The HP Coloration LaserJet Professional MFP 4301fdw ($699) is a midrange all-in-one (AIO) shade laser printer aimed toward small to midsize workplace settings. It affords sooner textual content printing than HP’s Coloration LaserJet Professional MFP M479fdw, which has the identical 50,000-page rated month-to-month responsibility cycle, although shares that LaserJet’s considerably excessive working prices, which reduce its enchantment for high-volume printing. In any other case, the 4301fdw is a succesful and well-equipped multifunction printer that is moderately priced given its print high quality, paper capability, and built-in connectivity, so it is value a glance in case your funds can accommodate increased toner prices. Extra tempting, it is broadly accessible with a $170 low cost to $529.
Design: Compact However Expandable
At 15.1 by 16.6 by 17.1 inches (HWD), the Coloration LaserJet Professional MFP 4301fdw is kind of petite contemplating all it is in a position to do. It is barely trimmer than the HP M479fdw, which is 0.6 inch taller, 1.5 inches deeper, and weighs a bit extra (51.6 versus 45 kilos). Whereas a heavier printer is more durable to elevate, it probably has extra metallic than plastic inside, which may gain advantage its structural integrity and sturdiness. For comparability, the Brother MFC-L3770CDW weighs 53.9 kilos and the Canon Coloration imageClass MF746Cdw weighs 64, and each are increased and wider than the 4301fdw. The Brother MFC-L9570CDW is heavier nonetheless (65.4 kilos) and considerably bigger in all three dimensions.
Though the Coloration LaserJet Professional MFP 4301fdw is comparatively compact and light-weight, it would not skimp on paper capability. The printer has a 250-sheet enter tray and 50-sheet multipurpose tray plus a 50-sheet single-pass auto-duplexing computerized doc feeder (ADF). It additionally has a 150-sheet output bin. That matches each the HP M479fdw and Canon MF746Cdw (apart from the latter’s smaller 75-sheet output bin). The Brother MFC-L3770CDW, in contrast, has a smaller 30-sheet multipurpose tray, whereas the Brother MFC-L9570CDW makes use of its further top to accommodate a bigger 80-sheet ADF.
(Credit score: HP)HP targets the 4301fdw to workgroups of three to 10 people who print a spread of 750 to 4,000 pages monthly. Even on the backside finish of that vary, you could end up refilling the paper trays extra usually than you need. If the usual 300-sheet enter capability would not meet on your wants, you may broaden it to 850 sheets with an non-obligatory 550-sheet tray ($199) that attaches to the underside of the printer, including about 5 inches to its h eight. That is a considerable improve, although it pales subsequent to the Brother MFC-L9570CDW which may be expanded to a most capability of two,380 sheets.
(Credit score: HP)The appropriate aspect of the 4301fdw includes a shiny 4.3-inch shade contact display management panel. That is about par for the course nowadays; the HP M479fdw has an analogous show whereas the Brother MFC-L3770CDW and imageClass MF746Cdw have 3.7- and 5-inch contact screens respectively. Brother’s MFC-L9570CDW boasts a bigger 7-inch management panel.
HP retains its control-panel menus easy, with color-coded icons which are appropriately labeled and logical in perform. That is notably necessary if you wish to use this printer as a walk-up or standalone copier, with easy-to-understand contact icons for fundamentals equivalent to copying, scanning, or faxing. HP encourages this sort of use by inserting a USB thumb-drive port on the left aspect of the unit, near eye degree with the management panel. The port even has its personal dust-shield door. Against this, the massive Brother locations its unshielded USB port midway down the entrance of the chassis, virtually as an afterthought.
Broad Communication Abilities
The 4301fdw affords loads of connectivity choices: USB 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac (dual-band) Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi Direct. This mannequin can also be listed as supporting Bluetooth, however it’s the narrowly outlined Bluetooth Low Power (BLE) protocol that does not really allow Bluetooth printing. As a substitute, BLE is utilized by the HP Sensible App to find the printer in the course of the setup course of.
To its credit score, the Sensible App is kind of highly effective. You should utilize it to print a photograph or doc out of your cellphone, print no matter is being actively captured by your cellphone’s digital camera, or use the Coloration LaserJet Professional to ship a fax out of your cellphone. HP Sensible App additionally permits you to create shortcuts, that are one-touch scripts meant to streamline repetitive printing duties. The MFP 4301fdw’s different cell choices embrace Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, HP ePrint, and Mopria.
Quick Textual content, Spectacular Graphics
HP charges the MFP 4301fdw at 35 pages per minute (ppm), which is a quick print pace for a mid-level workgroup shade laser all-in-one—even a tick sooner than the rated 33ppm of the dearer Brother MFC-L9570CDW, not to mention the 28ppm of the HP M479fdw and the Canon MF746Cdw. To see if the printer lived as much as its billing, I examined it over an Ethernet connection from our commonplace Intel Core i5 desktop testbed working Home windows 10 Professional.
