INK & TONER
HP LaserJet 5P Review
 
Editor's Review
HP LaserJet 5P by Andrew Hall 08/28/2010 OVERVIEW: The HP LaserJet 5P, introduced as a 1-3 user printer over 15 years ago, is still suitable as a personal printer and particularly for legacy PCs, but in other applications it will almost invariably prove frustrating and inefficient. While it can print documents at functional resolutions, it lacks the speed, efficiency, expandability, or communication options you would find in almost any newer personal laser printer, making it almost impossible to recommend purchasing either new or used at this point in time.
Editor's Pros & Cons
PROS: The LaserJet 5P measures 15.7" by 17.5" by 7.9" and weighs 24.5 pounds, making it entirely suitable for a desktop. It has no additional trays to occupy additional space. The 5P supports printing to A4, A5, Legal, Executive, and Letter A size paper, as well as Com-10, Monarch, C5, C6, B5, and DL-sized envelopes. Custom media can be fitted up to 8.5" by 14", and the printer can print to labels, envelopes, and transparencies as well as paper. The 5P prints at a maximum resolution of 600 dpi. The LaserJet 5P's instant-on fuser means that the printer does not need to spend any time at all warming up. However, it does have a fairly slow first page out at 26 seconds. The LaserJet 5P includes 2 MB of memory on 72-pin SIMMS, expandable to a maximum of 50 MB. CONS: The LaserJet 5P prints at the speed of 6 pages per minute. This is less than a third of what even average printers released in the last ten years produce and a huge drawback for anyone producing either large quantities of documents or large documents, as newer printers and this printer's successors print 20-50 sheets per minute, leaving this particular model far behind its newer, more efficient competition. The LaserJet 5P features only a number of deprecated port systems. It has two parallel ports and one LocalTalk port as well as IrDA, but it lacks USB 1.1 or USB 2.0, Bluetooth, or built-in network support. An external print server may be a viable option, but most contemporary print servers no longer support the 5P, making it difficult to network without employing untested, potentially unreliable workarounds. If working exclusively with legacy PCs and pre-1998 iMac Macintosh computers, this will not be an issue; however, many newer systems will have no easy means by which to communicate with the 5P, making it extremely difficult to set up and make usable. The HP JetDirect EX is the only semi-official solution to this problem, but it may easily cost more than the printer itself. For legacy systems, LocalTalk will also require an Adobe PostScript SIMM, another piece of memory supplied by HP and likely long out of manufacture. However, if the printer is to be shared between multiple legacy systems without networking, the LaserJet 5P does make this easy; it can switch automatically between its parallel and LocalTalk ports, reducing the need for user intervention. The 5P supports a maximum capacity of 350 sheets of paper across its two trays at 100 and 250 sheets each, slightly over half a ream of paper. While for personal use this likely will not be an issue, this combined with its slow print speed essentially disqualifies the printer almost completely from any contemporary workplace use, as even many small offices go through a ream of paper daily. There are no slots for expansion on the 5P, making it impossible to add newer printer features such as stacking and stapling or duplexing. Save for the potential addition of network support, what you receive with the printer is what you will get.
INK/TONER NEEDS:
The LaserJet 5P has a toner cartridge that needs replacing at every 4000 pages at 5% coverage. The drum unit is built into the toner cartridge, bringing replacement costs up but reducing the amount of maintenance one needs to do to keep the printer operational. Also optional are toner cartridges that print magnetic ink, which also yield 4000 pages at 5% coverage, designed to be used when printing checks. 
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