HP LaserJet 1160 Monochrome Printer

by HP

Product Details

• Item Weight: 29 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 28 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B0002UM0P6
• Item model number: Q5933A#ABA
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 13, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Rely on high-quality, black-and-white printing with easy compatibility at an affordable price.

Features:

• Value. Create a professional appearance with 1200 dpi effective output. Your clients and customers will appreciate the printer's clear, sharp output, achieved with HP REt and FastRes 1200 printing.
• Work smart. Enjoy the legendary quality and reliability of HP LaserJet printing with the HP LaserJet Q5949A Smart print cartridge. HP's Smart printing technology and advanced toner formula makes sharp, professional printing easy, reliable and cost-effective.
• Discover flexible media handling. The large-capacity 250-sheet input tray, single-sheet multipurpose input slot, and 125-sheet output bin offer versatility for your office printing.
• Efficient. Boost office productivity with up to 20 ppm and a fast first page out. Spend less time waiting for office printing. The HP LaserJet 1160 printer features a print speed of up to 20 pages per minute (ppm) and Instant-on Technology enables the first page to print in less than 10 seconds.
• Depend on HP for professional results. A powerful 133 MHz processor allows you to print efficiently from start to finish, and with a robust 16 MB RAM, you won't have to worry about running out of memory before your job is complete.
• Save valuable desk space with a compact design. Featuring an enhanced design with no protruding tray, you can print simply and conveniently from almost anywhere in your office.
• Compatible. Enjoy HP PCL 5e and host-based printing. The printer supports HP PCL 5e—the established print-standard in businesses worldwide--as well as host-based printing to fit seamlessly into your existing office environment.
• Easily set up and use the printer. Designed for personal use, the printer features simple and convenient USB 2.0-compatible and parallel connections.
• Design customized business documents. The HP LaserJet 1160 printer supports an array of print media types and sizes, including HP Matte Brochure Laser Paper, HP Soft Gloss Presentation Laser Paper, and HP Labels.
• Experience the freedom of a printer designed for your office. Built to fit into your existing office environment, the printer supports a wide range of operating systems, including Microsoft Windows 98, Me, NT 4.0, 2000, Windows Server 2003, and XP; as well as Macintosh OS X 9.x, OS X 10.1 and 10.2.

HP printing and imaging systems help you create powerful, professional communications easily. HP printers, supplies, accessories, and services are designed to work together and are invented to meet your business needs.

What's in the Box
HP LaserJet 1160 printer, HP LaserJet print cartridge, Getting Started Guide, CD (includes software and user's guide), power cord.

Product Description

LaserJet 1160 High Speed Laser PrinterUp to 20 ppm. HP REt and FastRes technology for high quality prints. 250-sheet input tray, single sheet multipurpose input slot and 125-sheet output bin. 133 MHz processor. Print Speed: 20 ppm with first page out less than 8.5 seconds. Resolution: 1200 x 1200 dpi. Paper Handling: 250 sheet multipurpose paper tray for up to legal size documents and card stock. Memory: 16 MB RAM. USB/Parallel. Microsoft Windows XP and Mac OS X.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent SoHo (Small office/Home office) Printer, October 7, 2004

By 

NutMac "NutMac" (Mountain View, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: HP LaserJet 1160 Monochrome Printer (Office Product)

Pros:
- Dramatically improved design
- Improved print quality
- Speedy output
- Small footprint
- Solid paper handling

Cons:
- More expensive than competitors
- Cryptic LED status lights
- Does not accept higher capacity toner
- Flimsy single-sheet multipurpose input tray
- Poorly written printer driver and installer
- No printed manual (only PDF file on the CD)

HP LaserJet 1160 is a feature-stripped version of LaserJet 1320, replacing LaserJet 1150 and LaserJet 1300, respectively. 1160 and 1320 share the same engine and chassis (1320 features white-with-black-accents whereas 1160 is all-white). Perhaps the most dramatic change from 1150 and 1300 is a redesigned chassis. They no longer resemble DeskJet's L-shape box with protruding input paper tray, infamous for causing paper to curl up if many sheets are stacked on its output bin. Both 1160 and 1320 now look more professional and spiffier, all the while occupying even less desk space.

