HP LaserJet 1536dnf Laser Multifunction Printer

If there's a down side to the HP LaserJet 1536dnf multifunction printer, it's that it's not part of HP's "Plug and Print" line of laser printers, where installing drivers doesn't require a CD. Otherwise, this monochrome laser printer is lightning fast and produces excellent--though monochrome--results. Scanning, faxing, and copying are likewise easy and fast, and the automatic duplexer and three document feeders were greatly appreciated. Wireless networking would've given this printer another half star, but as it is, it fits the bill for a decently priced monochrome laser printer.

While some other HP LaserJet multifunction printers have been less than speedy (such as the recently reviewed HP LaserJet Pro CM1415fnw), the LaserJet 1536dnf all-in-one laser printer certainly does not suffer from that problem. Indeed, it was surprisingly fast, even for a laser printer, with the first page of a four-page Word document out in eight seconds--and the whole job done in 14 seconds. Want to be eco-friendly and save some paper? Add about nine seconds to that print job. Similarly, a 10-page PDF took only 31 seconds to complete. That is as fast as a laser printer should print, I believe.

In terms of quality, likewise there were no unpleasant surprises from the 1536dnf. It's a monochrome laser printer and there's no reason that printed pages should be less than flawless, particularly with paper made for laser printers--and indeed, fonts at all sizes looked great, even under a magnifying glass.

Copying, scanning, and faxing were all easy to use. Using the HP Scan utility, a scan to PDF took about 15 seconds and, more importantly, the utility was easy to use and very intuitive, unlike some other scanning utilities that add a lot of functionality at the price of ease of use. You can scan as PDF, JPEG, or email as either of those. There's also a Scan as Editable Text that uses optical character recognition (OCR) to convert the scan into a document that can be edited. Like most of these programs, the success of the OCR depends in large measure on the clarity and simplicity of the original document.

The two-line LCD is simple but easy to see and read. I liked that the printer offered a 250-sheet input tray, a single-sheet priority feed just above the paper tray, and a 35-sheet automatic document feeder. The printer can be networked via a wired connection but not, unfortunately, through a wireless connection. It's not intended for the heavy use of an office (it's got a monthly duty cycle of 8,000 pages, and the recommended number of monthly prints is only 500 to 2,000), but small offices with limited printing needs (and who don't require color) will find the speed and ease of use of the HP LaerJet 1536dnf a good office companion.

Disclosure: Review samples were provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.