BY M. DAVID STONE

The HP Color LaserJet Pro M452dw ($499.99) should be at the top of your list if you’re looking for a color laser printer for your micro or small office. It’s a little too big to share a desk with comfortably as a personal printer, but it’s small enough to find room for in an office. Its text quality is slightly subpar for a color laser printer, but more than good enough for most business use, and its graphics quality was notably better than most laser printers can manage. Add in its speed, and the M452dwBest Price at Amazon delivers enough to make it our latest Editors’ Choice color laser printer.

The M452dw is a large step up from the HP Color LaserJet Pro M252dw$249.99 at HP, our top pick for personal or light-duty micro-office color lasers. The higher price buys you significantly faster speed on our tests and much better paper handling, with two trays rather than one, plus a manual feed, and twice the capacity. However, it’s also a significantly bigger and heavier printer. So despite both being appropriate to some extent for shared used in a micro office, the HP M252dw is the obvious choice for personal use, and the M452dw is the better fit for a micro or small office.

Basics and Beyond
For paper handling, the M452dw offers a 250-sheet main tray, a 50-sheet multipurpose tray, and a duplexer. This should be enough for most micro or small offices or workgroups, but if you need more, you can get an optional 550 sheet tray ($149.99) for a total of 850 sheets. Both the standard and maximum capacities are a step up from their equivalents for the Xerox Phaser 6500/DN$331.49 at Pricefalls.com, another top pick. The Xerox model comes with a 250-sheet tray plus a one-sheet manual feed, and the option to add a second 250-sheet tray.

Like more and more printers today, the M452dw also supports mobile printing. Connect it directly to a network via Ethernet or Wi-Fi, and you can connect to the printer through an access point on the network to print from Android, iOS, and Blackberry phones and tablets. Assuming the network is connected to the Internet, you can also print through the cloud.

If you connect to a single computer via USB cable instead, you’ll lose the ability to print through the cloud, but can still take advantage of the printer’s Wi-Fi Direct to connect directly from your phone or tablet to print. If your mobile device supports NFC, you can also establish the connection simply by touching the device to the NFC logo on the top left of the printer.

Setup and Speed
The M452dw measures 11.6 by 16.2 by 18.5 inches (HWD), which is why you probably won’t want it sitting on your desk, and it weighs 41 pounds 11 ounces, which is heavy enough that you might want some help moving it into place. Setup is standard fare. I connected it to a network using its Ethernet port for my tests, and installed the driver on a Windows Vista system.

Print speed is one of the M452dw’s best points. HP’s rating for the printer—which is the speed you should see with text or other documents that need little to no formatting—is 28 pages per minute (ppm) both for black-and-white and for color pages. On our business applications suite, I clocked it (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software) at 9.8ppm. That counts as impressive for both the price and the rated speed. The Xerox 6500/DN looks pokey next to the M452dw, with a speed of 5.4ppm on our tests. Similarly, the OKI C331dn$299.99 at Amazon, which is one of the faster models in this category on our tests, managed only 6.8ppm. Interestingly, I clocked the HP M252dw at a close second to the M452dw, at 8.3ppm.

Output Quality
Output quality is uneven. Text quality on our tests was slightly worse than most color lasers manage, graphics quality was far better than most of them offer, and photo quality was at the high end of a range that includes the vast majority of color lasers. The good news about text is that most color lasers offer such high quality that even being slightly below par is more than good enough for most business use. As long as you don’t have an unusual need for small fonts, you shouldn’t have a problem with the output.

The graphics quality is among the best I’ve seen on our tests for a color laser, making it easily good enough for marketing materials like tri-fold brochures and one-page handouts. Photos were nearly true-photo quality. However, colors were a little dark on our test output, and I saw some subtle banding on a black-and-white photo.

Conclusion
If text quality is a key concern for you, consider the HP M252dw as a light-duty option, or the Xerox 6500/DN, which offers  a step up in paper capacity and the option to add a second tray. Both deliver better text quality. If you don’t need unusually high-quality text, however, the HP M452dw’s balance of speed, paper capacity, and output quality is enough to put it well ahead of the competition and make it our Editors’ Choice.

• HP LaserJet Pro M402dw(pcmag.com)

BY M. DAVID STONE

If you need a color laser printer for heavy-duty personal use or light-duty shared use in a micro office, the HP Color LaserJet Pro M252dw ($299.99) is a terrific fit. Along with fast speed and high-quality output, it offers mobile printing, both Ethernet and Wi-Fi for connecting to a network, and even the ability to print from a USB memory key. The combination makes it our Editors’ Choice personal or light-duty color laser printer for a micro office.

