HP LaserJet Pro 100 Color MFP M175nw Starts as a Bargain but Doesn’t Stay One

These days, color laser multifunction printers don’t come at much lower prices than the HP LaserJet Pro 100 Color MFP M175nw. At just $350 (as of August 29, 2011), it offers print/scan/copy/fax capabilities–and a lot of connectivity–in a compact, shiny-black package. Unfortunately, the machine is rather slow and limited for busy home- or small-office users, and its toner is expensive.

The LaserJet Pro 100 Color MFP is pretty easy to install via USB or ethernet; though the WPS-only Wi-Fi setup is relatively bothersome, you’ll need it to enjoy the machine’s compatibility with cloud-printing services from HP and Dell.

Using the 1.0 version installation CD, we encountered smeary-looking output when printing on heavier paper (including HP’s own 220g glossy paper for color lasers). The problem arose only with certain applications, including Microsoft PowerPoint, and Adobe Acrobat, Illustrator, and Photoshop. HP has incorporated a fix into the 1.1 version of the installation CD–and you can also find the fix online–but we wish that HP had made the update available for automatic download during installation.

The driver update couldn’t solve all the Laserjet Pro 100 Color MFP’s performance problems. Chief among these: It’s slow, printing plain text on plain paper at a rate of less than 11 pages per minute whether on the PC or the Mac—below the average for this product category. Copying speed was poky, and scanning speeds were interminable. On the Mac, a full-page photos took about 80 seconds to print; that works out to a speed of 0.75 ppm.

Output quality ranged from competent to disappointing. Color images showed a subtle backdrop of very fine horizontal lines, which made images look slightly fuzzy. Scanned images had a distinctly yellow cast and harsh shadows. Line-art scans showed jagged curves and busy moiré patterning in intricate areas.

The HP LaserJet Pro 100 Color MFP has just enough features to handle a basic small- or home-office situation. Paper-handling features include a 150-sheet paper tray on the bottom of the unit, and a 35-sheet automatic document feeder for the letter-size scanner. The 50-sheet output tray is modest, and duplexing is manual only. There are no media-card slots.

The LaserJet 100 M175nw uses a fairly unique rotating cartridge system. A button on the control panel positions each cartridge for removal, however, you must close the cover before you rotate to the next cartridge, which makes replacing multiple cartridges quite tedious.

Of greater concern is the price HP charges for its toner cartridges. The 1200-page black cartridge costs $50, or 4.2 cents per page, while the 1000-page magenta, yellow, and cyan cartridges cost $56 apiece or 5.4 cpp. Altogether, a four-color page costs a whopping 20.4 cents. We’ve seen remanufactured and compatible toner cartridges offered online for about 40 percent lees.

The documentation is well written and thorough, but it’s available online only. We remembered why we didn’t like this approach when we ran into a dead end (‘page not found’) while seeking help on how to change the toner cartridges.

The HP LaserJet Pro 100 Color MFP M175nw sports a low price tag, but it makes you pay in other ways, from time idling as you wait for output to appear, to high toner costs. There aren’t many good options at this low end of the category, but the Dell 1355cnw is a little faster.