Here I am with another printer opinion to help inform purchasing decisions. Thank you in advance for reading and I look forward to any comments you may leave.

First, a technical outline. The printer is supplied with 2Mb of internal memory as standard. In both cases, we upgraded to 8Mb internal memory. Now, as a basic guide, the more memory a printer has the quicker it can hand the computer activities back to the processor without interrupting for more print data. Remember this, it will be important in a couple of paragraphs time. The printer has a resolution of 600 dots per inch (dpi). This is a perfectly acceptable resolution for a laser printer and this uses no enhancement technology so it is a genuine 600dpi. Beware those that claim higher resolutions and then in the same sentence boast clever enhancing technologies. It is capable of 8 pages per minute and our experience is that this is a realistic expectation of the printer's output. Via various little sliders of plastic on the in tray it can take in a wide variety of different sized media. The paper tray we have installed on this printer claims to hold 100 sheets but jams (read below) are even more common if it is loaded to capacity. Fifty to seventy sheets is a more acceptable working load.
The printer can be connected standalone using a parallel port or as is more commonly the case with this workgroup printer, to a network using the inbuilt 10/100 adaptor.
We have the computer connected to a Windows network with an NT 4.0 server and Windows 98 clients but again, versatility is a plus point of HP printers and newer and older operating systems will not pose a problem. Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP and NT4.0 or higher are all covered as are Mac OS 8.1 or above.

To understand the different experiences we have had with these printers you need a small background to our printing system. (I promise to keep it short.) Printing from a computer sends the file to the server. At the server, it gets sucked bit by bit into an in queue and then the user gets full control of their computer once again. (Remember the important bit about memory that I promised to return to?) Now, the file gets moved to an outqueue from where the server send it bit by bit to the printer.

Printer number two is working that little bit harder, serving the rest of the network. Now, using the magic of complicated mathematics - if you have a file in say, Microsoft Word, that when saved will take up 1Mb, when in the print queue it breeds. There is no explaining it but as it appears in the print queue it swells to over twice its normal size. (Smutty comments to yourself please!) This is fine - the file then moves to the out queue and out to the printer - prints and all is well. Now, let's up the ante slightly. Twenty users all send a 1Mb file at the same time. Each file doubles in size - within milliseconds the printer memory is full and the server is desperately trying to communicate (thousands of times a second) with a printer that has now just stopped listening. Imagine if you will somebody gives you a task to do - you are about to begin and they give you another task ... and another ... and another. You become confused - disorientated and then without warning suffer a nervous breakdown and sit whimpering in the corner doing none of the jobs. Well, that is this printer. Regularly it was found whimpering in the corner with a print queue running to hundreds of megabytes. Clear the print queue, switch the printer off and on (which wipes the memory and is a printer's version of prozac) and all is well once again until the next pressure situation.