HP 4050 Printer Review

The HP LaserJet 4050 laser printer is designed for the small or medium office environment. It has the affordable HP toner cartridge pricing, speed, capacity, and features to handle a relatively high-volume office, and has a few bonus features that add convenience.

Although the HP 4050 laser printer is basically a small office model, it can handle high volumes of printing quite well. Its paper capacity is 500 sheets in its main tray, and 100 sheets in its multipurpose tray, meaning more time between paper reloads. It also has a maximum monthly duty cycle of 65,000 pages.

The HP LaserJet 4050 toner cartridges have a large capacity of 10,000 pages per laser printer toner cartridge, so a single laser toner cartridge will go a long way as well, even in a busy office. Because the machine was meant for a small to medium office, with such a large capacity the HP 4050 toner cartridges will not have to be replaced often.

The machine is relatively compact, but it will still take up a fair amount of space in the office. The control panel is very well-designed, incorporating an LCD screen and 3 lights for status, activity, and errors. The menus are easy to navigate, and the menu even offers onscreen help for solving problems. This is especially useful since the unit does not come with a printed manual, only a PDF version on the included disc. While it would be quite easy to print the manual with the unit itself, it would still be nice to see a printed manual included.

Setup is a breeze, like Xerox toner printers. Once it is connected the software walks users through the entire process. Drivers are included for all modern versions of Windows and Mac OS X. The unit includes a few nice extras, such as a hard disk, which allows users to store documents for private printing, proof and hold, and printing on demand. Print speed is quite fast at 17 pages per minute. Print quality is excellent. Text is clear, sharp, and detailed. Graphics quality is better than average. Multiple models are available with different configurations. The 4050n adds networking, the 4050t adds extra paper capacity, and the 4050tn adds both options.

Overall, the HP LaserJet 4050 is an impressive printer with the speed and capacity to handle a busy office. Lack of a printed manual is a drawback, and the unit may be too bulky for small offices that have limited space.

HP LaserJet 4050 Instructional Video

HP LaserJet 4050 Instructional Video Transcript