HP LaserJet 1018 review

The LaserJet 1018 is the most affordable model in HP's mono laser printer range, but it's only the fourth-cheapest in this group. At just 12ppm, it has the slowest engine speed here.

This printer looks similar to Canon's LBP-3000. While the LBP-3000 arrives with a full-capacity 2,000-page consumable, however, HP ships the LaserJet 1018 with just a 1,000-page starter supply. It's easy to prepare this and drop it into the printer.

HP's simple installation utility is quick and painless, making this one of the easiest printers here to get up and running. The LaserJet should also prove simple to maintain, with just a single consumable to replace every 2,000 pages or so. Each replacement toner costs about £39, though, so this printer is fairly expensive to run.

The LaserJet 1018 has a single-sheet multipurpose feed in addition to its 150-sheet input tray. The tray has no cover, but paper and envelope orientations are marked for both inputs. Envelopes printed with no creasing, though its lack of a paper feed button means you have to return to the computer between each one to click Continue.

This printer was the slowest when printing our text tests, and the second slowest over the 24 pages of our mixed-colour test. It printed photos quickly, but we weren't too impressed with the results. Images seemed to be softened to reduce the signs of dithering, leaving some grey fills reminiscent of charcoal drawings.

At its top quality setting, our black-and-white test photograph printed with sharp horizontal bands that looked like interference on a television screen. Photographs and graphics both looked slightly better at the default 600dpi quality setting. The LaserJet's black text looked fine to the naked eye, though magnification revealed tiny amounts of stray toner around the outline of each character.

Author: Simon Handby