Unlike the rectangular, flat bed designed multifunctional centers most commonly seen today, the HP LaserJet 3100 looks more like a fax machine than a four function, all in one unit. Despite the device’s lack of a flip up top, its performance specifications are at least decent enough on some levels to remain worth keeping operation for the small business.
Though the HP LaserJet 3100 tops out at a horrificly slow 6 pages per minute speed for both printing and copying, it at least does so at the decent resolution of 600 x 600 dots per inch. HP’s famout Instant On technology helps to ease the blow, to a degree, thanks to a warm up time of virtually zero seconds.
Scan quality falls a little lower, at only 300 x 300 dots per inch when utilizing optical technology, though an enhanced mode can boost resolution up to 600 dots per inch. With 256 levels of gray, imagery will not scan or copy at a professional level, and therefore the HP LaserJet 3100 should generally only be used for text documents.
Faxing also operates at six seconds per page which, unlike printing, is actually a fairly decent rate of speed and, surprisingly, it does it with only a 14.4 K bits per second fax modem. Features such as speed dialing and distinctive ring detection are present in the hardware, along with automatic fax and answering machine switching, fax forwarding, memory receive, remote retrieval, and broadcasting.
A maximum monthly duty cycle of 6,000 single sided pages per month should suffice considering the hardware’s speed limitations, and the same goes for the HP LaserJet 3100’s 2,000 page scanner duty cycle.
The HP LaserJet 3100 comes equipped with an automatic document feeder with a 30 page capacity so, though it may be slow, large copy and fax workloads can be left alone for the unit to handle on its own. When faxing multiples, or single pages, users are given resolution options of standard (203 x 98 dpi), fine (203 x 196 dpi), superfine (300 x 300 dpi), and a photo mode which matches the superfine’s resolution, and incorporates half tones for better blending.
Paper handling abilities come in the form of a 100 sheet capacity paper input bin, and a 100 sheet paper output bin. When printing special media types such as envelopes, the device also offers an alternate straight through paper path for wrinkle free printing of thicker media, so transparencies, card stock, postcards, and labels come out looking professional.
Not only does the HP LaserJet 3100 utilize its 2 MBs of storage to hold up to 175 programmable speed dials and up to 25 group distribution lists, it also comes complete with ten single touch individual buttons for one touch dialing to frequent receiving parties.
While the HP LaserJet 3100 is considerably slow, it is worth mentioning that, technically, it does have all the essentials. As a multifunctional device, it may not be as sleek as many of the newer models, but with technical support and toner still available today, it could prove to remain an asset.
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
Printer Reviews