HP LaserJet 5P
The HP LaserJet 5P has taken up a corner of my loft office for the past several years. It’s old and tired but I don’t want to part with it because it’s so good. It was originally designed for individuals or small workgroups and I inherited it when I took over this company. It isn’t something I would have bought, but after owning it for some time, I change my mind on that.
It’s a basic monochrome laser printer that was industry leading in its day, but has obviously fallen a bit behind lately. I’m quite attached to it though as it hasn’t let me down at all since I owned it. It isn’t the largest device in the world, measuring 15.7” x 17.5” x 7.9” and weighing in at 25 lbs.
It prints at something like 6 pages per minute, which isn’t very fast, but is plenty enough for me. I’m not generally in a hurry so I don’t mind waiting. It holds 250 sheets of letter sized paper in the drawer at the front, while it has a 100 page bypass tray just above it. Finished prints are left on top for me to collect when I’m ready.
I print mainly in draft mode, which is the quickest but also not really any different than normal mode with the 5P. The quality is good, even for something this old. I use only text printing so have no real idea how it handles photographs or other images. Text and fonts are sharp, precise and pretty much all I want from my prints. Even the smaller text characters, or when I try to squeeze a lot onto a page, it’s still readable.
Toner cartridges are still available from vendors like Quikshiptoner.com and are around $35 for 4000 pages worth. That’s a couple of months work for me, and a single months duty cycle for the printer. So running costs are actually kept to a minimum, due to this low cost and the fact it’s an all-in-one cartridge meaning I don’t have to renew the drum regularly either.
It’s old, but it’s gold. The HP LaserJet 5P is a solid, dependable printer that won’t be going anywhere until it gives up for good. Knowing Hewlett Packard’s reputation for building solid machines, I doubt that will be anytime soon.
It’s a basic monochrome laser printer that was industry leading in its day, but has obviously fallen a bit behind lately. I’m quite attached to it though as it hasn’t let me down at all since I owned it. It isn’t the largest device in the world, measuring 15.7” x 17.5” x 7.9” and weighing in at 25 lbs.
It prints at something like 6 pages per minute, which isn’t very fast, but is plenty enough for me. I’m not generally in a hurry so I don’t mind waiting. It holds 250 sheets of letter sized paper in the drawer at the front, while it has a 100 page bypass tray just above it. Finished prints are left on top for me to collect when I’m ready.
I print mainly in draft mode, which is the quickest but also not really any different than normal mode with the 5P. The quality is good, even for something this old. I use only text printing so have no real idea how it handles photographs or other images. Text and fonts are sharp, precise and pretty much all I want from my prints. Even the smaller text characters, or when I try to squeeze a lot onto a page, it’s still readable.
Toner cartridges are still available from vendors like Quikshiptoner.com and are around $35 for 4000 pages worth. That’s a couple of months work for me, and a single months duty cycle for the printer. So running costs are actually kept to a minimum, due to this low cost and the fact it’s an all-in-one cartridge meaning I don’t have to renew the drum regularly either.
It’s old, but it’s gold. The HP LaserJet 5P is a solid, dependable printer that won’t be going anywhere until it gives up for good. Knowing Hewlett Packard’s reputation for building solid machines, I doubt that will be anytime soon.
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