HP 1300 Toner
LaserJet 1300 Toner Cartridges

The HP LaserJet 1300 laser printer is affordably-priced, and aimed at the personal or small office user. Its fast speeds and low price make it an attractive option, but questionable text and graphics quality will likely be an issue for most. The HP 1300 LaserJet toner printer has a fairly compact design. At 19 pounds, it is a little heavier than the average personal laser, but it is not overly large. Measuring 9.5 inches high, 16.3 inches wide and 19.1 inches deep, it is still relatively compact and should be small enough to fit on many desk spaces.

Expansion options are available for the toner printer. The unit has the capability of adding networking as an add-on option. Wireless networking is also available. The unit can hold up to 250 sheets in its standard tray, in multiple sizes including letter and legal, and up to 10 sheets in the manual tray, which can accommodate various media such as labels, card stock, envelopes and transparencies. Paper handling can be expanded as well via an add-on tray with a capacity of 250 sheets. This brings total paper capacity to 500 or 510 sheets, depending on the media. With these numerous expansion options, the 1300 is able to grow along with your changing needs. The 1300n model has networking included, and the 1300xi adds extra paper capacity.

Setting it up is easy and fairly direct. Users first insert the included printer toner cartridge. Users then insert the CD and follow the installation prompts, and then connect the unit to the computer. HP does not include a USB or parallel cable, which is a common, but unfortunate, practice among many manufacturers.

The unit has a print speed that's around 16 pages per minute. This should be enough speed for most personal users, and should even handle a small workgroup of shared users fairly well. Unfortunately, the 1300 fails in the area that is probably most important: print quality. Text quality is not as sharp or defined as its competition. Graphics quality, always a problem for laser printers, is particularly poor on the 1300.

HP LaserJet 1300 toner cartridges have a good capacity for a personal or small office user. The laser toner has a page yield of 4,000 pages. Even for a moderately busy user, the printer 1300 toner cartridge will not need to be replaced too often, and installation of the cartridge is simple.

Overall, the HP LaserJet 1300 is a well-designed machine with great expansion options. However, its poor print quality makes it difficult to recommend against better competing models.