HP -- it still makes laser printers

After all, the bigger highlight on the consumer end has been the death of the dot-matrix and the emergence of the color ink-jet as the printer technology of choice. My office is a reflection of that, since I own a pair of HP color inkjet printers. The OfficeJet 600 all-in-one device will print, scan, fax, copy, and likely also does toast if I would bother to read the manual.

Unfortunately, the software that comes with it tends to be a little too intrusive on the desktop for my tastes. I don't need a pop-up window every time a fax has been successfully sent or upon boot-up. Just tell me when you need more paper and ink, not for a pat on the head when you've done something right.

I bought the PhotoSmart 1215 solely to process digital photos and it's done a yeoman's job as a stand-alone device. Maybe one day I'll get around to hooking it up to a computer, but all I need to do right now is to shove a CompactFlash card into it and have it print out a proof sheet. From there, I can print out individual pictures, or just go back and copy a subset of pictures onto another CompactFlash card, and print those out in full size.

However, in the back of my head lurks the need for something that won't bleed if water is splashed on it and an occasional lust for a high-speed, low-babying printer that can do a couple of hundred sheets at a pop without a lot of rattling noise of a print head moving back and forth. I've looked at the HPLaserJet 1200 series and I suppose it could do at 15 pages per minute, but but… I covet MORE.

More in this case would be a LaserJet 4200 or 4300 series machine. The 4200 starts out at a list price of $1099 and 35 pages per minute, with a 600 sheet paper tray. I like a printer that can take a full ream without blinking but the base model is disappointing because it only has a bi-directional parallel port. No USB, no Ethernet. To network enable it with an 10/100 Ethernet server card and 16 MB of RAM jacks the price to $1579!

What a ripoff! If you want to crank out 45 pages per minute, the 4300 costs $1399, but is also network dumb. Putting it out on a network kicks up the price to $1879. Robbery! You can almost buy a low-end HP PC for the price difference!

I'm also a little in awe - but not lust - of the HP Color LaserJet 2500, pricing in at $999. The printer does 16 pages per minute black or 4 per minute in color at 600 dpi. It also has a USB port along with the bi-directional parallel port. Old fogies like myself remember when the $5,000 color laser printer was a big deal, so to see HP pop off a $1000 color laser is pretty impressive. However, feeding it is another story, with different (expensive) cartridges. Sure, it isn't meant to be a high-volume color printer, but those pages will add up. µ