HP LaserJet Pro M102w Review

Designed for home-based or micro offices, the monochrome HP LaserJet Pro M102w ($159.99) is small enough to fit on most desktops, and it would make a good fit as a personal laser printer connected to a single PC. (You get Wi-Fi and USB connectivity, but the printer lacks an Ethernet port for wired networking.) The M102w is fast enough given its size and price, and it prints terrific-looking text, if not always graphics and images. But it can't print two-sided pages automatically the way our Editors' Choice models, the Canon ImageClass LBP151dw ($249.99 at Amazon UK) and the Dell Printer - E310dw ($249.99 at Amazon UK) , can.

Design and Features

Measuring 7.5 by 14.5 by 9.7 inches (HWD) and weighing 10.4 pounds, the M102w ($249.99 at Amazon UK) is a little bigger than a breadbox—more than small enough to fit on most desks, and easy enough for one person to move. As with most standalone printers in this class, it has a minimal control panel consisting of a combination Wi-Fi button and Wi-Fi status LED, an Attention and Error LED, a Ready LED, and a Resume and Cancel button. In addition to Wi-Fi and USB connectivity, the M102w supports Wi-Fi Direct for making peer-to-peer connections to your mobile device, as well as Apple AirPrint, HP ePrint, Google Cloud Print v2, and Mopria.

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The M102w does not support auto-duplexing, meaning that to print two-sided pages you have to turn them over manually. These days, auto-duplexing is common on most printers, including not only the Canon LBP151dw and the Dell E310dw, but also the Brother HL-L2340DW ($249.99 at Amazon UK) , another monochrome laser, and the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-M5194 ($249.99 at Amazon UK) , a monochrome inkjet (and laser alternative). Otherwise, paper handling on the M102w consists of a 150-sheet input tray and a 10-sheet multipurpose (or "priority") tray for printing envelopes and other off-size media without requiring you to reconfigure the main tray. The M102w's maximum duty cycle is 10,000 pages, with a recommended monthly volume of 150 to 1,500.

Setup

Setup is mostly standard fare for a monochrome laser, except that, since the M102w doesn't support Ethernet, I connected via the included USB printer cable. (If you choose this option instead of Wi-Fi, you'll lose some cloud and mobile connectivity.) As is the case with many laser printers, removing, unsealing, and shaking this LaserJet's toner cartridge is not necessary. Assembly includes attaching a clear, somewhat flimsy dust cover over the paper input tray; it's easily broken, so be careful around it, but the cover is not required to operate the printer.

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At startup, the installation program asks whether to install from the disk or from the Internet. I chose the latter, which involved downloading the latest version of the drivers and utilities. The installation software found the printer right away and that part of the setup process went smoothly—until the end, that is. Clicking Cancel on the registration page brought up a dialog box that claimed that canceling registration would prematurely end setup, which in most cases means a failed installation. I resolved this by checking the Windows Printers and Scanners control panel to make sure the printer had installed properly. I can't help but wonder, though, if (given this class of printer and its prospective users) many people would know how to figure out that cancelling registration would not stop the software from installing.

HP LaserJet M102w Printer

Print Speeds

Before getting into the HP M102w's performance, it's worth noting that of the competing models mentioned so far, the Dell E310, the Brother HL-L2340DW, and the Epson WF-M5194 were reviewed prior to the deployment of our current testing regimen; therefore, we can't compare the print-speed-results of this LaserJet to the results of those models directly. That said, HP rates the M102w at 23 pages per minute (ppm). I tested it with our standard Core i5 Windows 10 testbed PC. When printing our lightly formatted Microsoft Word document, after averaging several attempts, I came up with only 15.2ppm. Not only is this significantly below its rating, but it's also much slower than the Canon LBP151dw (27.5ppm).

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When we included our graphics- and image-laden Excel, PowerPoint, and Acrobat PDF documents, the M102w's print speed dropped by about a third, to 10.3ppm. Most printers' print speeds tank by at least 40 percent at this point. The LBP151dw, for instance, printed the same documents at 15.4ppm—a higher drop percentage-wise, but still significantly faster than the M102w. In addition, HP rates the M102w's first-page-out time at 7.3 seconds. After averaging several print runs, I came up with 11 seconds, which is 4 seconds behind the Canon LBP151dw.

Output Quality

While the M102w printed well-shaped and highly legible text down to the smallest size we measure (5 points), its graphics and images were inconsistent. Many of our charts and graphs came out with noticeable streaking, especially in dark backgrounds and gradients. These flaws were neither glaring nor unsightly enough to make our pages containing graphics unusable, but they're enough to limit the M102w to internal use. We can't recommend the M102w for printing external PowerPoint handouts, or for use in any other scenarios where your goal is to impress.

Photos, too, were mixed, with smaller photos displaying the best results. Our 4-by-6-inch snapshots were at least newspaper quality, but most of our 8-by-10-inch images came out with streaks similar to those we noticed in our business graphics, as well as a lack of detail (for a monochrome laser, that is) in some images.

Running Costs

If you plan to print more than a few hundred pages each month, the M102w's running cost of 3.9 cents per page (based on HP's price and page-yield numbers for this printer's sole toner cartridge) should give you pause. A cost of upwards of 3 cents per page is not unusual for an entry-level monochrome laser printer like this, but nearly all of the M102w's competitors have lower running costs. The Canon LBP151dw's cost per page, for example, is 3.5 cents, and the Dell E310dw's is 3.3 cents per page.

The more you print, the more these seemingly small differences cost you. If, however, your application does not require laser output, the Epson WF-M5194's inkjet output is a significantly lower 1.6 cents per page, or 2.3 cents lower than that of the M102w. If you print 1,000 pages each month, opting for Epson's monochrome inkjet rather than the M102w will save you about $276 per year—enough to buy a fair amount of black toner, or a lot of black ink.

Conclusion

If print quality is high on your list of attributes, the Canon ImageClass LBP151dw and the Dell Printer E310dw will serve you better than the HP LaserJet Pro M102w. If, on the other hand, running costs are important (and, of course, your application doesn't require laser output), you might want to try Epson's slightly more expensive WorkForce WF-M5194 ($249.99 at Amazon UK) . But if all you need is to print a few hundred text pages (or pages containing images and graphics for internal use) each month, the M102w should serve you well, even though each page will cost you more than with many of its competitors. Keep in mind that you do not get automatic two-sided printing, though turning your pages over manually should not be a big deal if your print volume is low.

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