Good Printer for Basic Business Needs Hewlett Packard 4250n Network Printers

I use the HP 4250n network printer reliably, everyday. I print approximately 600-800 pages daily. I use the Hewlett Packard 4250n a great deal. It is a good printer for your core, basic business report needs. I figure if I am using something this much, it is best that I attempt a review.

I am not a network or IT specialist, but I am a true end-user of this product so I think I can help you decide if this printer is right for you.

I use this printer primarily for printing reports that do not include graphics, though sometimes I print out graphics/images as well. I use 8.5 x 11 " paper almost exclusively.

This printer pumps out a lot of pages for me every day. Because the HP 4250n does so much work, I am glad that it has the 500 sheet tray.  If I had it my way, I'd investigate a printer with a larger sheet capacity, but with ability to 500 sheets I am only adding a new ream once or twice daily over a 8 to 10 hour work day.

The printer prints out with decent speed. About 45 pages per minute which is good enough for most of my print outs.  I do print a couple 300-400 page reports daily, but I have that set up to run overnight so as to not tie up the printer for the 10 minutes or so it takes to run these through.

Considering the amount of work I do on this printer, it requires very little maintenance. The  HP 4250n is a good quality printer in this respect. A true work horse that prints great.  

I almost forgot :-)  I do use this printer for envelopes and labels

Envelopes:  Great for envelopes run through the multipurpose tray.  Not super fast, but good enough if you are only doing 10 or 15 envelopes a day

Labels: I like using this equipment for the occasional labels printed with the help of MS Word.  My only complaint here, and maybe this is common of other heavy duty office printers, is that something happens during the process of printing that makes it a real bad idea to run the same printer sheet through the printer a second time say within a few minutes.  Basically, if I run the same label sheet twice within a couple minutes, the labels fall off in the printer causing a severe jam. Remember how I mentioned the deep jam above? This is how it will happen.  I think the printer warms up the label sheet when it goes through the first time which weakens the adhesive backing on the labels. If you don't let it sit to cool off, and run it through again, your printer will eat the labels.

In essence, if you print labels then decide to print more on the same sheet immediately, wait a couple minutes before running the same sheet through.

If you are running a new sheet, or back to back sheets, that will work fine. It is only when you run the same one again, you'll have trouble.

Again, maybe all printers are like this. Just an warning on the above.

The first thing I worry about when buying a printer that prints out so many documents is whether or not there will be a lot of paper jams. Especially for the reports that I have set up to run overnight.

For the record, I definitely have had paper jams on this printer..... I just can't remember the last time it happened. It is unusual for a jam to occur. I did get a comment about a year ago from a colleague who remarked that the Hewlett Packard HP 4250n never has a paper jam. This would not be a true statement it definitely jams but it is rare to infrequent at best.

A Bit More on Paper Jams

Let's talk more about paper getting clogged in the printer. Do you know anyone out there that rarely gets sick, but when they do, they have to see a doctor? This printer is the same when it comes to jams. A typical, but rare, clogging usually just requires me to open the paper tray, pull a rumpled page and close the door. I've had two jams over the years though where I had to call our IT department. Seriously, the paper was so jammed that I could not access it from anywhere. The paper was in the bowels of the printer. This was a big headache. I suppose it happens on all printers, but this is frustrating on the HP4250n

The printer when not running, makes no noise or humming.  Pretty normal stuff. When the printer is running it does make noise that is definitely audible up to, I'd guess, 20 feet or so in a dead-quiet office environment.    This is not annoying, but it isn't a printer that is totally silent or 'whispers' when paper is printing out.

Fairly normal I suppose, but just letting you know there is an audible sound  (though it is way, way more quiet than some of the more inexpensive printers you'd use at home

Reloading paper in the 500 page drawer or the 100 page multipurpose tray is super easy. Just pull out the drawer or tray and drop it in

Graphics are not that spectacular.  Not horrible, but if you are depending on presentation quality graphics, find something else.  It does print good, (what I call) 'functional' graphics.  Graphics where you can see the image, you know what it is, you know what the image is conveying, but you wouldn't exactly frame it and hang it over the mantel.  There are better printers for that.

I half forget but I do believe when we bought ours we had to wait another day or two for the USB cable. This is easy to forget that a lot of printers do not come with USB or parallel cables and must be ordered separately.  If you order on line, keep this in mind. Check the ad first to see if it is included. With used models out there, they just might be.

This printer looks bigger than it is.  When I first saw it, I was going from a basic home printer to this desktop business printer, so I thought it was a bear :-)  Really though, it sits easily in a 17" x 17" x 17" area.  It fits well on a desk top.

Nothing remarkable about the style or outward design of this printer. It definitely looks professional but it isn't a piece of artwork either.  A good, basic, professional look design.

The Hewlett Packard HP 4250n desktop printer is a true bargain. If you want a reliable printer that has great output with little maintenance, this is for you.
If you are looking for great graphics, keep looking, this won't work. But if you are printing lots of pages of text and charts (especially black and white) this printer works great.

I think the HP 4250n is one of the finest printers out there for business / corporate needs. I currently share the printer with 7 people and it goes flawlessly.

The printer rarely jams, but if you get a label-jam I warn against above, you'll have quite an issue.

I'm very happy to have this printer. The HP4250n gets a very high rating from me. Great printer.

1,200 dpi resolution,

a 460MHz processor,

64MB of internal memory (expandable to 512MB),

Works on PC and Apple (Mac)... I run on a PC.

45 pages per minute

prints two sided documents.

500-sheet input tray, a

100-sheet multipurpose tray,

Can hold 250-sheet top output bin (one I have will stop if this gets full)

50-sheet rear output in back.

The printer features a USB port, a parallel port, and an HP Jetdirect Fast Ethernet embedded print server.

200,000 page cycle

The HP Laserjet 4250n works with letter envelopes, business envelopes, legal, 3 x 5 prints, labels,clear sheets, plus other stock that the user can set up definitions for  (see HP website or other HP online sources for more info)