HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw

BY M. DAVID STONE

The HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw ($449.99) monochrome laser multifunction printer (MFP) is capable enough to serve as a shared printer, but small and inexpensive enough to consider for heavy-duty personal use. It’s also one of the more impressive MFPs in its category, with fast print performance, excellent paper handling, a full set of MFP features, and extras like mobile and cloud printing. Its text quality is at the low end of what we consider typical for the breed, but it’s easily good enough for most business use. All this makes the M426fdw our Editors’ Choice monochrome laser MFP for heavy duty use in a micro office.

Among the M426fdw’s strongest competition are two other top picks: the Canon imageClass MF6160dw$406.22 at Amazon and the OKI MB471. All three of these printers offer similar paper capacities, with the M426fdw delivering the highest capacity, albeit by a meager 20 sheets. It’s also the fastest of the three on our tests by far, and it’s the only one with such conveniences as Wi-Fi Direct and single-pass duplex scanning.

Basics and Beyond
Basic MFP features for the M426fdw include the ability to print and fax from, as well as scan to, a PC, and the ability to work as a standalone copier, fax machine, and direct email sender (for sending scans as attachments directly, without having to send them to an email client on a PC first). In addition, it can both print from and scan to a USB memory key.

Paper handling for printing is suitable for up to heavy-duty use in a micro office or light- to medium-duty use in a small to midsize office. The printer includes a 250-sheet drawer, a 100-sheet multipurpose tray, and an automatic duplexer standard. You can also add a 550-sheet drawer ($139) for a maximum 900-sheet capacity.

For scanning, the M426fdw supplements its letter-size flatbed with a 50-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) that can both scan legal-size pages and scan in duplex. Most inexpensive MFPs that scan both sides of a page use a duplexing ADF instead, which takes longer, since it scans one side, turns the page over and then scans the other side. As with most MFPs that can both print and scan in duplex, the combination lets you copy both single- and double-sided originals to your choice of single- or double-sided copies. Oddly, however, you can’t scan in duplex when faxing.

If you connect the M426fdw to your network, using either its Ethernet or Wi-Fi connector, it will also let you print through the cloud, as well as connect a phone or tablet through a wireless access point on your network for printing from and scanning to your mobile device. Connect the printer to a single PC via USB cable instead, and you’ll lose the ability to print through the cloud. Thanks to the printer’s Wi-Fi Direct, however, you’ll still be able to connect directly from mobile devices to print and scan. For phones and tablets with NFC, you can also establish a connection simply by tapping the device to the NFC logo on the top-front right of the printer.

Setup and Speed
At 28 pounds 6 ounces, the M426fdw is on the light side for its category. The Canon MF6160dw weighs 14 pounds more. However, it’s still heavy enough that you might want some help moving it into place. It’s also big enough, at 12.8 by 16.5 by 15.4 inches (HWD), that you probably won’t want it sitting on your desk, although you shouldn’t have trouble finding enough flat space for it, even in a small office. Setup is standard. For my tests, I connected it to a network using its Ethernet port and installed the drivers on a Windows Vista system.

HP rates the M426fdw at 40 pages per minute (ppm), which is the speed you should see when printing text files with little to no formatting. On our tests, I timed it (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing) at a suitably fast 16.4ppm. In comparison, the Canon MF6160dw came in at 9.9ppm on our tests with its default duplex setting, and only 13.2ppm even for printing in simplex.

The OKI MB471 was even slower, at 9.5ppm on our tests. As yet another point of comparison, the Dell Mono Multifunction Printer – B2375dnf$269.99 at Dell Small Business was even slower, coming in our tests at only 5.9ppm. Quite simply, the M426fdw is fast for its price.

Output Quality
The printer’s output quality is typical for monochrome lasers across the board, which makes it good enough for most purposes. Its text quality is at the low end of the range that includes the vast majority of monochrome lasers, but that still makes it good enough to print highly readable text at 8-point size or smaller on our tests. Almost half of the fonts in our tests qualified as highly readable at 5 and 6 points.

Both graphics and photo output on our tests were a match for most monochrome lasers. For graphics, that makes the output easily good enough for any internal business use. You may also consider it good enough for PowerPoint handouts and the like, unless you have a very critical eye. For photos, it translates to being able to print recognizable images from photos on webpages, which is about all you can expect from a monochrome laser.

Conclusion
If you need top-quality text above all, you should consider the Canon MF6160dw or the OKI MB471. Between the two, the Canon printer offers higher text quality, as well as better speed, but the OKI model delivers better photo quality. That said, the HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw offers text quality that’s well within the expected range for a monochrome laser and easily good enough for most offices. It also adds excellent paper handling, notably fast printing, and features, ranging from duplex scanning to mobile printing, that help it stand out from the crowd and make it our Editors’ Choice for up to heavy duty use in a micro or small office.

