Reviews of the HP LaserJet 4

[slinky]

I'm looking for any reviews I can find of the LaserJet 4 or detailed specs pages on the laser printer (in particular, the approximate price when it was first launched, and the est. page count of a new toner). Thanks!

[OuTpaTienT]

If I remember correctly the LaserJet 4 was about $2000 when it first came out. Those things were serious workhorses. 600dpi, 8 or 10 pages per minute, I don't remember. I had one for a few years. I bought it for $300 and 2 years after that sold it for $500.

[OuTpaTienT]

Here's some specs. I wasn't too far off.
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~help/printi...aserJet_4.html

[slinky]

Thanks Outpatient. All that's left to find out is the estimated page count of a new toner.

[OuTpaTienT]

That I have no idea about. I know that one single toner cartridge lasted the entire two years that I owned mine. I used to work in an office where we had a bunch of LJ4s and printed hundreds of pages of documents a day, and the toner cartidges would last on average about a month.

[sharder8]

I'm currently running 2 LaserJet 5's and they're super.

The main problem for the 2's, 3's, 4's, 5', 1100's, and 1200's, is that they all all top loaders and the pickup is weak. In other words, after a while they start jamming from multi-picks.

HP no longer make the MUP (Multi-pick Upgrade Pack) to solve this problem (FREE). So, the only thing you can do is take it to a repair shop for the new pick setup. (Which I'm going to have to do pretty soon.) I'll probably get my 1100 fixed first though.

Harder

[OuTpaTienT]

I think the 4's were the best of that bunch. They were built like tanks. From the 5's on they got smaller and more dainty.

[nochay]

beware of using old stick on labels with it (had to fix it until we got access to the labels used, and tossed them) The heating up of the paper through the fuser curled the lable and jammed it in the output bin. Good thing it never got jammed in the fuser!

note that as hp wants to retire a product, they up the cost of the replacement parts...

Dane

[nochay]

I think the 4's were the best of that bunch. They were built like tanks. From the 5's on they got smaller and more dainty.

I like the laserjet 4000 series printers the best. Nice size, and so easy to fix. The color laserjet 4500's though are evil, if the toner cartridge carousel skips and jumps, expect to dismantle the whole printer to fix it! Never a fun task! Get a hp color laserjet 3500 if you need a color laserjet, prints pretty good and doesn't use the carousel.

[OuTpaTienT]

note that as hp wants to retire a product, they up the cost of the replacement parts...

Well.... yeah. That's just how it works. That's kinda like saying when a driver wants to go faster, they press down on the gas pedal....... of course.

[slinky]

The reason behind this thread was to compare the specs of this HP with my newly purchased Brother HL-5140. The HP is currently in grounded state- it needs either a fuser or drive train gear repair, but I am unable to locate a laser printer repair shop in my city or somewhere I can trust that won't rip me off to get the parts for such a job.

[sweeper2]

I know a toner cartridge for my HP Laser Jet 4 runs about 90$ here in Ohio....

i know my printer has been using the same cartridge for years...but is now showing a black streak down the paper on one side, i am thinking this is a toner problem....

but the Laser Jet4 is a workhorse..i love mine....