HP products review


HP Color LaserJet CM1017

With prices dropping into the sub-$500selected program such Word, PowerPoint,
arena, laser printers--evenand Photoshop. You can also scan a
multifunction lasers--are moving intodocument using the bundled third-party
the home, but the HP Color LaserJetoptical character-recognition software,
CM1017 MFP is too expensive for thewhich will produce a text-editable scan.
average home user. It is, however, a
good choice for the small or home officeThe CM1017's copy features are basic.
user who needs high-quality laserWhen scanning documents, you can adjust
prints--particularly graphics--but notdarkness and scale the size from 25
necessarily fast prints. For $700, youpercent to 400 percent; when scanning
get a network-ready color laserphotos, you can also color balance and
multifunction printer that prints,sharpen the image. One common feature we
scans, and copies, and includes built-indidn't find is the ability to make N-up
media card readers, a rarity for lasercopies, which prints two or more
printers. We think the CM1017 is a goodoriginals on one sheet of paper. You
choice for small offices that need greatcan, however, make N-up prints from your
image quality from a laser, such asPC (you can find it under the Finishing
realtors and insurance agents.tab in Printer Properties).
DesignAs we mentioned before, the ability to
The HP Color LaserJet CM1017 MFP is aprint straight from a memory card is an
large printer better suited for anuncommon feature on laser printers. With
office than for a home. It sits 17.3the CM1017, not only do you get the
inches wide, 20 inches deep, and 21.3ability to print photos, but you get a
inches tall, and it weighs nearly 50decent range of features to boot. You
pounds. The top-mounted flatbed scannercan preview the contents of your card on
and control panel sit atop the body likethe color LCD via a slide show or by
a flat hat. The flatbed scanner can holdmanually clicking through the range of
up to A4-size originals, but the unitimages. When it comes time to print, you
lacks an automatic document feeder, socan choose among a range of print sizes,
it can't scan legal-sized documents.paper sizes, and paper types, including
Below the scanner unit is the outputHP's laser photo paper. You can even
tray, which juts out from the front ofchoose to print a range of photos (by
the printer. The input tray pulls outphoto number, not date). And best of
from the bottom of the printer's frontall, you can print an index sheet of all
and can hold up to 250 sheets of plainthe images on your card or a proof
paper. You can adjust the paper tray tosheet. The index sheet includes the
hold legal-size sheets. The front panelphoto number, the file name, and the
of the paper tray houses a single-sheetdate it was taken-- all great
manual feed slot for one-off prints.references. The proof sheet lets you
Adjustable paper guides let you smoothlybubble in the images you want printed,
feed anything from envelopes to fullselect your paper type (plain or
sheets of paper. If you need increasedglossy), and a select a layout (from one
paper capacity, you can purchase aimage per page up to six images per
second 250-sheet tray.page). Then you simply scan the proof
The CM1017 serves up four media cardsheet, and the printer takes care of
slots on the right side of the printer.printing the images for you. These
The slots accept most major types ofaren't photos you'll necessarily want to
cards. The printer's control panelframe and hang, but the ability to print
resides next to the scanner bed. Agood-quality photos on a laser printer
2.4-inch color LCD flips up and can beis a very useful tool for some offices.
tilted to optimize the viewing angle.Replacing spent toner cartridges is a
Constantly displayed on the LCD aresimple task on the CM1017. Simply flip
icons that indicate the toner levels, soopen the front panel and pull out the
you can avoid a last-minute dash to theused cartridges individually. A new
office supplies store to finish a print2,500-page black cartridge costs about
job. A bevy of buttons let you initiate$75, while each 2,000-page color
photo print, scan, and copy taskscartridge (cyan, magenta, and yellow)
without touching your PC, as well ascosts about $83. This puts black prints
navigate the printer's various menus.at around 3 cents per page and color
Featuresprints at about 15.4 cents per page.
Although multifunction laser printersThese numbers are a bit high when
are generally office-oriented, the Colorcompared to nonmultifunction color laser
LaserJet CM1017 MFP lacks faxprinters and are also higher than the
functionality, which may be a dealper-page costs for the Epson AcuLaser
breaker for some offices. On the otherCX11NF. Clearly, HP should work on
hand, it does provide a feature that'shigh-capacity cartridges for this model.
relatively uncommon among laser
printers: media card readers forPerformance
printing photographs. You can printIt's difficult to make direct
decent-quality photos on plain paper orperformance comparisons for the HP Color
on HP's laser photo paper, a featureLaserJet CM1017 MFP, as we haven't
that can be useful in certain industriesreviewed a color laser multifunction in
such as real estate or insurance.quite some time. The last one we
The CM1017 comes with a 300MHz processorreviewed was the above-mentioned Epson
and 94MB of RAM standard (upgradeable toAcuLaser CX11NF. Still, the numbers
224MB). It sports an Ethernet port forspeak for themselves and what they say
networking, or you can attach itis, if you do a lot of printing and
directly to a PC via USB 2.0. Duplex, orprint speed matters, this is not the
two-sided, printing is a manualmachine for you. HP rates this machine
operation, as the CM1017 lacks ato print eight pages per minute in both
built-in duplexer.mono and color, so it's not intended to
When scanning from the printer's controlbe a speed demon. In our Labs' tests, it
panel you have a couple of options: Youprinted black text at 6.81ppm, black
can save the file to your PC in a numbergraphics at 6.31ppm, color text at
of different formats, including TIFF,5.91ppm, and color graphics at 6.16ppm.
JPEG, and PDF, or you can attach theIt scanned a grayscale document at a
file to an e-mail. Using HP's Solutionrate of 3.39ppm and a color document at
Center software, you get more options,2.61ppm. To compare, the Epson CX11NF
including the ability to scan into achurned out black text at 18.44ppm.



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