The LaserJet 1300 from HP is a monochrome laser printer that offers high-quality output, fast print time, and expandability options. With a resolution as high as 1,200 dpi, prints are crisp and accurate, while speeds of up to 20 ppm (8 seconds for the first page out) mean you won't have to wait long for print jobs to finish.
A 250-page standard input tray can be supplemented with an optional tray for a total of 510 pages, while the 16 MB standard memory can be boosted up to 80 MB. The 133 Hz internal processor is capable of handling large print jobs, while the 10,000-page per month maximum duty cycle provides reliability even in heavy-use environments. The 1300 comes with standard USB and parallel port interfaces, and optional HP Jetdirect print servers allow you to add the printer to a network and print from multiple computers.
A wide variety of paper types and sizes are supported, including paper (plain, recycled), cardstock, envelopes, labels, transparencies, letter, legal, executive, and more. Energy Star compliant, the 1300's 110 to 127V (+- 10%), 50/60 Hz power supply consumes about 285 watts during normal operation or about 7 watts during standby. PC, Mac, and Linux compatible, the 1300 also comes backed with a one-year limited warranty on both parts and labor.
What's in the Box
HP LaserJet 1300 printer, HP smart print cartridge (in protective bag), getting started guide, software and electronic user guide on CD-ROM, power cord, print media input tray, printer priority input slot, parallel LIO adapter; printer cable not included
1 If I could give zero stars, I would
I had a Hewlett Packard 540 printer from 1994 and that works better than the 1300. I have put 20 year old pieces of paper, used, recycled, and I never had a problem with the 540 that I do with a 1300. I work in a school office and I have had nothing but problems with removing jammed paper. If it's stuck somewhere and you need to remove it, but it is impossible without damaging the rollers to prevent the paper jam in the machine. Somehow I think Hewlett Packard lost its way in making printers. Since I work in an office, it is impossible to really depend on the 1300 printer for assurance. Once there is a jam and a crackling sound, get ready to buy a new printer. It is very important for people who design printers to place emphasis on using recycable paper and the printer's longevity. For now, I have a 540 at home which has lasted over 10 years without needing service. There tells me something is wrong with this picture when an old printer like 540 is better than a 1300 ten years later. Something is wrong with the price. I would not spend so much money on a printer that will break after a few months. If you need a dependable productive printer, this is thenot one.
2 Piece of Junk
After just a few months, the print began to fade from the center of pages. HP warranty provided for a new "reconditioned" machine to be sent to me; same problem, right out of the box. Avoid this one at all costs.
3 No regrets
Did lots of research before deciding to buy. I have a Mac system and have heard from others that printer support from other companies are sometimes lacking or slow. Since OS X has major updates during the year, some have had printer issues when drivers are missing in the updates. Decided to stay with HP and compared to my Laserjet 5MP, this printer is 10x faster. Able to print double sided manually and even hooked up the printer via my wireless network (Airport Express). Cost was a little more than I initally wanted, but I have no regrets at this time. Fast printer, compatible with my system, and no headaches with set up. What more could I ask?
4 Replaced by LaserJet 1320
If you are looking to buy LaserJet 1300 (or its cheaper sibling, 1150), take a look at newly released LaserJet 1160 and 1320. They address some of 1150 and 1300's biggest shortcomings while being nicer looking. I have used LaserJet 1300 for several months and while I think it is a decent printer, I am not a fan of protruding paper tray (it reminds me of old DeskJet printers) and its output bin tends to curl papers when 50 or so pages are stacked.
After playing with both 1160 and 1320, I got 1160 (refer to my LaserJet 1160 Amazon review). Both 1160 and 1320 look more like a laser printer while still maintaining small footprint. LED status lights are still cryptic, but they are now clearly labeled. Although multifunction input tray can accept only 1 sheet at a time (1150 and 1300 accepted 10 sheets), the paper handling is improved overall and output bin is more robust. And output quality is crispier, with better defined text and graphics.
5 Pretty Good For The Home Office User
I've had this printer for about a year and have been pleased with it. It's a good little printer that rarely jams or causes any sort of trouble. The one big negative is the manual feeder on this printer is terrible. You can waste three sheets of labels just to get one decent one printed out that isn't crooked. That's a big drawback if you print any sort of label sheet or index sheet regularly.
6 HP LeaserJet 1300 Printer Review
Works well. Thus far I'm quite happy with it.
I really like the 10 page manual feed `tray' that sits on top of the regular paper tray cover. Great if you need to print a booklet or a small duplex job since you don't have to take all the paper out. Also great for reusing paper that has been printed on one side for those small print jobs that you'll throw away anyway like rough drafts etc.
