Conclusion - If you expect or need to copy double sided multi-page documents more than once or twice a year, you should really go for the M477. On one particular slide, where a dark-green gradation flows in to black, the steps in the transition are highly noticeable. It also includes standard printing, copying, scanning and faxing. Performance In this day and age, faster is better so you may definitely want the fastest printer out there letting you print x amount of pages per minute or per second. There's a second tray for full-size paper, allowing you to load letterhead paper, for instance. The setup took a little effort, but nothing impossible. Any warranty support needed would be completed by the third party that sold the product. The single sheet tray says you can put up to 5 sheets in at time, but it seems to jam on the second sheet but it could be operator error. The touch screen is simple and sleek, self-explanatory and easy to navigate.
Easy-to-navigate 5-inch hp color laserjet pro m281fdw touch screen. Graphics and photo quality could be better. The M281fdw is smaller and lighter than the Canon model, and its running costs are a little lower. Compact Footprint A replacement for another top pick, thethe M281fdw measures 13. But then it comes with several capacity-expansion options, which puts it a cut or two above entry-level. While not small enough to fit many tight spots, the M281fdw and most of the others mentioned here should fit comfortably on the average desktop, as well as many other similar surface areas. Paper handling for the M281fdw is about average. You can load up to 251 sheets split between two trays, a 250-sheet main drawer and a 1-sheet override slot located at the top of the main cassette. The hold 300 sheets, split between a 250-sheet main drawer and a 50-sheet override tray expandable to 1,050 sheets. In addition, the M281fdw comes with a 40,000-page monthly duty cycle with up to 2,500 pages daily recommended. I found the control panel easy enough to figure out and use, though sometimes objects on the screen were a little too small to touch precisely, unless you concentrated. Connectivity and Security There are myriad ways to connect to the M281fdw, as it comes with the latest, fastest wired and wireless options, including Gigabit Ethernet and dual-band 802. Security features include an embedded web server with secure browsing that allows you to configure, monitor, and maintain the printer either remotely or while on the same network. The M281fdw printed our 12-page Microsoft Word text document at a rate of 21. In another test, I combined the results from the previous 12-page document with those from printing several colorful Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint documents containing business graphics, charts, and photos. Here, the M281fdw churned at a rate of 11. For the final test, I timed the M281fdw as it printed our two highly detailed and color-rich 4-by-6-inch snapshots. It printed them both at an average of 29 seconds each. What's more important here, however, is how well it prints photos. Text came out well-shaped and easy to read down to about 7 points, which isn't bad, but not ideal for printing business documents that require fine print. Otherwise, the sample text pages I printed were more than passable, suggesting that the M281fdw's text output should look good in most types of simple business and home-based-business documents. Our sample excel charts and Hp color laserjet pro m281fdw handouts looked good, too, though I did notice some slight banding in dark background fills and gradients, but in many instances they were just slightly noticeable. On one particular slide, where a dark-green gradation flows in to black, the steps in the transition are highly noticeable. In addition, colors throughout looked slightly darker than when they were printed on competing machines. The biggest disappointment, though, was photo output. While most of the test images I printed came out passible, many of them had perceptible flaws, and some were glaring. Many of the images were too dark, to the extent that bright colors and skin tones were slightly muted and lacked vibrancy. All this is not to say that the M281fdw'a photograph output isn't good enough for certain kinds of home-office and business use, such as, say, in-house distribution. Somewhat Costly to Use Another shortcoming of the M281fwp is hp color laserjet pro m281fdw it costs a lot to use in terms of a per-page price of toner. In fact, high running costs have been a primary drawback to using this class of printer for a while now. When you buy Canon's highest-yield cartridges for this machine, the cost per page comes out to about 3 cents per monochrome page and 15. Thus, while the M281fwp is capable of printing several hundred or thousands of pages each month, its high running costs relegate it to being a relatively low-volume printer. Its small size also makes it a good fit as a personal color laser. It prints fast enough for its class, but it lacks a few features, such as the ability to scan and copy multipage, two-sided documents without your having to flip them manually. In addition, its high running costs will, for most users, relegate it to being a low-volume printer capable of churning out only a few hundred pages each month. If, on the other hand, a couple hundred every day-use prints and copies are what you need, the M281fdw is a decent alternative for an entry-level, low-volume color laser for small offices and workgroups. Contributing Editor William Harrel is a contributing editor focusing on printer and scanner technology and reviews. He has been writing about computer technology since well before the advent of the internet.
