HP 6L Printer Review
The HP LaserJet 6L is a monochrome laser printer designed for the home or small office user. It has excellent print quality, but its slow speeds and limited paper capacity fall behind many competing printers, such as the P1606 that features HP CE278A toner.
The HP 6L is relatively compact, but takes up more space than many personal laser printers. The printer measures 14.6 inches by 13.2 inches by 12.3 inches when being used, and weighs 15 pounds. It is also limited on paper capacity, holding only 100 sheets in its main paper bin. The fact that its paper input and output are both located on the top of the unit means the paper has to make a significant bend on its printing path, making it more prone to paper jams. The 6L can handle a variety of media types, including card stock, transparencies, envelopes, and labels.
The printer does not have its own processor, meaning it must rely on the computer to handle the processing. It has 4 MB of RAM included, which is more than enough for text, but might slow down graphics-intensive documents. Manual duplexing (two-sided printing) is supported, and the driver walks users through the process of reloading paper.
HP LaserJet 6L toner cartridges have a capacity of 2,500 pages each. The HP 6L toners are very affordably-priced, making it a very economical choice. Removing and installing the HP LaserJet 6L toner cartridge is not the easiest process, unlike the Phaser 6110 which uses Xerox 106R01274 toner. The printer has an EcoSave mode, which reduces toner usage, allowing users to get more out of each HP LaserJet 6L toner cartridge.
Print speed is a bit disappointing. At 6 pages per minute, it falls behind many competing units. Its text quality is very sharp and detailed, and graphics quality is about average for a laser printer. Color graphics are available in other units, like the magicolor 2350 that has four individual tanks of Konica-Minolta 1710517-006 toner.
Overall, the HP LaserJet 6L is a very economical printer, but that doesn't quite make up for its slow speeds and lack of processing power. Many competing units have more to offer for a similar price.
