HP 3052 Toner
LaserJet 3052 Toner Cartridges

HP 3052 Printer Review

The HP LaserJet 3052 is a multifunction monochrome laser printer designed for the home or small office user. It offers great quality, decent speeds, and built-in networking for an affordable price, but no faxing and small capacities make it a poor choice for larger offices. Other units would be better suited such as the E230 that features Lexmark 34035HA toner.

The design of the HP 3052 manages to keep the unit fairly compact, despite its large number of features. It measures 15.5 inches by 19.6 inches by 16 inches and weighs 26.5 pounds. At this size and weight, it can fit comfortably in a home office or small office environment without taking up too much room.

The unit can print, scan, and copy, but has no built-in faxing capabilities. It has both a flatbed scanning surface and an automatic document feeder, which can hold up to 50 sheets for automatic scanning or copying. OCR (optical character recognition) software is also included for converting scanned documents into editable text, a very handy feature as more and more offices are archiving old paper documents in digital form.

HP LaserJet 3052 toner capacity is less than half that of the maximum monthly duty cycle. Standard HP 3052 toners contain 2,000 pages, and the high yield HP 3052 toners contain 3,000 pages. There are color models with the same yield, such as Dell 330-1437 toner. If the printer is used to its maximum monthly duty of 7,000 pages, user will find that they have to replace the HP LaserJet 3052 toners much too often. However for a small user, the small yield will be satisfactory.

The HP 3052 also includes an ethernet port for sharing it across a network. With built-in networking at this affordable price, larger offices might be tempted to buy it, but offices with more than a small number of users will likely find its capacities too small. Input paper capacity is 250 sheets, which is adequate for a small office, but combined with its maximum monthly duty cycle of only 7,000 pages, larger offices will likely feel limited. Paper capacity can not be expanded with optional add-ons either.

Print quality is excellent. Text is sharp and detailed, even down to small font sizes, but graphics lack clarity. For better graphics, look at units with HP C7115X toner. Print speed is around 18 pages per minute, which is quite good for a multifunction laser printer, and should be more than adequate for a single user or small office.

Overall, the HP LaserJet 3052 is a good multifunction printer that has well-implemented features throughout. Lack of faxing capabilities and no expansion options could be problems for even small offices in the future.