- Full-color All-in-One can print, copy, scan, and fax
- Print at speeds up to 12 ppm black and 8 ppm color at 600 x 600 dpi
- 24-bit color scanner scans up to 19,200 dpi
- 150-sheet paper tray and 50-sheet automatic document feeder
- Built-in 10/100 wired Ethernet network connectivity
Positives:
+ Much faster and sharper printing than even high-quality inkjets when printing typical office documents
+ Prints evenly and consistently even large areas of highly saturated color on plain paper, unlike the banded printing from inkjets on plain paper
+ Easy to install on XP, Vista, and Win7 64 as both a USB and network printer
+ Quiet
+ Sheetfeeder is convenient and reliable
+ Prints at the same speed and quality regardless of how long it sits idle or off, unlike an inkjet printer that often needs cartridges replaced or cleaned after sitting idle for a couple of weeks.
+ Doesn''t spew gobs of ink on paper at random intervals, which many inkjets do, especially after they''ve been sitting idle for some time
+ EXCELLENT print output very sharp even at small print sizes and fine lines
Negatives:
I have the same problems as others when scanning using the sheetfeeder: Scans always come out as 8.5 x 14.
Low paper capacity. Why doesn''t EVERY printer come with a 500 sheet bin? Do manufacturers really save any money by making the smaller bin?
Manual feed is not easy to use. Basically, you need to pull out the drawer and put what you want printed in the regular drawer.
Scanning from front panel isn''t working for me, which should be easy to do. Perhaps this is the problem others indicate when they say it is hard to set up. Scanning is fine when you start it from the computer.
Won''t email without talking to a computer. I really like that feature in the more expensive models, and it shouldn''t be that difficult to implement.
Wont'' print truly photo-quality as well as a photo inkjet, but the prints on photo paper are still VERY good.
Do I REALLY need a THREE HUNDRED megabyte package of drivers and software just to print? How about a light-weight software option HP? Better yet, how about building the drivers into the printer''s built-in web server so that I don''t have to get those monster packages from the Internet? Why can''t I manage ALL settings from the built-in web pages?
-+ I wasn''t satisfied with the default scan settings, but after tweaking to boost the image quality, I am happy with the scan quality and speed.
Regarding the price of prints: Although a set of cartridges sets you back about 260 bucks, that will not get you anywhere near the $1.00+ price per page others talk about. My conservative estimate at cost is about $0.15/page in color including paper, less in B/W. If you force B/W printing for most output, you will be closer to $0.04/page. Having spent a ton of money on ink cartridges for inkjets, only to waste much of the ink on cleaning and reprints when gobs of ink land on my output, I think the overall cost of ownership will be close to even or better when compared to a typical inkjet. Counting the cost of time and frustration in the cost of using an inkjet will further weigh the cost per print in favor of the CM1312nfi.
Some other "negative" points are speed, lack of duplex scanning/printing, and some other bells and whistles mentioned in other reviews. I don''t count these negative points against this printer since these are features that you really can''t expect in this price class. I looked long and hard at the HP CM2320, but the much higher cost of entry didn''t seem to pay off for me. Including a set of cartridges, the 1312 costs 30-50% less than the 2320.
I compared this printer to Brother and Samsung MFPs at a local office supply store. The output quality, speed, and overall build quality are significantly higher than similarly priced competitors. The output quality of a color brochure copied on each of the brands is what sold me on the HP the CM1312 output is MUCH better than the other brands. I also expect to be able to service and purchase supplies for an HP long after Samsung and Brother are forgotten about.
I''d give this printer a solid 4 stars if I could get the scanning from the front panel and the auto page size recognition to work. I won''t count things against this printer that it really isn''t designed to handle, like true photo quality and high speed. Anticipating being able to work out the bugs with scanning and page size, I''ll give this a 3.5 and round up to 4 stars.
