HP LaserJet 2100 Review

I received one used from a friend. We were sick and tired of paying great quantities of money for inkjet cartridges. If you do any amount of printing whatsoever, you will run out of ink quickly. With manufacturers charging outrageous prices for ink, you can go broke easily.

The Solution:

Laser printers!

Business use them for high volume printing. They have the same basic concept as a photocopier.

Instead of a tiny ink cartridge, you use a large toner cartridge. You can get, on average 5000 prints per cartridge! Even better, with online sellers, you can find a new cartridge for the same price many ink cartridges for inkjet printers cost!


This printer only prints in black. This is what 99% of our print jobs require.

The printer holds maybe 200 sheets of paper for a lot of pages. There is a mechanical paper level indicator.

There is an Infrared sensor for sending print jobs wirelessly.

Paper can be taken from the main hopper, or a pull-down paper feed, which can be used for envelopes. Very handy if you need to print envelopes, cards, or something other than the letter-size paper in the main paper supply.

The printed pages can come out the top or in the back, depending on how you set it up.

There are two buttons which can cancel a print job and control various functions.

This printer has a 1200 by 1200 DPI output and prints 10 pages per minute. Faster than many inkjet printers.

It connects via a standard parallel cable.You can also install a network car and allow it to exist as an independent node on a home network. No need for a computer to stay on.

Memory is 4m, expandable up to 52 m.

This is an older printer, but these options are still made new. Also, there is a plentiful used market. Toner cartridges are still on the market. Drivers are down loadable from the HP website, although Windows XP finds the printer without additional drivers. The manual can be downloaded also.

The printer functions flawlessly. No jams. Very good print quality. Maintenance is easy.... more or less none. The manual explains the cleaning process, which is automatic, with a front panel key combination.

Drum replacement is easy.... since the toner cartridge has the drum included... no separate components. The cartridge just drops in... no disassembly.

All in all a great printer.