Stinkyink Blog

Make/Model: HP LaserJet M2727nfs

Type: Office, mono laser multifunction

Web site: www.hp.com/uk

Typical online price: £458 (£390 ex VAT)

 

The LaserJet M2727nfs is intended as a small office multifunction machine, with a few extra features to endear it to its target market. It won’t win any prizes for looks, having a functional, but slightly old-fashioned styling, with the flatbed scanner mounted on pillars above the laser printer section of the machine.

The scanner is fitted with a 50-sheet Automatic Document Feeder (ADF), with a high raked feed tray, and an LED light source, which means there’s virtually no warm-up time at the start of a scan or copy.

In front of the scanner is the LaserJet M2727nfs’s control panel, which is quite busy, but sensibly divided up by function. On the left are fax controls, with presets and a dialling pad, on the right are the copy and scan sections and in the middle is a 2-line by 16-character backlit LCD display and navigation buttons for setting menu options.

Below the control panel are two, 250-sheet paper trays, as well as a pull-down, 50-sheet multi-purpose tray. It’s unusual to see two main trays as standard on a multifunction in this price bracket, but even more unusual to see a powered stapler for your finished documents, which is positioned to the right of the multipurpose tray. At the back are sockets for USB and Ethernet, but there’s no wireless connection.

HP, along with all printer makers, is guilty of outlandish speed claims for its printers. It claims a maximum text print speed of 26ppm, but you’re much more likely to see around 17ppm, which is what we achieved printing a 20-page text document in normal print mode. There’s a noticeable lag before printing starts, which varies with document length and averages around 12 seconds.

The device has duplex print as standard and printing the same 20-page document as 20 sides on 10 pages took 1:54, a speed of 10.5 sides per minute. A 15 x 10cm photo print came through in a commendable 12 seconds and a five-page copy from the ADF took 26 seconds.

Text print quality is very good, suitable for external customer documents as well as internal jobs and greyscales show a good range of tints, which is important when reproducing colour originals. The scanner does a good job with text and photographs but had problems copying a greyscale document which it had itself printed. Many of the greys defaulted to either black or white, giving a very irregular result.

The combined drum and toner cartridge is available in 4,000 and 7,000 page capacities and using a Stinky Ink 6,000-page compatible cartridge for best economy, gives a cost of 0.9p, very good for this class of machine.

 

Verdict

The LaserJet M2727nfs is a well-designed mono laser multifunction, with its extra paper trays, duplex print and even the powered stapler – actually quite awkward to use, as it staples as soon as its senses paper present. Greyscale copying can be a problem, but speed is fair and running costs are low.

 

Speed: 17ppm black, measured 8/10

Print quality

Text print: 9/10

Text/Graphics: 7/10

Photo 8/10

Features: 9/10

Overall: 8/10

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 2:02 pm and is filed under HP Toner, Printer Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.