HP LaserJet Pro M402dw

BY M. DAVID STONE

Aimed primarily at a small office or workgroup, the HP LaserJet Pro M402dw ($349.99) is a strong candidate as a workhorse monochrome laser printer. Its claimed cost per page is a touch high and its text quality a touch low compared with its closest competition, but it still delivers a balance of speed, paper handling, output quality, and running cost that’s suitable for medium duty in a small office. It’s also small enough to place on a desk, making it an attractive choice as a heavy duty personal printer.

Among the M402dw’s$247.68 at Amazon direct competitors are the Dell B2360dn$189.99 at Dell and the Brother HL-6180DW$502.58 at Pricefalls.com. These two models are so closely matched that both are Editors’ Choice monochrome lasers for heavy-duty personal to medium-duty small-office use. The key differences between them are that the Brother model offers a somewhat higher paper capacity and lower cost per page, while the Dell printer delivered significantly faster speed on our tests. Unfortunately for the M402dw, it comes in behind both in two key areas, with lower text quality than either on our tests and a higher claimed running cost, at 2.2 cents per page.

That said, the M402dw comes in a close second (or third) to both top picks. It falls between the two for paper capacity, and it had better graphics and photo quality than the Dell printer on our tests, and was faster than either one. What’s more, its claimed cost per page is only 0.2 cents more than that of the Dell B2360dn.

Basics
The M402dw’s paper handling is easily suitable for moderate to heavy-duty use. The printer includes a 250-sheet drawer, a 100-sheet multipurpose tray, and a duplexer. That’s enough for most small offices, but for heavier-duty use, you can add an optional 550-sheet drawer ($139.99) for a total 900-sheet paper capacity.

Connectivity options include Ethernet and Wi-Fi. Connect the printer to a network with either one, and you can print through the cloud, as well as print from a mobile device by connecting to the printer through an access point. If you connect it to a single PC via USB cable instead, you won’t be able to print through the cloud, but you’ll still be able to use the printer’s Wi-Fi Direct to connect to it directly and print from a mobile device. You can also take advantage of the built-in NFC support to connect to the printer simply by tapping ta compatible phone or tablet to the NFC logo on the top right of the printer.

Setup, Speed, and Output Quality
At 8.5 by 15 by 14.1 inches (HWD) and 18 pounds 14 ounces, the M402dw is small enough to share a desk with easily and light enough for one person to move into place. For my tests I installed it on a network using its Ethernet connector and ran the tests from a system running Windows Vista. Setup is standard for a monochrome laser.

Speed is a strong point. HP rates the M402dw at 40 pages per minute (ppm). Even better, it came in faster on our tests than most printers with the same or similar ratings. I timed it on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing) at 17ppm. That makes it a bit faster than the Dell B2360dn, which managed 15ppm on our business applications suite, and a lot faster than the Brother HL-6180W, which managed only 10.7ppm.

Output quality on our tests was acceptable for most business use, but not impressive. Text output was at the low end of the range that includes the vast majority of monochrome lasers, making it good enough for most business use, as long as you don’t need small fonts.

Graphics and photo output were both at the low end of average for our tests for a monochrome laser. For graphics, that translates to being easily good enough for any internal business need. Most people would also consider it good enough for PowerPoint handouts or the like. Photos with our test files were unusually grainy, even for a monochrome laser. However, the quality was good enough to print recognizable images from webpages and the like, which is about as much as you can expect from the category.

Conclusion
The HP M402dw gets lots of points for its fast speed, but misses out on being our top pick in its category because its claimed cost per page is on the high side. That’s still enough to make it a strong contender. The Dell B2360dn and the Brother HL-6180DW remain our Editors’ Choice picks, as they have better text quality and a lower claimed cost per page. For heavy-duty printing, take a close look, in particular, at the Brother HL-6180DW, with its higher paper capacity.

HP LaserJet Pro MFP M127fw

BY M. DAVID STONE

Much like the Editors’ Choice Samsung Multifunction Xpress M2875FW$235.49 at Amazon, the HP LaserJet Pro MFP M127fw ($259.99) is small enough to use as a personal monochrome laser multifunction printer (MFP) for light-duty print needs, but also capable enough to serve as a shared printer in a micro or small office. It’s not as fast as the Samsung printer or the Canon imageClass MF4770n$99.99 at Amazon, but it offers most of the MFP features most micro offices need, and it adds HP’s Web apps as a potentially useful extra.