The 4301fdw comes out of the field configured to print two-sided (duplex) pages. In that state of affairs, we time and file each a printer’s one-sided (simplex) and two-sided efficiency. When printing our commonplace 12-page Microsoft Phrase textual content doc (excluding the primary web page), I clocked the unit at 32.9ppm in duplex and 36ppm in simplex mode, the single-sided end result 1ppm faster than its rated pace.
The Brother MFC-L9570CDW delivered 36.7ppm in our simplex check, which we contemplate an basically an identical rating (it is inside the vary of error of our exams). The HP Coloration LaserJet Professional MFP M479fdw trailed at 31.4ppm, and the Canon Coloration imageClass MF746Cdw introduced up the rear at 28.7ppm.
Subsequent, I timed the MFP 4301fdw because it printed our enterprise functions suite, a set of colourful and sophisticated PDFs, Microsoft Excel charts and graphs, and PowerPoint handouts. Its rating of 17.2ppm was 4.7ppm forward of the Brother MFC-L9570CDW, though the 2 printers tied in our textual content doc benchmark. The opposite HP and the Canon had been in the identical ballpark at 17.7ppm and 17.4ppm respectively.
Neither the 4301fdw nor another laser is a photograph printer, however I put a stopwatch on it because it printed some check 4-by-6-inch snapshots. It averaged about 9 seconds per picture, which is pretty typical for a shade laser.
General, it is truthful to say that the MFP 4301fdw is relatively quick when printing textual content paperwork, however settles for common pace when cranking out graphics-heavy enterprise paperwork. If you happen to are likely to print principally textual content, particularly longer paperwork, you could discover the marginally slower efficiency when switching to Excel charts or PowerPoint decks.
Very good Output High quality
Like all however the most cost-effective laser printers, the HP produced near-typesetter-quality textual content that is eminently appropriate for many enterprise textual content paperwork. The favored fonts you are probably to make use of had been clearly readable with well-formed characters, even all the way down to 4 factors. And whereas the MFP 4301fdw is probably not the quickest when printing Excel or PowerPoint graphics, its charts and graphs seemed clear and pristine. Printed colours had been shiny and vibrant with sharp particulars; gradations easily transitioned from one shade to a different; and darkish fills and backgrounds had been uniform in each charts and graphs.
Printed images seemed superb, with correct colours and a satisfying quantity of distinction. As a result of this HP is a laser printer, you may’t print borderless pages as you may with an inkjet printer. Images and another forms of paperwork can look extra polished {and professional} when the content material bleeds to the perimeters of the paper. That stated, this shade laser’s photograph print high quality is greater than satisfactory for brochures, newsletters, actual property flyers, or different enterprise paperwork.
As for provides, HP offers you a selection of shopping for regular- or high-yield substitute toner cartridges. You will wish to go for the latter, as toner prices are one of many 4301fdw’s weak factors. Even when utilizing the high-yield cartridges, your working prices ought to be about 14.1 cents per shade web page and a couple of.3 cents per black-and-white web page. The printer’s M479fdw stablemate has related working prices of round 14.2 cents per shade and a couple of.2 cents per monochrome web page.
For comparability, the Canon MF746Cdw will value you about 13.3 cents for every shade and a couple of.5 cents for every monochrome web page. The Brother MFC-L3770CDW is available in at 15.5 cents for shade and a couple of.6 cents for monochrome. The Lexmark MC2535adwe is available in at 12 cents for shade and a couple of.1 cents for monochrome. And the Brother MFC-L9570CDW is probably the most economical at simply 7.5 cents per shade and 1.2 cents per black-and-white web page.
Verdict: High quality That Simply May Be Definitely worth the Price
The HP Coloration LaserJet Professional MFP 4301fdw has rather a lot to supply as a shade laser AIO constructed for small and medium workplaces and workgroups. Although comparatively compact, it has first-rate print high quality and is very quick when printing textual content paperwork, and you may simply broaden its paper capability to 850 sheets. If you happen to’re fearful about its working prices, contemplate the Brother MFC-L9570CDW, which is considerably dearer up entrance however prints shade and monochrome pages for roughly half the fee and has a better month-to-month responsibility cycle (80,000 versus 50,000 pages). Patrons on tight budgets may wish to take a look at the Brother MFC-L3770CDW or Canon Coloration imageClass MF746Cdw, although they’ve the respective disadvantages of a lighter 30,000-page responsibility cycle and slower efficiency.
