HP LaserJet M1522nf - DigitalVersus

HP LaserJet M1522nf

STORES	£
Printerland	292.58
Euroffice	325.69




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Specifications
Resolution	600 x 600 ppp
Speed B&W / color	23
Ink drop size	picolitres
Number of cartridges	1
Number of base colors	1
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Scanner	yes
Copier	yes
Fax	yes
WiFi	no
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Nilofar Hadjanadjiboudine
Updated: July 22, 2009 - Test date: July 20, 2009

Scanner and copier

As fast as the M1522nf might be at printing pages, it's still very slow at scanning. You'll need to wait 27 seconds for a basic preview, and then 20 seconds for a full scan of a 4 x 6'' print at 300 dpi.

Contrast is well respected, but scans are lacking in detail, while gradients are lost due to blurring. A black-and-white copy takes around ten seconds and text is generally readable. However, images are a little more complicated: they're too dark and different colours are lost. Sometimes, it's even difficult to make out the original image in the copy.

Build Quality

The HP LaserJet M1522 is a black-and-white multifunction laser printer. We tested the 4-in-1 version, the M1522nf, which includes a fax machine. For those who can make do without a fax, there is an alternative, the M1522n

The M1522nf includes an Ethernet port and 64 MB of memory, enough for a workgroup of eight to ten people printing straightforward office documents. It includes a paper reserve capable of holding 250 pages, and a sheet feeder for up to 50 pages. However, its double-sided mode is manual. It comes with drivers for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Printing Speed: Office Use

HP claims speeds of 23 pages per minute for this printer, and delivers them, reaching 23.2 ppm for our test documents.

The other claim that we're pleased to confirm is the time it takes to print the first page of a document. As promised by the manufacturer, it arrives in 9 seconds, whether the printer is ready or on standby.

Printing Quality: Office Use

The good news is how well colours are converted to greys. Printing documents that were originally colour in black-and-white works well, and the M1522nf does better at this than most of the competition. As you can see in this image, that leads to a graceful gradient in the different bars of the chart, something which isn't easy to reproduce.

However, there's some bad news, too: without even looking up the specs, you can easily see that this a 600 dpi printer, not 1200 dpi. With a little bit of experience, or just by comparing its output to to a 1200 dpi printer, it's easy to see that the text at the bottom left of this photo (which should read "Color Photo 600 dpi") is too blurry. 1200 dpi printers can print much more accurate characters.

Enerrgy Use and Noise

In standby mode, this printer users nearly 9 W of power, but that climbs to an average of 450 W while its printing. Although there are less power-hungry printers, this score puts it in the lower average range, as some printers, like the Brother HL-5350DN can reach 600 W.

Cost per page

The cost per page is just 3.75 p, which is rather expensive as the competition is around 2.5 p, if not lower for some printers.

Cartridge	RRP	ISO Lifespan	Cost per page
CB436	£75	2000	3.75 p

The good news, though, is that this toner cartridge is an all-in-one, making it easy to know what to order.

Pluses

Quick to produce the first page

Supports PCL6 and PS3

Text quality in normal mode

Generally very fast

Minuses

Reasonably expensive per page for a laser printer

600 dpi means less precision than other models

Very average scanner

This is a printer that does the bare minimum, with no real surprises, apart, perhaps, from the speed at which it can print the first page. It can produce the first page very quickly, but every page that follows will be more expensive than some of its competitors.