Connection choices for the M127fw$179.93 at Amazon are essentially the same as for the Samsung M2875FW, with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Wireless Direct, which is HP’s equivalent to Wi-Fi Direct. Just like Wi-Fi Direct, it will let you connect to the printer from a Wi-Fi-enabled smartphone, tablet, or laptop. This is particularly useful if you don’t have a Wi-Fi access point on your network or you want to connect the printer by USB cable to a single PC, rather than connect it to a network.

Mobile printing features include the ability to print from an iOS or Android smartphone or tablet, as well as from a laptop over Wi-Fi, and print through the cloud, assuming the printer is connected to a network that’s connected to the Internet. In addition, you can use front-panel menus to print from a variety of HP Web apps, including printing postage from Stamps.com and printing forms from Biztree.com. However, you can’t scan to or fax from your mobile device using the iOS or Android apps, the way you can with the Samsung M2875FW.

Basics and Setup
The M127fw’s basic MFP features include the ability to print and fax from, as well as scan to, a PC, including over a network, plus standalone faxing and copying. For scanning, you can use either the letter-size flatbed or the 35-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF), which can handle up to legal-size pages.

HP LaserJet Pro MFP M127fw

Paper handling for printing is limited to a single 150-sheet tray. There’s no manual feed, no duplexer (for two-sided printing), and no upgrade options. The tray is enough for personal or light-duty use in a micro office, but not much more than that. If your print, copy, and incoming fax needs add up to more than about 30 pages per day, adding paper can easily turn into an annoying chore. The Samsung M2875FW does far better on this score, with a 250-sheet capacity, a manual feed, and a duplexer.

Setup is typical for a small monochrome laser. At 12.2 by 16.5 by 14.4 inches (HWD), the M127fw is a little bigger than you may want sitting on your desk, but it’s small enough so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding room for it nearby. For my tests, I connected it by its Ethernet port, and installed the drivers and other software on a Windows Vista system.

Speed and Output Quality
HP rates the printer at 21 pages per minute (ppm), which is the speed you should see for printing a text document or other file with little to no formatting. On our business applications suite, I timed it (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing), at 8.9ppm. That’s enough of a difference between it and the Samsung M2875FW, at 10ppm, that you’ll notice it, but it’s not dramatic. On the other hand, it’s significantly slower than the Canon MF4770n, at 12.3ppm, and also slower than the more directly competitive Canon imageClass MF4880dw$124.99 at Amazon, which is Editors’ Choice in this class if you need fast speed. The MF4880dw’s official speed on our tests is 9.6ppm in its default duplex mode. In unofficial tests in simplex mode, it came in at 12.5ppm, essentially tying the Canon MF4770n.

Output quality for the M127fw is a touch above average overall, thanks to better-than-typical graphics quality. Text is at the low end of a very tight range that includes the vast majority of monochrome laser MFPs, making it easily good enough for almost any business need short of high-quality desktop publishing. Graphics output is top-tier for its category, putting it a step above most of the competition. It’s easily good enough for almost any business need, including PowerPoint handouts and the like.

Photo quality, like text, is typical for a monochrome laser MFP. That makes it easily good enough for printing recognizable images from photos on Web pages, but not for anything more demanding than that.

HP LaserJet Pro MFP M127fw

Despite its strong points, the M127fw is outclassed by its competition on traditional MFP features. The Canon MF4880dw and Samsung M2875FW, both Editors’ Choice models, will give you better paper handling and faster speed, with the Canon printer stronger on speed and the Samsung model offering a wider range of features.

That said, the HP LaserJet Pro MFP M127fw still offers enough to make it worth considering. Because of its low paper capacity and lack of a duplexer and manual feed, it’s a little smaller than either the Canon or Samsung models. That makes it easier to find room for if space is somewhat tight in your office. In addition, its Web apps let you print from a variety of websites using front-panel commands, a feature you won’t get with the Canon or Samsung models. If you can benefit from the small size and have only light-duty print needs, it can easily be a good fit.

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HP LaserJet Pro MFP M521dn

The HP LaserJet Pro MFP M521dn is a quietly impressive beast. Designed as a mono laser workhorse, with a 75,000 page per month maximum duty cycle and a 6,000 page per month recommended maximum, it can print and fax from, as well as scan to, a computer – including over a network – and it can work as a standalone copier, fax machine, and direct email sender. More importantly, it does well enough at everything it does to make it a great choice for medium to heavy-duty use in a small to mid-size office or workgroup.

