Hp's New Home-run

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday June 23, 1997

DARREN YATES

When HP launches a laser printer, heads turn. DARREN YATES reports.

IT'S almost like Mercedes-Benz unveiling a new model, or Paramount announcing yet another Star Trek movie. When Hewlett Packard launches a LaserJet printer, even the competition stops for a bo-peep.

The LaserJet 6L is successor to HP's very popular 5L personal printer. It shares the compact footprint of the 5L but increases the throughput from four to six pages per minute (ppm) while keeping the full 600 dots per inch (dpi) resolution.

And while there are now other personal laser printers that beat the 6L for sheer speed, HP has

continued its tradition of producing laser printers with excellent text clarity and detail.

Setting up the 6L is straightforward with a simple slide-in toner and drum cartridge, with the driver software equally easy to install.

Once you're up and printing, this software displays a cute screen that mimics where the paper is up to on its travels through the printer.

The 6L uses the Windows Printing System whereby your PC's own CPU does the hard yakka of processing each page. This handy feature was first introduced by Microsoft with Windows 3.1 and made it possible to produce many of the cheap, highresolution printers now available.

Upgrading your system at any stage will increase your printer's speed. Under Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 you'll need a minimum 16Mb of RAM. Printing from DOS applications is done through the standard printer command language (PCL) driver and requires 4Mb of RAM.

Our printing test showed the 6L lives up to the LaserJet reputation. The output was virtually flawless. Like most printers the second and third print jobs of the same document came through faster than the first, but the speedy 6L reduced the wait time for these copies by as much as 25 per cent.

Our reference 8Mb Adobe Photoshop image printed in just over one minute while the 10-page mixed text and graphics Microsoft Word bench test took under two minutes - very respectable results for a 6ppm engine.

The open-top paper feeders could prove a problem. Without proper covers, dust will find its way down into the mechanism and, hitching a ride on the paper, eventually onto the drum itself. We suggest that you obtain a cover for the printer and don't leave paper in the feeder for long periods.

A small lever on the front allows you to choose either the front or top paper exit button in any application, at which time it springs into life.

The unit has a base memory of 1Mb and while you can print small images at 600dpi, "out of memory" errors could occur on big jobs. Another 8Mb of RAM will boost the 6L up to its maximum of 9Mb, solving the problem in all but the most complex cases.

When you compare it to other 6ppm/600dpi printers such as Canon's LBP600, Epson's EPL-5500W and Brother's HL-730 - all selling for under $600 - the $799 LaserJet 6L will have an uphill battle.

But if print quality is more important than real speed, the 6L makes the grade. And who ever heard of anyone getting roasted for buying a HP laser printer?

For more information call Hewlett-Packard Australia on 13 13 47 or head online to www.hp.com.au.