With the guides set properly, I haven't experienced any of the crooked printing reported by other reviewers. The manual tray paper guides slide easily so you'll need to keep an eye on them.
Some reviewers have mentioned that the print is too light. At default settings the printing is a bit lighter than my old HP LaserJet 5L however this can be easily fixed by bumping up the toner density from 3 to 4 (on a scale of 1 to 5). Note: this will increase the per page cost as you will be using more toner. Unfortunately, this feature is not very well documented in the manual. It's accessed through the HP Toolbox > Advanced Print Settings > Print Quality.
No printed manual is included so you'll have to print it yourself (172 pages). Alas, the lack of a printer manual is par for the course these days. When I first tried to print the manual, I got a fatal error (all three lights on) about 20 pages into the job and had to turn off the printer and reboot my computer before I could print again. Fortunately, this has not happed since and I've now printed a total of 476 pages. The manual is ok but could be a lot more detailed and better laid out so as not to waste paper. Some critical stuff is in the README file.
HP recommends a "software first install" which means you install the drivers first and then connect the printer when prompted during the installation.
One piece of advice: use the custom install feature and install both the PCL and PS drivers (only the PCL is installed by default). The PS driver gives substantially better results printing PDF's. With the PCL driver some PDF pages suffer from dropouts and the text looks terrible, however they print perfectly with the PS driver. You will also need the HP toolbox as it is the only way to access printer features such as Toner Density (unless you have the 1300n with the LIO print server.)
If you need to add the PS driver after you have installed the HP Printing system things get a little tricky. Read the "known issues" in the README file. Basically, if using the CD, "Be sure to select the HP toolbox and the print driver you wish to install," otherwise it will delete the HP Toolbox. This is completely counter intuitive as one figures that once the Toolbox is installed it need not be installed gain. I made this mistake and subsequent attempts to "modify the existing installation" by adding the missing components had everything installed but I still couldn't use the web update feature. Hence I removed everything and reinstalled it from scratch.
7 Solid laser printer with plenty of features
After doing plenty of research on laser printers, I recently decided on this one. Great quality, great speed, manual duplexing is easy. As one reviewer said earlier, sometimes pages print up crooked; it's only happened once or twice, and I'm not really sure why. However, that's the only problem I've had, and it's a minor one.
If you could meet your needs with an inkjet, but want the extra quality and convenience of a laser, the laserjet 1012 is probably a better choice at half the price of this one. The 1150 is essentially the same as the 1300, minus all the internal features, for ususally about $100 less. I probably would have chosen it, but with a $100 rebate on the 1300 (and not the 1150), it made sense to go for the better printer for the same price.
8 Don't be fooled ...
Don't let your first impression of the LJ 1300 fool you. It does look a bit more like one of HP's cheapie inkjet or photo printers than the serious B&W laser workhorse that it is.
It's chintzy-appearing plastic paper tray sticking out of the front and it's very inexpensive price (...) belies its rather impressive capabilities as a reasonably "heavy duty" home office or small business printer.
I'm a full-time, home-based medical transcriptionist. My printer output averages 5,000-7,500 pages a month -- a much higher output demand than most home offices and others who have posted reviews here. Because I work on production, I absolutely require a reliable laser printer.
The reason that I bought the HP 1300 was because a Brother HL-5140 I had recently purchased turned out to be entirely unsatisfactory after only a couple months of use (it's poorly designed and plagued with paper jams). I knew I should have stuck with HP in the first place.
I have now used the HP 1300 for about a month and printed more than 5,000 pages without a single glitch or paper jam. Yes, I am very careful about how I handle the paper I put into the printer, but I think that's pretty amazing. And after printing more than 5,000 pages with the small-capacity 13A toner cartridge (which is rated at 2,500 pages), I still have 25% of the toner left.
Over the past years I have used LaserJet 4L and 6P models extensively. The only differences I can discern between them and the current printer is that he HP 1300 is quieter and a whole lot faster. And, contrary to the observations of some reviewers here, I have found the print quality among all three to be consistenly excellent.
I don't give a 5-star rating easily, but the HP 1300 has earned it.
THE PROS:
1. Initial setup (at least for me, using a parallel port connection with both DOS and Windows drivers) was incredibly quick and simple. Anyone who has trouble installing this printer (as mentioned in a couple of other reviews here) probably didn't bother to read the instructions.
2. I found the online documentation to be quite adequate, and the online "Toolbox" is an extremely useful tool for both customizing the printer and monitoring its current status.
