HP LaserJet P1006 Printer

This P1006 is a compact, speedy printer suited for personal or light office use. It's working fine with our iMac Intel Core2Duo (White model) running OS X 10.4.

Macintosh users: If your P1006 comes with HP installation disc v4.0 or lower, DO NOT use the disc. Go to HP's web site instead and download and install their latest P1006 Mac driver, which is now version 1.0.6 (release date July 9, 2008). Version 1.0.6 adds OS X 10.5 support (according to the documentation, I'm not running 10.5) and fixes the frustrating Microsoft Office 2004 printing bug, which I personally experienced. When I first got my P1006, I installed the buggy driver from the HP installation disc v4.0. Afterwards, whenever I tried to print (using Command-P) from Word 2004 or Excel 2004, the printer would constantly error out, which was getting infuriating. However, after installing the v1.0.6 driver, the printing problem went away. Phew!

Pros:
Fast startup time
Fast printing
Inexpensive
On/Off button on the front of the printer

Cons:
Smaller toner capacity than predecessor LaserJet 1012, 1020 models, as noted by others.
Installation disc that comes with the printer has outdated, buggy drivers.

I was using this printer with mac os 10.5; the printer refused to print documents from iwork or office 04. Eventually I found documentation from the problem on the hp website (the problem seems to have been caused by buggy drivers). I felt like I was using windows 95 all over again. The toner cartridges are advertised for 1500 pages, but I never got so far. Maybe windows users have better luck.

I own 6 HP laserjet printers. I have had HP printers since 1984. I will not purchase HP printers in the future because their technical support is so bad. My last experience with HP nonsupport wasted an hour and ended with them trying to sell me a new printer. I was able to solve my problem by purchasing a parallel connector PCI card from amazon. The experience still cost me $49 plus tax even though HP did not solve my problem.

Bought this printer because I wanted a small laserjet for home use. I immediately started having problems with it. It would print a job, then inexplicably die out. Sometimes the power would automatically turn off, other times print orders would just pile up in the queue without ever being printed. I tried downloading software drivers from HP's support--to no avail. Actually made it worse. It now refuses to print anything. I was attracted to its size and speed...but it seems to be very poorly designed. Do not waste your time and money.

This printer starts fast and print fast with high resolution. However, it is not convenient when printing envelope using, for example Word, compared with my former HP Laserjet 6L. For the 6L, when print-envelope job is sent, the printer waits for me to put in an envelope, and the printing will start only when I push the "start button". There is no start button in the P1006, and I need to go to printer setup window to setup envelope printing and place an envelope in the tray before the print-evelope job is sent. After printing the envelope, I need to reset the print for ordinary printing. This is very inconvenient. Also for the 6L, I can let the envelope bend through about only 130 deg from input to output and the envelope comes out nearly unbent. With the P1006, everything has to bend 360 deg from input to output. The envelope after bending such large angle need to be flattened after printing. Also the toner is much more expensive than that for the 6L. Although they cost roughly the same, that for the 6L can print 2500 pages, but that for the P1006 is much smaller and can print only 1500 pages. To me, the only good point for the P1006 is its fast printing rate and low price of $90 at Amazon.com. Besides that everything is not as good as the 6L. It is too bad that the fuse roller of my 6L is broken and it cost $70 to $100 or more to repair.
HP LaserJet P1006 Printer