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HP Laserjet 1320

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$179.00 - $239.99
From 7 Merchants

PC World Editor's Review

by Paul Jasper

This tiny printer can perform automatic double-sided printing, but prints graphics very slowly and has a limited paper capacity.

The HP LaserJet 1320 has an eye-catching two-tone design. It's amazingly compact, considering that it has a built-in duplexer. This two-sided printing capability can be a boon when it comes to long documents, but the feature contributes to the 1320's hefty $400 price tag.

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The unit comes with a 250-sheet paper input tray for holding everyday paper. Envelopes and other odd-size media are relegated to the manual-feed slot, which accommodates only one item at a time. The bin atop the printer has room for 125 sheets to arrive face-down. The rear output door pulls down to provide a straight-through path for thicker media such as envelopes.

The 1320 achieved a respectable 8.8 pages per minute on our text printing tests, but it slowed to a lackadaisical 2.8 ppm on our graphics tests. Text looked crisp, and our line-art sample had sharp lines and only a little vertical banding, though we saw some fading in blocks of closely spaced lines. Though the photo print came out too light and had lots of horizontal banding, it retained good detail and had none of the distracting moire patterns we see so often from laser printers.

We connected the 1320 to our test system via its USB 2.0 port (it also has a parallel port). Other versions of this printer, including the $500 1320n, have built-in networking--but this model lacks a network interface, and you can't add a network card to it.

Upshot: The HP LaserJet 1320 has some desirable features and produces good-looking text, but the high price and poor graphics quality are serious limitations.

HP LaserJet 1320

Rated 22 ppm, Standard 16MB of RAM, 1200-by-1200-dpi maximum resolution, 250 sheets input, 125 output; USB 2.0 ports. One-year warranty, 12-hour weekday toll-free phone support.
$399
800/752-0900
www.hp.com

Paul Jasper

User Reviews for HP Laserjet 1320

Reviewed by: toddster63

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Gorgrous tex quality, duplex printing

Weaknesses: LOUD, like a Hyundai

Overall Evaluation: I love my new 1320--I took back a Brother 2040 that was curling paper and giving lighter grayish text for this model; I believe the 1320 is now discontinued (12/06), for the new 2015 line that offers a much better manual feed tray--the 1320 can only accept one single manual sheet/envelope at a time.Perhaps because of this, I got my 1320 for 1/2 retail, including shipping, off of eBay, making it a superlative buy: outstanding quality text and effortless two sided printing (duplex) for $200 shipped.Plus, people now come over and say, "Ooooh, you have a LASERJET!"The manual feed (that other reviewers have complained about) hasn't given me a lick of trouble--printing single envelopes is a breeze.Only drawback is that this puppy is LOUD! And it isn't a "pretty" laser printer kinda sound (like the Brother or Samsungs make), this thing sounds like a Hyundai putzing down the street. If it suddenly started to print while I was sleeping, it would wake me...The text quality (and in a monochrome laser printer, isn't that what you're after?) is outstanding--as good as I've seen on $2500 Laserjets. Really, it just can't be beat (runs circles around the Brothers and Samsungs I checked out).I love the scaled down workgroup laser printer design with the incorporated paper tray--very chic int the home office, and much more attractive than those newer low end personal Laser printers with the paper jutting out like an inkjet...Setup on my Intel MacBook on an Apple Airport WIFI netwok was a little tricky--I had to download a newer driver from hp, but within and hour or two I was printing wirelessly! The CD that came with the printer had some qualms about loaing on my Mac--I had to reinsert it several times.
Reviewed by: aglyport

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Decent hardware, 1 minute Linux cups config

Weaknesses: Windows crapware the printer comes with is absolutely awful. Forget about it if you have a router.

Overall Evaluation: The usual story of the modern age: ok hardware and crappy software. It's absolutely awful: the driver WON'T showup in the list of the printer drivers even now thatI connected the printer directly thru a usb cable.You can NOT hook it up using the standard Windows 2000/XPprinter services. It insists on its own P.O.S. software.This should be bundled with a windows admin rental tohookup on windows if you run the printer off an LPR router.Forget about using the built in printer duplexer from windows:using HP LJ 1220PS driver bundled with XP.

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