More subtle but just as dramatic is improved print quality. 1150 and 1300 were criticized for worse print quality than their predecessor (LaserJet 1200). 1160 restores the former glory with improved print quality. Graphics and photo outputs look noticeably smoother than LaserJet 1150 and 1300 with less noticeable dithering. Text looks sharp, and it looks slightly better defined in 600 dpi with FastRes 1200 turned off (graphics look far better with it turned on, however).

If you need more reasons to justify 10% price increase over 1150, how about 10% faster print speed? With double the memory (16 MB vs. 8 MB) and smaller footprint (measures about 14 inches by 14 inches vs. 16 inches by 19 inches), 1160 represents a superior value.

That said, 1160 could've been better. 1160 loses 1150's 10-sheet multipurpose input tray (1160 accepts only 1 sheet at a time). And multipurpose single sheet input tray feels a bit flimsy, although 250-sheet input tray feels very sturdy and should last a long time. And according to HP, 1160 can accept only the standard capacity toner (prints 2,500 pages at 5% coverage). Also disappointing are LED status lights (LCD alphanumeric display would have been more informative).

I have 1160 connected to Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station (via USB port) so that I can print wirelessly. Apple PowerBook G4 (Mac OS X 10.3.5), IBM ThinkPad A31 (Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2), and Compaq Presario X1000 (Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2) notebooks share the network and printer.

Included Windows installer did not make installation process any easy. If the printer is NOT directly connected to the computer via USB or parallel port, it will not let you install the driver (Mac OS X installer is more forgiving). Network detect feature did not work and I suspect it works only with JetDirect option. After reading the manual on the CD, I have discovered a workaround. Manually add the printer as a local printer, create a new TCP/IP port and specify wireless router's IP address (10.0.1.1 in my case), then click "Have Disk" to install the driver manually. The manual points to wrong directory path. The correct path for English-based Windows XP driver is English\Drivers\Win2003_XP\PCL5.

The driver is not any better. It is not that printer driver itself is that bad (although I have found few minor bugs). My issue is with hp toolbox, an application that supplements the driver. It is written in Java with embedded Apache web server (talk about bloated!). It feels rather sluggish with ugly interface.

That said, the printer works well and hp toolbox should not detract you from using the printer to full potential. And Mac OS X support is nice. When you print, a photo realistic LaserJet 1160 icon appears on the dock showing which page is printing.

If you are looking for true 1200 dpi printing (1160 prints at 600 dpi, only emulating 1200 dpi via REt and FastRes technologies), expandable memory, PCL 6 and emulated PostScript 2 compatibility (1160 supports only PCL 5e), automatic duplex printing, and higher capacity toner compatibility (6,000 pages at 5% coverage), consider 1320.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Superb Value, December 28, 2004

By 

Sam L. Elowitch (Farmington ME United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HP LaserJet 1160 Monochrome Printer (Office Product)

I'm delighted with this printer. It's wonderfully compact and fits in tight spaces. The printer quality is excellent and it really feels solid. I expect it to be as reliable and long-lasting as my previous printer, an HP LaserJet 6MP. This printer worked right out of the box with my Macintosh running OS X 10.3.x and I suspect that setup for Windows is equally painless. Yes, it's a little more expensive than comparable laser printers, but I think that over time the slighly greater inital investment will have been worth it.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Well, it will print, June 1, 2005

By 

Mid-Size Business IT (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP LaserJet 1160 Monochrome Printer (Office Product)

Pros: It will print. Easy initial set-up.

Cons: It has problems printing fonts other than Courier. The way the paper in the tray loads makes it a problem to print sequential single pages (like check stock, think anything already numbered). The manual feed slot is almost worthless.

The font problem is caused, according to HP, by the driver for the printer. It is faulty, and even though HP has released an updated driver, that does not fix the problem. As of June 1, 2005, HP's fix for the font problem is to tell you to load software from another one of their printers (which means you lose some of the funtionality of this new printer).

The manual feed is for one piece of paper at a time and is just a slot - no tray or feeder support.

There are cheaper printers that will perform the same functions as this printer, without all the font issues. If I could re-purchase, I would just purchase the HP LaserJet 1012 Printer again.