The M252dw’s$159.00 at BUYDIG.com key strength is that it beats most of its competition for both speed and output quality. That’s a notable feat, considering that most color lasers in this price range tend to score well in only one of those categories. When I reviewed the Brother HL-3170CDW$248.94 at Amazon, for example, I pointed out that although it comes up a little short on output quality, it made up for that with its speed. The M252dw not only delivers higher-quality text, graphics, and photos than the Brother model, it’s convincingly faster, too.

Paper handling is the one area where the M252dw can’t match some other models in the same price class. It’s not hard to find printers, including the Brother HL-3170CDW, that offer a 250-sheet page capacity plus a single-sheet manual feed. The M252dw is limited to a 150-sheet tray plus a manual feed. That’s fine for most personal use, but a little low for a shared printer, which is what makes the M252dw best reserved for light-duty shared use even by micro-office standards. One helpful extra, however, is the built-in duplexer.

Mobile Printing and More
The M252dw offers other features that go beyond the basics, including its ability to print from a USB memory key. In addition, if you connect it to a network by Ethernet or Wi-Fi, and assuming the network is connected to the Internet, you can print through the cloud and can use the front-panel touch-screen to take advantage of HP Web apps. The Web apps let you print information from select websites, including Dropbox and Google Docs. You can also connect to the printer through an access point on your network to print from Android and iOS phones and tablets.

If you connect to a single computer via USB cable, you won’t be able to use HP’s Web apps or print through the cloud, but thanks to the printer’s Wi-Fi Direct, you’ll still be able to connect directly from your phone or tablet to print. For mobile devices that support NFC, you can also establish the connection simply by touching the device to the NFC logo on the front of the printer.

 

Setup and Speed
At 9.3 by 15.4 by 16.4 inches, and a hefty 27 pounds, the M252dw is on the big-and-heavy side for a personal printer, but still small enough to share a desk with and light enough for one person to move into place. Setup is standard fare. For my tests, I connected it to a network using its Ethernet port and installed the software on a system running Windows Vista.

The print speed is a definitive strong point. HP rates the M252dw at 19 pages per minute (ppm) both for color and for black and white, which is the speed you should see with text or other documents that need little to no formatting. On our business applications suite, I clocked it (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software) at 8.3ppm. That makes it surprisingly fast for both its price and its rated speed.

As a point of comparison, the Brother HL-3170CDW has a 23ppm rating, which in theory makes it roughly 20 percent faster than the M252dw. But its speed on our tests was 6.8ppm, which actually makes it more than 20 percent slower. The M252dw is even faster on our tests than the HL-L8250CDN$308.40 at Amazon, which Brother rates at 30ppm, but on our tests managed only a leisurely 6.6ppm.

Output Quality
Overall output quality is above par for a color laser, thanks primarily to the graphics output. Text is a match for most lasers, making it easily good enough for almost any business need. Colors in graphics are a touch dark in terms of a hue-saturation-brightness color model, but still suitably eye-catching and well saturated, and a step above the norm for the category.

Photo quality falls in the middle of a tight range that includes most color lasers. From two or three feet away, you could easily mistake the output for traditional photos, especially if they’re framed behind glass. Within that context, however, they aren’t very high quality.

Colors in the M252dw’s photos tended to be a little dark in testing, as was the case with its graphics but more so. Most people would consider the text and graphics good enough for marketing materials like one-page handouts and trifold brochures. The photos aren’t really suitable for that, although you could use them if you don’t need top-tier photo quality. On the other hand, photos quality is easily good enough for any business use.

Conclusion
If you need a shared printer for medium- to heavy-duty use in a micro office, be sure to consider the Brother HL-3170CDW and the Brother HL-L8250CDN. Both offer a higher paper capacity than the HP Color LaserJet Pro M252dw, and both are fast enough for most micro offices, despite being slower than the HP printer. If you’re in the market for a personal printer, however, or a shared printer for light-duty use, and want fast speed, high-quality output, suitable paper handling, and convenience features like mobile printing and being able to print from a USB key, the M252dw is hard to beat, making it an easy pick as our Editors’ Choice.

original article

• HP Color LaserJet Pro M252dw(pcmag.com)