HP LaserJet P2015d

...people are using the larger HP LaserJet 4100tn, and I have also (before a room move) used the 4100tn for letters. This holds quite a bit more paper than the 2015D (twice as much in fact) and therefore doesn't struggle quite as much as the 2015D.

PRINT QUALITY
Whereas the Lexmark has a certain grainy quality to it, letters printed on the P2015D have a very nice finish (it's 1200dpi), particularly when using a decent weight headed ...
...there are no difficulties. I'm a 'professional' and it's important that the letters I write also look professional; the P2105D does that admirably.

SPEED
It's also pretty quick! It will easily pump out 20+ pages in less than a minute. Should you send anything other than a text document to it then that will slow down a bit, but that happens with every single printer I've ever used! I think it will do double sided too, but have ... more

Now before I start I should make it clear I'm reviewing this as an end user and as a bloke who has one sitting on a shelf right outside my office door, rather than as a tech who has to look after the thing... and from my side of the fence it seems to be a good little printer!

INSTALLATION & MAINTAINENCE
I'm afraid I can't tell you how easy it is to install one of these on a network. It seems to me one day one of the techs came along, plugged it in and was done, but I'm sure there must be more too it than that! Whenever inky bits need replacing again a tech pops along and is usually done in a matter of moments. I think there is a cartridge in there somewhere but have never poked about; the most maintenance I've done is to drop the odd sheaf of paper in there! (Incidentally, and in case you were wondering, that is very easy to do - the hardest part for me is opening those pesky boxes of A4!)

As far as I'm aware the P2015D hasn't had any other maintenance an it seems like nothing has gone wrong with it while it has been there, so on that basis reliability appears to be very good.

DAILY USE
My default black-and-white printer is actually a large Lexmark W820 (which I know because I just copied the numbers off the machine), which is used for the bigger jobs. I use a fancy Xerox 7245 Workcentre (ditto) for the colour stuff and copying/scanning. The P2015D serves to print letters and letters only, but in my line of work I write a LOT of letters, and a lot of those are rather long! The other 5 people who are linked in to this little fella (little as in not as big as the others - it is still a pretty chunky unit) write a lot of letter too, so this machine prints a lot of stuff every day.

I believe the one in my office has an expanded memory too; I don't know what it is expanded to, but it can be expanded from 32 MB onboard memory to 288 MB. This is a good thing, because the paper tray isn't the biggest in the world and on the odd occasion when it runs dry of paper the print queue can grow a bit long pretty quickly, and lazy as it sounds my pet hate is having to send stuff to the printer a second or third time because there's a problem somewhere.

Elsewhere in the department other people are using the larger HP LaserJet 4100tn, and I have also (before a room move) used the 4100tn for letters. This holds quite a bit more paper than the 2015D (twice as much in fact) and therefore doesn't struggle quite as much as the 2015D.

PRINT QUALITY
Whereas the Lexmark has a certain grainy quality to it, letters printed on the P2015D have a very nice finish (it's 1200dpi), particularly when using a decent weight headed paper like we do. Everything looks very crisp indeed and there are no difficulties. I'm a 'professional' and it's important that the letters I write also look professional; the P2105D does that admirably.

SPEED
It's also pretty quick! It will easily pump out 20+ pages in less than a minute. Should you send anything other than a text document to it then that will slow down a bit, but that happens with every single printer I've ever used! I think it will do double sided too, but have never tried as our letters are strictly single-sided affairs (not very eco I know…). Perhaps I'll give that a whirl and see.

NOISE
The P2015D is really quite quiet; this is a big plus in my book as it is slap bang outside my door. If I'm in the office later at night (i.e. when everyone else has gone to the pub) I can just about make out a whirr from outside the door as it spits out the pages, but during the day with the usual office sounds it isn't something I notice. This is very different from the Lexmark, which I can easily hear warming up and spitting out each individual page - despite the fact it is a good 10 metres and a partition further away.

WOULD I RECOMMEND IT?
For a small office, yes I would. Similarly if you're looking for a printer to use for a smaller workgroup (I believe this can serve up to 10 users) or for a dedicated purpose (such as for letters alone, as in my office) then it is a good piece of kit. For heavier users then it might not be so good; I suspect you'd be forever refilling the paper tray.

p.s. I've rated the instruction manual, picture quality, coloour sensitivity and support as 'satisfactory' but only because I've not experienced them or because they're not relevant. Should I have cause to use them I'll update! 

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