3. If output speed is what you're looking for, the HP 1300 delivers with HP's "instant-on fuser technology." No more waiting for the laser printer to warm up between jobs. For me, this "first page out" time is as important as the rated print speed.
4. Paper of all kinds, including envelopes, run through it without any problems, and the print quality is excellent.
5. It's about as quiet as any laser printer I've ever used.
6. The HP 1300 appears to be VERY well designed and built for very hard use. Changing the toner cartridge couldn't be easier.
THE CONS:
1. I remains to be seen if the HP 1300 will stand up to my very rigorous use as well as my old LaserJet 6P, which has over 120,000 pages through it and is still going strong.
2. As noted by another reviewer, like nearly all laser printers, it does tend to curl the top and bottom edges of the printed pages a bit sometimes, which can be a bit annoying. However, this characteristic is common to nearly all laser printers, and it depends a lot on temperature, humidity, and the type of paper you're using.
All in all, an absolutely fantastic, reasonably heavy-duty printer, and a terrific bargain for(...).
Bob
9 LaserJet 1300 has been a Great Printer!!
I've owned this printer for 14 Months Now, and I've got to say it's a gem!
To those who say it prints too light... Turn off Economode!!
Bottom Line: I've printed 2004 Pages and have only had two paper jams. Thats a total of 665 Jobs! I'm still using the original toner cartridge and it's at 47% Full Now.
Pros:
The 1300 is very fast!
The Straight Through Option Works well with thick paper.
The Manual Two Sided Printing Option Works Really Well.
I've used envelopes, thin paper, thick paper, resume paper, and even the paper with pre-punched holes on the side... they all look great!
I've printed booklets with a variety of bindings, and I've never had a problem.
There is a built in webserver that allows you to check the status of the machine, including the toner fill, the number of jobs, the serial number.
Comes with software that allows you to enable error reporting or low toner reporting.
Has optional USB or Parallel Port..
Upgradeable to 16+64 MB of RAM
Upgradeable to Network Ready
Optional 250 Sheet Paper Tray
Cons:
Will not print on WIDE sheets of Paper/Manilla Envelopes.
Does not automatically print double sided (you have to take the half-finished job, put it in a paper tray, and press the button on the front of the printer)
By the way, I've got this printer hooked up to the Wireless 54G Print Server made by Linksys, and it works great!
10 Fantastic Printer
I just upgraded from an HP-1200 series to this HP-1300 printer, and I'm extremely pleased. I loved my 1200 series printer, but HP actually managed to make some improvements with this machine. Specifically, it's slightly quicker and runs even quieter. I use my printer a great deal to print long manuscripts, so I really need one with these qualities. The only possible debit is that the printer is slightly larger than the 1200 series - I keep bumping my chair into it, but I think that's a small issue! For the price and quality, you really cannot beat this printer.
11 LaserJet 1300 Disappointing on Mac OS X
I've used dozens of different types of printers and have owned several HP printers. I switched to Macintosh a year ago, and got the LaserJet 1300 several months ago. I've decided to give the printer away, and will probably replace it with the Brother 5070.
My first gripe with the 1300 is its minimal documentation. There is also no help and the tech support information online is weak.
My second gripe is unreliability. The printer doesn't have a display to name errors. It has three indicator lights. The printer frequently stops working, and all three lights come on. The manual says that when this happens, I should turn the printer off, leave it off for a bit, and then start up and try again. This usually does little to help. The manual also says that if this continues, I should call for tech support.
So I called for tech support. My first call was apparently to the wrong group. The technician insisted on collecting all of my contact information at the start of the call, promising that he would give me support after we went through the full, long, contact survey. And then he did. He told me I called the wrong department and gave me the phone number for the right department. The second technician walked me through loading a new driver onto the Mac and doing a hard reset of the printer.
The manual doesn't tell me how to do a full reset of the printer (restoring it to factory state) and I didn't realize this was going on (the tech would tell me what to do next, but not what we were doing at the more global level, maybe she didn't know) until we were fairly far along. So I still don't know how to do this, and don't know how to find out short of calling HP for support again.
The printer worked OK for a few months, locking up occasionally but not so often that the machine was unusable. But now it's back up to its old tricks. 3 lights, printing stops, and power off only lets me get a few more pages done before I get 3 lights again. I spent several hours one night troubleshooting this, and three hours (clocked) a few nights ago troubleshooting this, and finally gave up.
The HP web site provides no useful information, or at least none that I could find.
