HP LaserJet 5L Toner Cartridges

HP 5L Printer Review

The affordable price of the HP LaserJet 5L printer will be very appealing, especially for those with tight budgets, but its slow speeds and small paper capacity make it difficult to recommend even for home users, and its design leaves a bit to be desired. The affordability of HP 5L toner makes it cheap to maintain, though.

Print speed is major factor for any model, and the LaserJet 5L is disappointing in this respect. It can print at only 4 pages per minute, falling behind the speeds of the majority of models in its class. Paper capacity is small as well, with an input capacity of only 100 sheets. This means that all but the lightest users will probably have to replenish paper often. It can handle multiple media types such as envelopes, transparencies, labels and others. Media sizes up to A4 are supported.

One thing the unit has going for it is the low cost of the HP toner cartridges. Since HP 5L toner is very popular, they are easy to find in stores, and finding replacement toners is easy. Third-party compatible LaserJet 5L toner is available at an even lower price. The page yield of HP 5L toner cartridges is only 2,500 pages, however, which could mean frequent replacement for heavy users. Printer toner should always be a consideration in a buying decision.

Print quality is mixed. Text quality is sharp and lives up to the standards of a typical HP laser printer, but graphics and photo quality are average. More importantly, with only 1 MB of RAM, the machine will likely struggle with heavy graphics prints.

Home users or small office users who do a very light amount of printing may find that the HP 5L's economical printing fits their needs and budget, but the majority of buyers will find its slow speeds to be frustrating.