Pros & Cons
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- Fast.
- High-quality text.
- Reasonably good paper capacity.
- Automatic duplexing.
- Ethernet connection.
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- Photo quality is at the low end of the range for mono lasers.
HP LaserJet Pro P1606dn Specs
| Business Applications - DEFAULT SETTINGS - Adobe Acrobat 8 - 4 pages, text and photos (landscape): | 0:15 (min:sec) |
| Business Applications - DEFAULT SETTINGS - Microsoft Excel 2003 - 1 page, graph: | 0:06 (min:sec) |
| Business Applications - DEFAULT SETTINGS - Microsoft Excel 2003 - 1 page, table A (with grid): | 0:06 (min:sec) |
| Business Applications - DEFAULT SETTINGS - Microsoft Excel 2003 - 3 pages, charts and graphs: | 0:12 (min:sec) |
| Business Applications - DEFAULT SETTINGS - Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 - 4 full-page slides: | 0:14 (min:sec) |
| Business Applications - DEFAULT SETTINGS - Microsoft Word 2003 - 2 pages, text: | 0:09 (min:sec) |
| Color or Monochrome: | Monochrome |
| Connection Type: | Ethernet |
| Connection Type: | USB |
| Cost Per Page (Mono): | 3.7 cents |
| Direct Printing from Cameras: | No |
| Duty Cycle: | 8000 pages per month |
| Input Capacity (printer input only): | 260 sheets |
| LCD Preview Screen: | No |
| Maximum Standard Paper Size: | Legal |
| Network-Ready: | Yes |
| Number of Cartridges: | 1 |
| Number of Ink Colors: | 1 |
| Photos - HIGH -QUALITY SETTINGS - Adobe Photoshop 7 - Average output time per print: 4" x 6" prints : | 0:07 (min:sec) |
| Print Duplexing: | Yes |
| Printer Category: | Laser |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Mono): | 26 ppm |
| Tech Support: | 1 (800) 474-6836 |
| Tech Support: | 1 year limited warranty |
| Tech Support: | hp.com/support |
| Technology (for laser category only): | Laser |
| Type: | Printer Only |
The P1606dn replaces the 
) in HP's line, but with a number of substantial improvements. In particular, it's much faster, and adds both a duplexer and a network connector as standard.
At 9.7 by 15.2 by 11.2 inches (HWD) and only 15.4 pounds, the P1606dn is both smaller and lighter than most inkjets. However, it's large enough to hold a 250-sheet paper tray as well as the built-in duplexer. In addition, the 10-sheet multipurpose tray is a useful extra that lets you print on special paper without having to swap out the paper in the tray. There are no additional paper tray options, but the 250 sheets should be enough for personal use or for sharing among two or three people.
The Good News: Speed and Text Quality
The P1606dn stands out for its speed. HP rates the engine at a substantial 26 pages per minute (ppm), and the printer delivers on the engine's promise.
I timed the P1606dn on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing) at an impressively fast 5-minute 36-second total. That's a touch faster than the somewhat more expensive 
), at 5:56. It's also notably faster than anything else in the P1606dn's price range, including in particular the Editors' Choice 
) at 6:47 and the Editors' Choice ) at 6:35.
Text quality is another important plus. More than half of the fonts in our test suite qualified as both highly readable and well formed at 5 points, some passed both thresholds at 4 points, and the vast majority passed both at 8 points. One font needed 10 points to pass both tests, but it's the sort of highly stylized font, with thick strokes, that you aren't likely to use at small sizes. Unless you have a highly unusual need for particularly well-formed fonts at unusually small font sizes, you should be more than happy with the text.
The Not So Good News
Graphics are on the low end of typical for a monochrome laser, which translates to being good enough for internal business use, but only barely qualifying for that description. Among other issues, I saw visible dithering both in the form of annoying graininess and dithering patterns, a tendency to lose thin lines, and posterization (shading changing suddenly where it should change gradually). I also saw a streaking effect, with bands continuing across the page as apparent extensions to some filled in areas, including bars in a bar graph, for example.
I certainly wouldn't consider the graphics good enough for marketing materials, reports to important clients, or anything else that needed to convey a sense of professionalism. Depending on how demanding you are, you may or may not consider them good enough for things like PowerPoint handouts.
Photo quality is definitively at the low end of the range for current monochrome lasers. It's good enough to print recognizable photos as part of a Web page, say, but it's barely a match for a poor-quality photo in a newspaper. Depending on your tastes, once again, you may or may not consider it good enough for, say, a client newsletter or end-of-year family newsletter.
Other Issues
The P1606dn is the first monochrome laser printer to earn the PCMag GreenTech Approved Seal. It is RoHS and REACH compliant, Energy Star 1.1 qualified, and Blue Angel certified; it uses chemically grown toner, which saves energy during production compared with ground toner; and according to HP, there's a recycling program in place for both the printer and the cartridges.
On our practical tests, it took only a single button press to cancel a simplex print job, with only one additional page printing. Duplexing took only about 1.7 times as long as printing the same 50-page Word file in simplex (for a 189- rather than 114-second total).
The printer also includes what HP calls auto-off and auto-on features, which are best understood as a kind of enhanced sleep mode paired with an instant-on fuser. By default as shipped, the printer goes into a 1.6-watt sleep mode after 5 minutes without printing and automatically wakes when you print the next job. Being in sleep mode adds only a claimed 0.5 seconds to the time before the first page comes out.
HP's one-year warranty, with HP picking up the cost of shipping in both directions, is another plus. If the printer has a problem during the warranty period, and it can't be fixed by phone, HP says it will ship a replacement, along with a return shipping label, to arrive within five business days.
The P1606dn's limitations for graphics and photo quality are enough to keep it from being an Editors' Choice for either a personal printer or shared printer in a small office. And if you need a bit higher quality for graphics and photos you'll want to take a look at the Brother HL-5340D ($200 street) and Samsung ML-2851ND ($300 street) as possible alternatives. Both the Brother and Samsung printers also offer optional paper trays to give them a higher capacity than the P1606dn.
On the other hand, the P1606dn offers faster speed than any other printer in its price range, high-quality text, reasonably good paper handling, and eco-friendly features. If graphics and photo quality aren't much of an issue for your needs (as may well be the case if you're looking for a monochrome laser), and a 250-sheet maximum capacity is all you need, that may well be enough to make P1606dn your best choice.
BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS
COMPARISON TABLE
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