridge which is approximately 2.6 cents per page depending on how much black ink is used per page. We have not yet had a paper jam, but just remember you must take out all the paper from the back tray before adding more. (There is a little sticker that comes with the printer for you to stick on next to the paper, so you don't forget)

CONS:

We only found a few problems with the LaserJet1100. 1)The speed is a little slow, but with the purchase of additional memory for the printer, you could pick up the spool speed, this LaserJet 1100 takes regular DIMM memory. 2) The problem with the sealing of the envelopes seems to occur with most laser printers. This must be due to the fact that the ink is "burned" on to the paper, which means that if you have envelopes in a humid area, you may have problems with the envelopes sealing.

This printer is very easy to set up and use, especially for those who don't really know what they are doing, like me. I think that this printer is overall a great printer and you know that Hewlett Packard is a well-known company and we have had no problems with previously owned Hewlett Packard printers, some of which lasted 8 years.

UPDATE ON AUGUST 23, 2001

We have had this printer for 6 months now and have realized that the printer is pulling multiple sheets through. I have seen that numerous people have been having the same problem. I am unsure whether or not this will be covered under the standard warranty. Of course we will be without our printer for quite some time to have it in for repairs. I will update you with the results of how the warranty repair goes.


UPDATE ON JANUARY 25, 2002

We contacted HP and they were very helpful. Of course the LaserJet 1100 is now discontinued. The gentleman asked numerous questions, ie serial #, model # and if we were using the special laserjet paper. I of course told him that we were. (I was not sure if using regular paper would void the warranty, I don't see why it would) They promptly offered to send us the "fix" a cardboard paper separater. If that didn't work, then they would promptly exchange the printer with a refurbished printer. The cardboard paper separater arrived approximately 3-5 days later. We installed it, with instructions that were quite difficult to understand. So far it appears to be working fine. Although the idea of having a cardboard piece fixing a $300 printer is quite weird.