Buy HP CM1312NFI Color LaserJet Printer Now
I purchased this printer instead of the 2840 due to bad driver reviews associated with the 2840. Unfortunately, the drivers for this device are bad too. Beginning with the minimum install size of 400 MB. Yes, the driver automatically installs all sorts of maintenance and other applications. No, you cannot deselect them during or after the install. The drivers also add 32 seconds to boot time for every PC I installed them on.The upsides are that the color prints coming out of this machine are amazing. The color copy feature is awesome too. The device draws only 7.5 watts in sleep mode and it is very quiet (no loud fans running during sleep mode).
Overall printing 5 stars and driver 1 star, so I rated it in the middle. One more thing. Just FYI, I found the HP Color Laserjet 5M driver works for this printer and does not add 32 seconds or 400 MB to my PC operation. I am sure there are some features missing, but...
Read Best Reviews of HP CM1312NFI Color LaserJet Printer Here
This is an awesome printer! For so many reasons.1.) It''s an all in one or better yet, a 4 in one (print, copy, scan, fax). Many of the newer printers haven''t included fax recently.
2.) It''s compact shorter than the HP 2840 which is a huge monstrosity. The toner cartridges are secured horizontally (front to back) rather than vertically (top to bottom). This saves a lot of room.
3.) It''s simple and the most user friendly printer I''ve ever purchased from HP. It''s Vista operative and the software that comes with it is more of a help than a hindrance. The organization of the buttons and functions on the front panel makes sense. The color LCD screen is also easy to navigate. You won''t feel like every navigating decision will be binding like some display screens. HP combined modern technology, simplicity, and the traditional needs of an all in one to arrive at their best printer yet.
4.) It''s affordable too in comparison to the HP 2840 all in one. The toner is also less expensive than the Q6000 series of toner that is needed in the 2840 and other related LaserJet printers.
I highly recommend this printer if you have a small/home based business! Or if you just like having it all... all in one.
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I received this printer as a birthday gift and looked at the reviews here before opening the box. I must admit that I was somewhat leery after reading all of the complaints, but since it was a gift I decided to give it a try. After about a month of use, I have to say that I don''t understand what all the griping is about. I have had no issues with this machine at all, using it in a home office environment.I am using it as a network printer with drivers installed on Windows 7 (64-bit), Vista (64and 32-bit), and Mac OS-X platforms. I downloaded all of the drivers from the HP support site. Yes, it is a 300M download, but is that such a big deal these days? The one problem with the HP site is that the names of the files are somewhat cryptic. I installed the first item in the Software section that had "Full Solution" and "AM" in the title. Don''t be tempted to install the much smaller Universal Print Driver unless you are not interested in scanning.
As far as noise goes, I don''t advise switching the machine on and off frequently. Each time you do that, the printer will go through a calibration cycle that takes a few minutes and is a bit noisy. Not overly so, but perhaps enough to wake someone in an adjacent room. I checked the standby power to see how bad it was to leave it on all the time. In its deepest sleep mode it consumes about 15 watts (roughly $1.50/month). If you do decide to turn it off, you can send a print job and then walk over and switch on the printer. Your job will print before the calibration, although there is a bit of a start-up delay. When printing, it is no noiser than my old HP inkjet and several times faster. I haven''t bothered to check the actual page/min rate because the thing is so much better than what I was used to.
One thing that I have not tried is the "Additional Software" installation option that comes in the driver bundle. I think this installs scan/OCR utilities, but don''t know for sure. I''m guessing that the additional software accounts for a big part of the 300M download size. Since I already had a program that I was comfortable with (PaperPort) I just stuck with that. Network scanning works great. One of the first things that I tried was using the automatic feeder to scan a multi-page document. 600 dpi scanning is a bit slow, but 300 dpi grayscale scanning is fast and of sufficient quality for most tasks. There were some complaints about not being able to do 8-1/2 x 11 pages. I did not find that to be a problem, but I did have to go through a setup wizard in the scan software to get it to work.
As far as toner usage goes, I haven''t owned it long enough to say much. I did see several people on eBay selling refill kits in the $50 range that had good reviews. Print quality is great for text. Photos are OK, good enough for a quick print, but not a replacement for photographic paper or dye-sub printers.
Overall I am very glad that I decided to open the box. Sometimes you have to ignore the 1-stars and try it for yourself.
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