HP 3050 Toner
LaserJet 3050 Toner Cartridges

HP 3050 Printer Review

The HP LaserJet 3050 is a multifunction monochrome laser printer designed for the home or small office user. It has a wide array of features to meet virtually every business need, but small capacities and lack of expandability might be a problem for growing offices. For these consumers, Xerox 113R00692 toner printers will work better.

The HP 3050 gives users the ability to print, copy, scan, and fax. Despite its affordable price and fairly compact size, each of these features is fully-implemented, and one never gets the feeling of using a "budget" machine. In fact, the only issue that is really lacking is paper capacity and toner capacity. Its 250-sheet input tray is certainly enough for a personal user, or even a small office of a few users.

The standard HP LaserJet 3050 toner capacity of 2,000 pages per cartridge, or 3,000 pages in the high-yield HP 3050 toner cartridge, will also be enough for a personal user or small office. For small offices with higher printing demands, units featuring Samsung CLP-M600A toner will be more efficient. Buyers will need to consider whether the HP 3050 toner capacities will suit their needs in the future, however, as the HP LaserJet 3050 toner cartridges are not expandable. Unlike some multifunction machines, the HP 3050 has no ability to expand to meet the needs of a growing office.

Scanning and copying are very well-implemented, thanks to the automatic document feeder with a capacity of 30 sheets, but the machine lacks a flatbed scanner, limiting options for scanning and copying to single sheets. Users cannot scan books or other bound media.

Behind all the multifunction features, however, is a very capable monochrome laser printer. If color printing is desired, the CP2025 printer that uses HP CC533A toner is a good choice. The 3050 has print speed up to 19 pages per minute, which is quite speedy for a multifunction laser. Print quality is excellent, especially for text. Although automatic duplexing (two-sided printing) is not included, the software can walk users through the process of manually reloading paper so as to print on both sides.

Overall, the HP LaserJet 3050 is a solid multifunction laser printer with great speed and quality. Lack of expandability and no flatbed scanner are potential problems for some buyers.