Hewlett - Packard LaserJet 1320tn review

Hewlett-Packard is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its LaserJet printers with the launch of five new mono lasers.

The LaserJet 1320 series is aimed at small workgroup use, and even the base model has duplex printing as standard. This top-of-the-range 1320tn also has a network interface and a second 250-sheet input tray, giving it a 500-page capacity.

The 1320 is a compact printer with a conservative design. The tn's extra paper tray gives it almost perfectly cubic proportions, but rounded edges prevent it from appearing too boxy. A single consumable replaces both the imaging drum and toner, and is available with either 2,500 or 6,000 page yields.

Rather than using DHCP to obtain an IP address, the printer defaults to manual configuration. It's not possible to change the IP address via the printer's limited control panel or a USB connection, which makes configuration tricky.

The LaserJet performed quickly in some of our print tests, producing both our 50-page document and school letter tests at 20.5 pages per minute (ppm). It seemed to struggle with more complex jobs, however. Our mixed-colour document was printed at just 5.5ppm, and two A4 photos took over two minutes.

The printer's 133MHz processor is quite slow, but the long print preparation times might be reduced by upgrading its standard 16MB memory. It's not possible to upgrade its unexceptional print quality, though. Although the 1320's text is crisp, blacks from the best laser printers are darker. There's little banding in its graphical output, but contrast could be much better.

The LaserJet 1320 shows how far affordable laser printing has come since HP's 1984 LaserJet Classic, which cost around £2,000 and could print eight 300dpi pages per minute. However, if you don't need duplex printing, Lexmark's E332TN (see What's New, Shopper October 2004) is faster, cheaper, holds more paper and produces better prints.