Printer Review: HP LaserJet Pro 1606dn

HP just cut the price of its LaserJet Pro 1606dn monochrome laser printer from $229 to $199. Nobody likes PC hardware discounts more than we do, but in this case we wish they'd kept the higher price and thrown in a USB cable. If there ever was a printer that should come with a USB cable, it's this one.

The reason is the HP's installation procedure. It may not be much in the cosmic scheme of things, but setting up a USB printer is often a nuisance -- there's usually a CD and a manual, the latter warning you to install the software driver before connecting the USB cable, when there can be a confusing clash between the installation software and Windows popping up the Found New Hardware wizard and its own "Looking for driver" dialog boxes.

With the 1606dn, there's a CD and a manual, but you don't need them: You turn on the printer and connect the USB cable, at which point Windows' AutoPlay launches or invites you to launch a setup program built into the printer's firmware. (Technically, it fools Windows into thinking you've inserted a CD.) The printer goes ahead and installs itself.

What HP calls Smart Install has its limitations. It's only for Windows (XP, Vista, and 7), not the Mac, and the driver it installs is a simple host-based one, like that of many entry-level desktop printers, instead of a printer language. (After setup finishes, the firmware gives you the option of downloading a PCL 5e driver.)

If you'll be sharing the printer on an office network, using its Ethernet instead of USB connector, you'll have to reach for the provided setup manual and follow some slightly more complex steps. And you'll have to use the CD if you want to put the printer's user manual on your PC.

But Smart Install is a clever time-saver. Call it icing on the cake of a very attractive little black-and-white laser, well suited for either personal use or sharing among two or three small-office or workgroup colleagues.

Small But Speedy

The 1606dn takes about 15 by 16 inches of desk space and stands 10 inches tall. The plastic lid that covers its 250-sheet main paper tray serves as a tray for a 10-sheet input slot for envelopes or other special media. Pages exit face down atop the printer.

Popping the HP's top lets you drop the black toner cartridge into place. Once the 1,000-page starter cartridge is used up, you'll pay $78 for replacements rated for roughly 2,100 pages apiece. That divides out to 3.7 cents per page, which is competitive with other baby lasers but pricey compared to larger printers, especially if you come close to the LaserJet's monthly duty cycle of 8,000 pages. (Like all printer vendors, HP recommends you keep your real-world print volume to a fraction of the maximum duty cycle -- 80 to 100 pages a day, say.)

But if the P1606dn loses a star in our value ratings for its cost per page, it gains one for having duplex (double-sided) printing as standard equipment. It also aces our performance tests, delivering crisp and clear black text and grayscale images at a brisk 26 pages per minute.

A one-page business letter with company logo printed in a prompt seven seconds; six full-page PowerPoint slides in 20 seconds. A 20-page Word document took 49 seconds, slowing to an impressive 1 minute 19 seconds when printed on 10 sheets in duplex mode. And our 55-page PDF test file kept the printer busy for just 2 minutes and 9 seconds, matching HP's advertised 26 ppm almost exactly.

About our only complaint with the little LaserJet is that it makes a fairly loud whir while printing, and HP even has an answer for that -- switching to a "quiet mode" hidden in the printer's properties page muffles the device to levels suitable for sharing a desk with your phone, though it does cut print speed in half.

Even if you don't take advantage of the self-install feature, the LaserJet Pro P1606dn is an appealing choice in the small-printer segment. It's not built to crank out five thousand pages per week like, and its cost per page is steeper than, a bigger monochrome laser, but it offers Ethernet and duplexing for the price of what would have been a USB-only, one-side-only personal printer not long ago.