HP LaserJet 4200Ln review

Medium-sized businesses looking for departmental network printers have shown a lot of interest in HP's LaserJet 4200 range of A4 mono lasers. This new 'Ln' model brings down the price to suit more modest businesses and smaller networks whose demands are less intense.

The LaserJet 4200Ln is a conventional-looking unit built to HP's solid quality standards, in a tough case and sporting a four-line backlit LCD status window. The front-loading paper cassette holds 500 sheets and incorporates a helpful paper-level indicator. An additional multipurpose feeder is available by folding down a door at the front of the machine and extending the tray, which can hold 100 sheets of office paper or any stock up to 200g/m2. Above this tray is the case-open door, which reveals the internals of the printer for retrieving jammed paper and loading the print cartridge. This cartridge combines both toner and developer drum, and it can be removed and replaced quickly by anyone in the office.

For a printer designed to fit below the existing entry-level model, the LaserJet 4200Ln is surprisingly well featured. It includes a JetDirect 10/100BaseTX Ethernet interface for managing print jobs from around five to seven clients, and can be configured remotely across the network via a web browser. The driver installation is smart enough to establish appropriate settings for your network without much or even any user input, which is a great help for those small businesses and workgroups HP is targeting. Both Windows and Mac client drivers are provided on the installation CD.

Another surprise is that HP has left the PostScript 3 emulation intact along with PCL 5e and PCL 6 printing. The printer comes with 48MB of memory as standard, leaving a further three empty memory slots for upgrades. The maximum memory potential of 288MB is less than that for the rest of the LaserJet 4200 range, but it's no great sacrifice for a small workgroup.

The other major limitation of the 'Ln' model is its engine speed of 28ppm compared with 33ppm for the other 4200 printers. A real-world performance figure was difficult to determine, because the Windows XP driver we were using seemed to get confused between input trays no matter how we set up each print job, adding a delay to our timings. But the first sheet of text documents always dropped into the output tray within nine seconds, and we can confirm that the printer will churn through at least 22 pages easily within a minute including startup time.

Print quality is good for solid black text and line art on plain paper, but greyscale graphics appear gritty in consistency. Full-page tests also revealed some repeated horizontal stripe artefacts, which we wouldn't normally expect from a brand-new print cartridge. That said, gradients are reproduced well without a hint of banding.

Ultimately, the LaserJet 4200Ln simply represents a cheaper way in to the 4200 line, as it supports the same optional duplexer, envelope feeder, 1,500-sheet tray and stapler/stacker as the other models. But at the same time, the basic printer seems a little expensive when other network A4 mono lasers can be picked up for nearer £600. Many budget buyers will be looking for more aggressive offers than this.

Author: Alistair Dabbs