HP LaserJet CP1525nw colour laser printer

The HP LaserJet CP1525nw is a colour laser printer that's aimed at small offices with multiple computers. It has wired and wireless networking, is reasonably quick to print off multi-page documents and is simple to operate and maintain. Its paper tray is a little smaller than we would like, but only larger businesses should be concerned. It also includes HP's ePrint Web-based printing service.

HP LaserJet CP1525nw: Design and installation

The HP LaserJet CP1525nw has a two-line monochrome LCD and a very minimalist assortment of buttons. At first, we didn't even notice the wireless button a little further down the printer's body, which made connecting the LaserJet CP1525nw to Wi-Fi an initially confusing task. Moreover, there's no way to manually input wireless network settings — you can enter a PIN (which you'll need to get your router to provide) or use Wi-Fi Protected Setup. We opted for the latter, but this did mean we had to set the LaserJet CP1525nw to search for a network and then run into the next room to hit the WPS button on the router.

Once the HP LaserJet CP1525nw was set up, we had no problems accessing it via Wi-Fi on an Apple Macbook Pro. The Web interface of the printer is well laid out and provides an administrator with easy access to consumable information (including the ability to order supplies through registered HP partners), various network and paper settings as well as HP's Web services, which allow printing via e-mail. The Web interface is much more versatile than the printer's physical controls.

HP LaserJet CP1525nw: Toner and printing

The HP LaserJet CP1525nw uses four individual toner cartridges — black CE320A, cyan CE321A, yellow CE322A and magenta CE323A. We found the cartridges online for reasonable prices, with the 2000-page black cartridge costing $98 and 1300-page cyan, yellow and magenta cartridges costing $94 each. A complete recharge for the printer would cost $380 — more than the recommended retail price for the entire HP LaserJet CP1525nw, which admittedly only includes smaller-capacity introductory toner cartridges. In pure cost-per-page terms the LaserJet CP1525nw produces 4.9 cent black pages, and a full-colour page will set you back 21.7 cents. These costs are on par with competing colour lasers like the Fuji Xerox DocuPrint CP205. HP rates the LaserJet CP1525's monthly duty cycle at 30,000 pages, but the 150-sheet paper tray is a little small to keep up with intensive printing requirements.

The HP LaserJet CP1525nw performs almost identically to the Fuji Xerox DocuPrint CP205 when it comes to speed. In our colour document test prints the HP LaserJet CP1525nw managed to print the first page of a document in 28 seconds, with subsequent pages following every nine seconds. This translates into an effective printing speed of around 8 pages per minute for colour over longer runs, which is on par with HP's quoted specifications. Monochrome printing is marginally faster at an average of around 11 pages per minute. We found these print speeds acceptable HP LaserJet CP1525nw through, although the wait for the first page sometimes got a little tedious.

The quality of the printouts we got from the HP LaserJet CP1525nw was pleasing for an entry-level laser printer. Text is generally clear even at small sizes and with complex fonts, and the consistency of colour graphics is impressive at this price point. The printer's low output resolution means that colour photos aren't especially detailed and dark areas can look a bit smudged, though.

HP LaserJet CP1525nw: Conclusion

The HP LaserJet CP1525nw is well suited to a small business that is interested in a printer that can connect to its wireless network. It is relatively simple to set up; our only concerns are the small input tray capacity and annoying lack of manual Wi-Fi connection via the printer controls.

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