HP Laserjet CP1515n Printer Review
Make/Model: HP LaserJet CP1515n
Type: SOHO colour laser printer
Web site: www.hp.com/uk
Typical online price: £141 (£123 ex VAT)
Though the number of sub-£150 colour laser printers is increasing, they’re still something of a rarity and HP’s LaserJet CP1515n is aimed at the small and home office markets. The boxy look of the two-tone grey case is relieved by curves on most edges with the largest radius reserved for the front edge, into which the control panel is set at the right-hand end.
The simple Left, Right, OK and Back buttons are all you need to navigate the printer’s menus, but the two-line by 16-character LCD display is too near the horizontal and covered with a shiny acrylic cover, which makes it very difficult to read under most kinds of overhead illumination.
At the bottom of the front panel is a single paper tray with a capacity of just 150 sheets. This is low, even for a machine intended for SOHO use and there’s no optional second tray. There is a single-sheet feed slot for special purpose papers, which is unusual on a colour laser at this level, with a rather flimsy flap just above for clearing any paper jams.
The printer comes as standard with both USB 2 and Ethernet sockets and supports both PCL 6 and, in emulation, Postscript Level 3. The colour toner cartridges are all supplied in situ and folding down the front cover and pulling out the four seal tapes has you ready to go.
HP rates the CP1515n at 12ppm for black pages and 8ppm for colour. We saw a maximum of around 9.5ppm when printing longer black documents and around 4.5ppm printing colour. Both these speeds would be a lot higher, if it wasn’t for an average start-up time of 25 seconds on each job. Most printers take less than half this time to get going.
Print quality is good. Black text is sharp and dense and there’s no sign of any spatter or other irregularities, even at small text sizes. Colour graphics are bright and attention-grabbing and the printer even does reasonably well at reproducing photographs, something colour lasers are notoriously poor at.
The only costs in running this machine are its four toners and these are available in capacities of 2,200 pages for black and 1,400 pages for the three colours. HP supplies under-filled, 700-page ‘starter’ cartridges with the machine, so you start buying consumables early.
Verdict
This is a good, colour laser printer for those with modest print requirements and equally modest amounts to spend. It produces very good print, is easy to maintain and produces pages at a reasonable speed, once it’s started. A larger print tray would be an advantage, but otherwise this is a very good printer for the money.
Speed: 17ppm black, measured 7/10
Print quality
Text print: 9/10
Text/Graphics: 8/10
Photo 7/10
Features: 8/10
Overall: 8/10
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