When the HP Officejet 6000 hit the market, it reserved it’s place among the middle class, single function printers. In a market full of all-in-ones, it is odd to get to see a simple printer get released and it makes you somehow wonder why someone would still be interested in such a device. The answer is ease of use and low price. A smart consumer knows that there’s no point in paying for features that they’ll never get to use. And as a bonus, in this case, less features means more speed.

While it may not surprise you with any high-end features, it does exactly what it’s supposed to, it’s a reliable and fast office laser color printer. The design isn’t very special either, but since it’s place is mainly in an office, no one really expects much style or flashiness.

When HP released this office laser color printer, simplicity was the key word. Thus, there’s no shiny LCD screen and controlling the printer happens through classic rounded buttons. You can find the buttons just above the paper tray. You’ll have your power button, cancel button and a paper feed button, as well as a button for network setup. In case the ink starts running low, four sparkly leds on the top right will let you know, so that you can replace it.

The major inconvenient for most users is the lack of a USB slot as well as a media card reader. Since there’s also no LCD screen, this basically means that the printer depends on a PC for functioning and all settings have to be done through the driver. What’s also odd is that HP didn’t include a USB cable, so before buying this printer it’s highly recommended that you bring your own.

Among it’s strong points is the really good print quality (both color and monochrome). And it doesn’t compromise when it comes to speed either. It actually provides pretty fast print speeds compared to similar printers, up to 32ppm in draft black and 31ppm in draft color. Print resolution is up to 600dpi in black and 4800 x 1200 dpi for color. The HP Officejet 6000 includes four ink cartridges, one of which is black, the rest being color. The manufacturer claims that the black cartridge will work for around 400 pages, and the color will last for a little less, about 300. Also on the plus side is the sturdy input tray that stores up to 250 sheets, comparing to other plain printers that will only hold around 100 pages.

Overall, it’s a pretty simple and straightforward printer that performs well. It should do just fine for a small or home office and it’s small price recommends it. Since it was manufactured to work as a workgroup printer, it also provides networking. It doesn’t include wireless but just in case the user needs that, HP has also released a wireless model, which obviously comes with a slightly bigger price tag.

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