HP LaserJet P2014 review

Buying a printer with such a forward-thinking name - this one seems to be from six years in the future - you'd expect a cornucopia of features delivered quickly and reliably, and fantastic print quality. The P2014, though, is something of a mixed bag.

It's sorely lacking in features when compared to the other mono printers tested this month. There's no networking, so it will be harder to integrate into an office environment, and you can't upgrade the middling 32MB of RAM that comes as standard.

Despite this, there's still plenty about the P2014 to recommend. It's the fastest mono printer in our tests: eight seconds to print from either standby or sleep is hugely impressive, along with speedy times for every other task in our tests.

Fifty pages of text were delivered in a time of just over two minutes, and the DTP document was produced significantly quicker than any other printer here - the HP's time of 45 seconds was a full 12 seconds faster than its nearest rival, the Samsung ML-3050.

This speed is backed up by excellent quality. Text, photographs and gradients are all crisply and smoothly rendered, with solid blacks the only problematic area, the P2014 achieving a merely average score with our judges. Despite this, every other print job is handled with a professional aplomb that matches the lightning speed.

It isn't too big, either, so it won't put too much strain on space available in a cramped home office or a busy business environment. Cartridges will give you a decent 7,000 pages each, although at a costly £76 each the HP works out at around the middle of the pack in terms of running costs.

It may lack the extensive features that some modern printers take for granted - there's no LCD screen, for example, and running costs are average - but the P2014 makes up for this in other important areas. Its blistering speed and near-faultless print quality make this a prime contender for home or office use.

Author: Darien Graham-Smith