The website did provide access to drivers to download. I can either download the OS X driver from September 2003 (I think I'm using that one) or I can order (and pay money for). That disk is dated April 2004. I can't tell whether the driver on the April 2004 disk is more recent than the September 2003 driver or not. I also can't tell what the driver version number is for my printer. (The About information for the printer doesn't have it and did I mention there is no help under the help menu?)
My impression is that this is a driver problem, not a hardware problem.
Maybe I can clean it up, for a while, with a full reset of the printer and a reload of the latest driver.
But at some point, the time I lose is more valuable than the cost of a replacement printer. I passed the threshold a few nights ago. We've had some driver problems (I have a lab at school) with some HP multifunction printers and the Macintosh. Not as bad as the 1300, but for the first time in 20 years, I'm going to buy a laser printer that is not a Hewlett-Packard.
12 poor quality type
I'm not sure what other people use their printer for, but I need top quality-looking manuscripts. I had a 4L for ten years and it gave better quality. The problem is that it prints too light. Otherwise, its a nice machine. But I'm returning mine.
good luck.
13 WARNING
If this printer is anything like the 1200N, avoid this at all costs. My 1200N is dead after about 1000 pages and almost exactly one month after the warranty expired. HP just laughed at me when I called. Their quality stinks. At least get a long extended warranty....you''ll need it!
14 HP LaserJet 1300 is GREAT
For the price, this printer does a NICE job. It's fast, I mean SUPER FAST and the print quality is very good. I highly recommend it as a home office printer. In addition to being fast, it's QUIET. I've researched this printer and am VERY happy with my decision.
15 Great Printer, Terrible Installation
It was a bad sign when autostart for the driver CD
failed. Running Setup manually didn't work either and
only returned the cryptic message, "Setup encountered a
serious error".
It turns out that the setup program uses Java and needs
to have that correctly installed to work properly. I
had an incompatible version, it seems, because when I
uninstalled Java, then reinstalled, I at least got the
drivers going. The "Toolkit" software that monitors
toner level never did get installed. This took hours of
fiddling and researching on the Web to resolve.
Sharing the printer on a LAN turned out to be a bit of
a headache, also. The "add printer" wizard failed to
find all the needed the files on the host computer and
I had to pick through several directories on the CD to
find them all.
However, the printer itself works flawlessly. It's fast,
quiet, and has printed nicely on a variety of paper. If
I only rated the printer itself, I'd give it 5 stars.
Installing a printer should not be an ordeal like this
was though, so two stars off.
16 Prints Crooked
I've purchased and returned three laserjet 1300's due to crooked print. The text rises about 1/8" from left to right. This is not acceptable. Unless I purchased three lemons, I'd recommend not purchasing this product.
17 Good quality IF you can get it to work
I purchased this as a second printer because a coworker said it was, and I quote, "the best printer I've ever had." Unfortunately, I did not form the same opinion. I took me several tries before the thing would even install properly on my computer (XP). When it finally did, I have to admit, the print quality was great, and it was super fast. HOWEVER, upon starting my computer up the next morning, to my surprise, neither of my printers was recognized by my computer any longer. I tried and tried to get them to reinstall, but apparently, something about the 1300 did not get along with my computer. I got continuous error messages no matter what program I tried to run. I ended up having to reinstall windows just to get rid of the error messages. I returned the 1300 and got the much smaller, much cheaper 1012 instead, and it works perfectly, only only a little bit slower.
So, to sum it up... if you have the money to spare and want to take a chance, get the 1300, as it does print nicely and quickly. However, if you don't want to have serious computer malfunctions or you just want to spend a bit less money and get comparable quality, get the 1012.
18 I wish I could have kept it.
I liked this printer alot, but I couldn't keep it. It printed fine on "normal" paper, but anything with a little texture and I had the toner fusing problems mentioned in another of the reviews. I don't have that problem with the other HP LaserJets I have used (at work) with the same paper. I did everything I could to try and tweak it to work. No go.
As far as printing on regular paper I was certainly happy. It was super quick even though I am using Mac OS X. I have gotten used to the fact that printers and the like don't seem to work up to their full advertised potential under OS X... but this was certainly not the case here. It was nice and responsive and printed everything I asked it to.
My wife's business' letterhead is on rougher than average paper, and the toner just didn't like it. So, regretfully, back it went.
19 Works great on LAN printserver
I have this on an el-cheapo D-Link print server, they type that plugs into the parallel port and is a little smaller than a deck of cards, and it works great for both a PC running windows XP and a Mac running X 10.2. This is the first printer that the Mac has been able to connect to via the print server. Works great, fast, enough memory, etc. I have the 1200 at work and a lot of the minor bugs in that printer have been fixed on the 1300.
