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[/amazon_link]We’ve been nursing our HP1012 laserjet along for a number of years, and I say nursing, not because there was anything wrong with it, but because it’s drivers were designed for Windows XP, and the Windows 7 drivers never really worked that well, making it unwilling to network across my home LAN. Otherwise it’s always been reliable.
While shopping for a laptop for an aunt, I picked up the current version of the 1012, an HP 1102w (the “w” is for wireless) with the thought of setting it up for her along with the new computer. When I realized that she had a few years worth of color cartridges on hand for her HP multifunction ink-jet though, I decided to take it back to BestBuy.
On the long drive home (the aunt lives a few hours away) I got to thinking about how nice it would be if all the computers in my house had a printer they could talk to, instead of everyone taking over my system when they needed a laser. After all, $140 isn’t a lot of money, and maybe I’ll find a use for the old one somewhere else. So I decided to keep the printer and set it up for myself.
Setup on my windows 7 machine was remarkably painless. Though I was stymied by not reading the instructions on where all the orange remove-before-use tabs were installed. On the first computer (mine) I plugged in the USB cable and the “smart install” software offered to run and find my wireless router automatically. I’m all for letting someone who knows what they’re doing take charge, even if they are a laser printer. The software identified my router and asked for the WEP key to connect, then went on to hook up with the computer.
I inadvertently gave it the wrong WEP key, and the printer gamely tried to work with it for about five minutes before giving up with a simple cannot connect message and advising me to disconnect the USB, reboot the printer and reconnect. Which I did, but fortunately realized my error the second time around and the printer installed in just a few minutes. The second and third computers, not being USB connected, actually went easier, since I used the CD to load the drivers, then used the “add printer” option on “printers and devices” to add a “network printer.” Both my gal’s laptop and our living room media PC (both running Windows 7 Home Premium) found the printer right away and allowed me to set it as the default.With that taken care of, I can remove at least one set of cables from my life now that all three systems can print wirelessly.
Everything should be so easy.
The HP 1102w is about as plain a printer as you could ask for, but that’s fine by me. The feature I like best, which it shares with its ancient cousin, is the 8.5 second first print feature, along with a healthy speed of (up to) 19 pages per minute. More often than not I’m only looking for one page, so that’s fine by me.
The printer has two paper paths, so you can print envelopes while keeping the 150 sheet tray full, and the driver supports manual duplexing, which is ok in a home-office machine where you don’t want to have to fuss with service to an automatic duplexer. Best of all is the small footprint, about the same as a sheet of paper, and the bantam weight, which makes it easy to move around as you need. As far as pages per cartridges, the spec on the CE285A cartridge is 1600 pages, which breaks down to about four cents a page for toner, which I can live with very comfortably.
I expect this printer will be around my home office for a long, long, time…
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