HP LaserJet 5M, HP LaserJet 5Si MX, HP LaserJet 5Si Mopier, HP 5000 D640

Hewlett-Packard is fielding a full line of new printers this year with an emphasis on ease of use and simplified management. The HP LaserJet 5M ($1,800 street, including Ethernet adapter) is an excellent 12-ppm unit for small workgroups. The 24-ppm HP LaserJet 5Si MX ($4,100 street, including adapter) offers the speed and options for departmental printing, while the HP LaserJet 5Si Mopier ($9,549 list, including adapter) adds finishing capabilities that let it take over tasks from the office copier. These printers are fine performers and deliver superb paper handling and management features. For enterprise applications, the 40-ppm HP 5000 D640 ($14,995 list, not including the $349 Ethernet adapter) is an elegant high-volume workhorse.

The 12-ppm LaserJet 5M is well suited for small workgroups. This 600-dpi, letter- and legal-capable unit features a built-in network card and supports both Adobe PostScript and PCL 6. Its duplexer ($679 list) attaches to the back of the printer. Setup was especially easy using HP's fine administrative software, JetAdmin. It provided a common interface to attach the printer to the network to load drivers and to create print queues. You can also use it to configure any menu setting available on the 5M's bright and legible scrolling LED control panel, and there is a cancel button on the front panel that lets you kill the current job. Other design extras include flash memory and an infrared port for wireless printing from a laptop.

JetAdmin's outstanding network administrative tools let you monitor, adjust, and delete print jobs, filter who receives dialog-box and audio alerts, and tally printer usage. A labeled graphic display changes color to report at-a-glance status, paper types and levels, and toner level in the cartridge. HP's Web-based administrative utility, WebJetAdmin, lets managers graphically view any printer (even non-HP units) over a wide area network and configure HP models via any PC anywhere with a Web browser.

The LaserJet 5M is one of only three printers we tested that support PCL 6 (two of the Lexmarks did as well)--the new language designed to provide faster graphics printing and better gray-scale output. It produced clean images with excellent tonal range. Although PCL 6 didn't dramatically improve image quality over PCL 5e, its improved WYSIWYG font handling and object-oriented commands speed up text and complex graphics printing.

The LaserJet 5M's performance was excellent, taking the top scores in our 12-page Text and Graphics and Multiple Simultaneous Jobs tests. It produced an impressive 11.9 ppm. The LaserJet 5M's range of features makes it ideal for small to medium-size workgroups.

The 24-ppm HP LaserJet 5Si MX offers a host of options matched to larger network demands, such as tabloid-size printing, a 2,000-sheet bin ($1,299 list) that brings paper capacity to 3,100 sheets total, a duplexer ($669 list), a stapler ($2,665 list), and an eight-bin mailbox ($1,889 list) that lets you dedicate individual bins to a specific person, workgroup, or job. One flaw is that there is no stapler.

Setup and management were identical to the LaserJet 5M--with the same complaints about NDS operations. The manuals are complete and heavily illustrated. The LaserJet 5Si MX is solidly built, and was all but impossible to jam. Print quality was clean and black, and gray-scale images showed good tonal range. The LaserJet 5Si MX's performance was on a par with the other 24-ppm contenders. It produced 20.1 ppm on our Multiple Simultaneous Jobs test, placing it in the middle of the pack.

For even more demanding departmental networks, consider the 24-ppm LaserJet 5Si Mopier. It is designed to substitute as a copier for some tasks, producing multiple original prints (or mopies). A multicopy job is sent once to the printer, which then collates the job electronically. Based on the LaserJet 5Si, the LaserJet 5Si Mopier adds a 420MB hard disk, a 2,000-sheet bin, multibin mailboxes, a stapler, and a duplexer. Users can have the printer print, collate, and staple output without having to use a copier.

In hands-on testing the LaserJet 5Si Mopier performed well. We ran a series of jobs with calls to several trays to its mailbox bin. The stapler's special cube of 2,000 pins forms into staples on demand. The unit handled our custom orders with ease, producing the same clean originals as the LaserJet 5Si MX. It was slower (but not alarmingly so) than the other 24-ppm players on our Multiple Simultaneous Jobs test, producing 17.1 ppm. The Mopier is a serious contender for demanding departmental applications.

The workhorse of the Hewlett-Packard family is the HP's 5000 D640. Like the Typhoon 40 and the QMS 4060, this 600-dpi 40-ppm printer is meant for high-volume printing. About the size of a standalone office copier, the D640 sports a slick backlit LCD panel that displays a graphical representation of the printer and notes paper position and jams. The unit packs an 840MB hard disk containing 56 font cartridges, three 500-sheet paper trays, plus PCL 5e and HPGL/2 support.

The optional high-capacity input bin ($3,785 list) and output bin ($3,995 list) bring the total paper handling levels to 4,500 sheets of input and 2,400 sheets of output. An upgrade to PostScript Level 2 (and the extra 16MB of RAM you'll need) lists for $1,995, and Windows 95 and Windows NT drivers are pending. While you can use the LaserJet 5Si's PostScript driver, you can print only text and not advanced graphics.

Setup required some extra effort. The original set of manuals contained solid information on the hardware, but lacked any instructions for connecting the printer to the network. When we inquired, HP sent us an updated version that was better. If you prefer, HP will send a technician to your site to provide setup and basic training for $400.

Major concerns with any high-volume printer are ruggedness and ease of maintenance, and these are the areas where the HP 5000 D640 shows its elegance. The front door is molded to prevent it being closed unless all levers and parts are in the proper orientation. Paper jams are usually cleared with a turn of the advance knob, and if not, the LED panel displayed the exact location of the problem.

On our benchmark test suite, the D640 beat out the other 40-ppm units on the 50-page Duplex and 12-page Text tests. However, it lost ground when printing multiple copies, taking 5 minutes to complete the Multiple Simultaneous Jobs test. This translates to a throughput of about 12 ppm versus 19.4 ppm for the Typhoon 40 and 33.6 ppm for the QMS 4060.

The HP 5000 D640 is a solid printer, well suited to high volume and economical operation. Lack of Windows 95 and Windows NT drivers may leave some users out, however.