20 Excellent Printer
An excellent printer at a very reasonable price. Fast with excellent output, even when using small fonts. I did not find any problems with print output quality, objectionable noise, etc. that were mentioned in other reviews.
21 Excellent!
I have had this printer about three months. I mainly use this printer to print documents and PowerPoint handouts. The text and black-and-white image quality is awesome. I use HP multipurpose paper at 600 dpi, and the text looks very sharp.
I took off 1 star because the printer makes the top 1/2 inch of the paper wavy. It does become flat after I put the paper in binders, but it can be annoying at times.
Pros: very good print quality at 600dpi, fast startup, sturdy build, nice design, power switch
Cons: noise, paper curling, only CD-ROM product manual, no usb/parallel cable
22 LASERJET 1300 IS A TOTAL PIECE OF JUNK
This printer has trouble fusing toner to all types of paper, even super-smooth surface laser paper. Text quality is pathetic at smaller sizes. Letters are toothy and uneven, and that's not counting the ones that have slight smudges and streaks. Horizontal lines have fuzzy ghosting under them. You can forget about any type of letterhead--even light cockle or eggshell finish is too rough and will cause toner to flake off. Printed pages are also slightly skewed despite tightening the paper guides to maximum setting.
23 Excellent Value
I have had this printer for about a year. It is excellent. I have not had one single problem. and I would highly recommend it.The print quality is excellent and it prints very quickly. I print quite a bit and have not had any problems when I print large quanities. It is a great value. The new printer comes with a full, regular size toner rather than a starter toner. So that also adds to its value.
24 Good printer, inadequate documentation
This is a fine printer with many good features. I particularly like the fast start: the first copy comes out in 10 seconds. The subsequent ones arrive very quickly too. It has all the expected features, such as duplexing and booklet printing.
Installation of the software was unnecessarily difficult because of the inadequate documentation. The start-up guide is completely pictorial and does not tell you how to install the software, e.g., that it should be installed without the printer connected to the computer and which one of the several drivers to install. Those instructions are found only in the on-line manual and various readme files on the CD/ROM, which I am used to reading after installation. As happens more and more often these days, the on-line manual did not answer all of my questions.
25 Power and Noise
This HP pretty much delivers its money's worth. The paper tray holds a decent sized 250 pages, but the strength of the printer remains it's speed. I use it from home and probably print 300-600 pages a week. It has no problems dealing with the output, though it does sound like there's a lawn mower loose in the house every time it kicks into action. If you live next to Benedictine Monks or a Yoga school, you're probably going to need something a little more mindful of neighbors, but otherwise, this is a powerful workhorse. Sure, it's just black and white, but if you're looking for efficiency, not a bad choice. The previous reviewer mention a problem with quality of print. I just don't see it. I tried smudging the pages with my fingers, running them underwater, giving them to the dog, but the print survived. I even do professional work off it, and still, fail to see the problem. I can't imagine finding anything better in the same range.
26 TERRIBLE TEXT QUALITY
Don't waste your time with this printer. Do your research before hand! The text quality on this device is below standard with terrible bleeding and smudgy lines ! My old Laserjet 6l produced far superior results ...
Check out other users experiences in Usenet as well as CNET's review where they pointed out the very poor text quality ... HP should be ashamed :-(
27 HP did it again
Let me start by telling you that I am a bit of an HP bigot. I've had Lexmark, Brother, Epson and Canon printers, but when it comes to your basic black & white laser printer HP is hard to beat. I have learned one tidbit that is relevant here, if the paper feed is vertical, stay away. Since the 1300 has a horizonal feed, keep reading.
This is a solid printer, perfect for an smaller office setting. At home you could save a few bucks and go with the 1300's less expensive cousin the HP Laserjet1000, which is slower and less flexible (no manual feed, not expandable, etc.)
The 1300 offers very fast printing, built in manual paper feed, and the ability to increase paper handling to a tad over 500 sheets. You can also get a networked version if you'd rather not share it indirectly through a computer.
We've had our HP Laserjet 1300 for a few weeks and it is rock solid. No paper jams (the 1200, which this replaced had a good reputation too), beautiful output, and consistent results. We use the USB connection to share it off one persons computer (our primary office printer is a Laserjet 4000 workhorse with an integrated network card).
You get a choice of 2 print cartridges, I would go with the higher capacity "X" version (lower capacity cartidge is "A" version) as the added cost more than makes up for the additional print capacity.
This is another great printer from HP.