There’s nothing flashy here, like super-fast speed. In fact, it’s easy to find printers that are faster, such as the Brother MFC-8950DW. On the other hand, the M521dn offers a combination of features that make it more usable than most MFPs.

Features

In addition to the basic MFP features I’ve already mentioned – printing, scanning, copying, faxing, and email – the M521dn can both scan to and print from a USB memory stick. In an unusual touch for a monochrome printer, it will even let you preview the photos stored on the USB stick before printing them. It also supports printing though the cloud.

Much higher on its list of key features is its scan capability. Like most MFPs aimed at office use, the M521dn supplements a flatbed scanner with an automatic document feeder (ADF). Unlike most of the competition, however, including some significantly more expensive MFPs like the Dell B3465dnf Multifunction Laser Printer, the M521dn offers a duplex scanner for copying and scanning. (It won’t scan in duplex for faxing, however, which takes a little shine off the feature).

Having a duplex scanner (meaning that it can scan both sides of a page at the same time) is different from having a duplexing ADF, which scans one side, turns the page over, and then scans the other. Either approach will let you scan duplex documents. And if the MFP also offers duplex printing plus appropriate copying commands, as with the M521dn, either approach will also let you copy single or double-sided originals to your choice of single or double-sided copies. However, scanning in duplex is a lot faster than scanning with a duplexing ADF.

We don’t usually time duplex scanning with MFPs, because most desktop MFPs that duplex use duplexing ADFs, which is more of a convenience feature than something that’s truly competitive with duplexing scanners. With the M521dn, however, I ran a test using a 25-sheet document just to get a sense of its speed. For scanning to disk, and including the time for saving the file to disk after scanning, the M521dn came in at 10.7 pages per minute (ppm) or 21.4 images per minute (ipm), with one image on each side of the page. If you scan duplex documents very often, this one feature can save a lot of time in comparison to using an MFP with a duplexing ADF.

Very much on the plus side for the M521dn is its 3.5in touch screen, with a particularly well-designed menu system. The combination makes it easy to both change settings in the printer and give commands for copying, faxing, and emailing.

One other strong point is the paper handing for printing, with both a 500-sheet paper drawer and 100-sheet multipurpose tray coming as standard, along with the automatic duplexer. The 600-sheet capacity should be enough for most small to mid-size offices. If you need more, however, you can add a second 500-sheet drawer for a total of 1,100 sheets.

Setup and speed

At 465 x 465 x 508mm (WxDxH), the M521dn is too imposing to share a desk with. It’s also heavy enough, at 22kg, that you’ll probably want some help moving it. Once in place, however, setup is standard fare. For my tests I connected it to a wired network and installed the driver on a system running Windows Vista.

As I’ve already suggested, speed is not a strong point. HP rates the engine at 42 ppm, and I timed it as being a touch faster, at 43 ppm, for printing a text document with little to no formatting from Microsoft Word. On our business applications suite, however (timed with QualityLogic’s hardware and software), it came in at a surprisingly slow 5.3 ppm. Although that’s a tolerable speed, it’s significantly slower than most other mono laser printers we’ve tested. The Brother MFC-8950DW, for example, managed 10.6 ppm, and the Dell B3465dnf hit 15.0 ppm.

Output quality

Output quality is a mixed bag. The good news is that the M521dn handled text particularly well, which is generally the most important kind of output for a mono printer. Text quality was well above par, making it easily good enough for any business use and even good enough for most desktop publishing applications.

Graphics output was a touch below par, but still within the tight range where the vast majority of mono laser MFPs fall. That makes it good enough for any internal business need. Depending on how critical an eye you have, you may or may not consider it acceptable for, say, PowerPoint hand-outs.

Photo quality was also at the low end of par for a mono laser MFP. It was certainly good enough to print recognisable photos from web pages. Whether you consider it suitable for anything more than that will depend, once again, on how critical an eye you have.

Verdict

The one feature I feel is missing from this MFP is the ability to fax in duplex. However, if you don’t need to fax duplex documents, that won’t be an issue. It also doesn’t leave you any worse off for faxing than when using an MFP that can’t handle duplexing at all, making this oversight more of a missed opportunity than an actual problem.

It’s true that a faster print speed would be welcome, too. However, the time saved with duplex scanning and copying (presuming you need to do so) can more than make up for whatever points the printer loses on print speed. The text quality is a big plus, too, as part of a highly attractive balance of speed, output quality, paper handling, and MFP features.

For a small to mid-size office that needs to copy or scan (but not fax) duplex documents on a regular basis, all this can make the HP LaserJet Pro MFP M521dn a near-perfect fit, which is also enough to grab it one of our Best Buy awards.

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