Lukas Beeler’s IT Blog

HP’s LaserJet 4250 is a b/w workgroup printer. As such, it is as unspectacular as it can get for a printer.

We’ve primarely used Lexmark err IBM printers before, like the InfoPrint 1532. The first and most important difference between the IBM and the HP printers is the tray numbering - HP usually counts the multipurpose tray as “Tray 1″, while IBM counts the first real tray as “Tray 1″. This is especially important for users which are not accustomed to this. In fact, i still prefer the naming scheme IBM/Lexmark used here, it just so much more intuitive. One of the reasons for moving away from the IBM printers are the slightly higher cost, but also the exorbitant delivery times (a normal IP1532 can take up to a month, while Also usually has all HP printers on stock and can ship overnight).

In a System i environment, it’s important to note that HP offers their own IPDS modules for these printers, though these didn’t work as expected. We usually ship our HP printers with an ExcelliPrint license, which can be used even after we’ve replaced a printer with a newer model, thus lowering costs for our customers and still having a high quality IPDS interface from our System i. I’ve written aboute ExcelliPrint before, especially what needs to be done when using OCR-B with ExcelliPrint and HP printers without a builtin OCR-B font.

In a Windows environment, the HP LaserJet ships with rather well done Windows drivers, which is quite the norm for HP’s business printers, and no-frills printer drivers are even starting to appear for some DeskJet printers. One of the features i like most about the HP windows driver is that it allows you to predefine some paper settings on the server, name them however you want, and have them automatically published to all clients. This gives you the possibility to save your office workers time and reduce errors when you’re using some standard settings to print certain documents.