HP LaserJet M234dwe review

Our Verdict

This HP monochrome multi-function LaserJet delivers high image quality and good functioning on the nuts. However, non all functioning is top-shelf, and the online HP Plus configuration won't suit all users.

For

Fast text printing
Quick duplex printing of text
Copying is faster than average
Vi months of toner included

Confronting

Text-and-graphics PDF printing is ho-hum
Toner costs are slightly above average
Small-scale 1.27-inch monochrome LCD
Sloppy border detection in scanning software
Cloud-focused functionality won't suit all users

Tom's Guide Verdict

This HP monochrome multi-function LaserJet delivers high prototype quality and good functioning on the basics. However, non all performance is top-shelf, and the online HP Plus configuration won't suit all users.

Pros

+
Fast text printing
+
Quick duplex printing of text
+
Copying is faster than boilerplate
+
Six months of toner included

Cons

-
Text-and-graphics PDF printing is irksome
-
Toner costs are slightly to a higher place average
-
Minor one.27-inch monochrome LCD
-
Sloppy border detection in scanning software
-
Deject-focused functionality won't adapt all users

The HP LaserJet M234dwe ($199) is a monochrome light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation printer designed for small offices and home offices.

Fast text printing and faster-than-average copying brand the LaserJet M234dwe a expert candidate for office duties. However, whether this multifunction device is right for your role will likely depend on whether you're in the market for a toner subscription, and want a device that depends on an net connexion for full functionality. For instance, although the included HP Smart software does let you lot to browse a document and relieve information technology to a PC, any scanning shortcut you ready in the software must relieve the certificate to an online location (such equally Google Drive or Dropbox). If your function manages its documents on PC difficult drives or network-connected storage, this may throw a monkey wrench in your workflow.

You will have to set up an online HP account in order to ready up this printer, which requires an Net connection. This is required by the HP Plus program, which is a cloud-based printing solution. Equally such, when setting up scanning shortcuts in the included HP Smart software, you can only ready the browse to exist saved to an online location (such equally Google Drive), not to a PC, fifty-fifty if connected via USB cable. (You can, however, browse and manually save each private file to a PC, just not via a shortcut).

Optionally, you can sign up for a six-calendar month trial of HP Instant Ink, an ink and toner subscription service (more than on that beneath). The starter toner cartridge that comes in the box is rated to impress approximately 700 pages (versus the standard cartridge's 1,100 pages). If you lot run out of toner inside half dozen months, you will receive a replacement cartridge free of charge. (For monthly subscription tiers and pricing, see the Software and Setup section below). This laser printer only works with HP-brand cartridges. A recycling label is included in the box for Instant Ink subscribers, for recycling through the HP Planet Partners program.

The result is a monochrome all-in-1 laser printer that's great for the office or home, but expects you to fully buy into HP's growing ecosystem of services and subscription toner refills. Equally our HP LaserJet M234dwe review shows, that's not necessarily a bad matter, but compared to many of the best laser printers or best all-in-one printers we've reviewed, information technology's more of a long-term commitment than you might expect when ownership a laser printer.

HP LaserJet M234dwe review: Design

The LaserJet M234dwe has a recommended page volume of 200 to 2,000 pages, and is outfitted with a duplexer for making two-sided prints. The paper cassette holds up to 150 sheets, and the output tray above it holds upwardly to 100 sheets of paper.

It has a simple scanner chapeau up height, and is not outfitted with an automated document feeder (ADF) for copying or scanning multipage documents. The M234dwe prints and copies in blackness-and-white, and tin scan in colour. The meridian console offers a half dozen physical buttons and a two-fashion control for making selections from the small, i.27-inch monochrome LCD.

Weighing a modest 16.8 pounds, this LaserJet is an easy i-person unboxing chore. The unit is quite meaty, measuring roughly 14.five x 11.75 x nine.5 inches. Extending the output tray increases the depth to xvi.v inches, while lifting the scanner lid fully requires a vertical clearance of 17.2 inches.

There are Hi-Speed USB two.0 and Ethernet ports on the back, though no cables are included. Dual-band ii.four/5GHz wireless 802.xi b/g/northward is supported, as well equally low-energy Bluetooth. There are not any retentiveness card slots.

HP LaserJet M234dwe review: Print speed

Text printing was faster than the average for laser printers we've tested in its class. The LaserJet M234dwe printed our five-page text document in eighteen.7 seconds, or 19.3 pages per minute. The boilerplate is a niggling slower, at 21.ii seconds, or 14.two ppm. Print speeds for our mixed text-and-graphics PDF, even so, were a little pokey. Printing the 6-page certificate in 49.5 seconds, this LaserJet's seven.3 ppm speed was slower than the eight.9 ppm average. By comparison, the Xerox B215 printed the same document at more than than twice the speed, at 16.5 ppm. Printing a total-folio grayscale graphic on letter-size newspaper, the M234dwe was slightly slower than the boilerplate of 17.2 seconds, making the print in 19.1 seconds.

Using its duplexer to make ii-sided prints, the LaserJet was quick, producing a ten-folio text document in 48.eight seconds, or 12.three ppm. This bested the Xerox B215 (at 10.9 ppm), and was on par with our more expensive Editor's Option Brother L2750DW (at 13.two ppm). The M234dwe was roughly half as fast at making two-sided prints of our mixed text-and-graphics PDF certificate than at text documents, doing so at six.4 ppm. By comparison, the Brother HL-L2390 ($150) fabricated the same print at seven.8 ppm.

HP LaserJet M234dwe review: Copy and scan speed

Taking ix.7 seconds to make a black-and-white re-create, the LaserJet M234dwe crush the category boilerplate of 10 seconds. The Brother L2750DW was faster, at 8.4 seconds. However, the more comparably priced Brother HL-L2390DW, made black-and-white copies in 9.1 seconds, on average.

The HP LaserJet made a color scan in 1 minute, 5.7 seconds. This was roughly half equally fast as the category average – our field of light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation printers averaged 37.6 seconds to make a color browse. The Brother HL-L2390DW captured a color scan in 34.5 seconds, and the HP LaserJet Pro M148fdw did so in 41.i seconds.

The M234dwe was peculiarly irksome at scanning in black-and-white to PDF format. This HP LaserJet fabricated a blackness-and-white scan in 17.3 seconds – all simply one other model we tested was faster. Past comparison, laser models averaged xi.1 seconds on this test, with many models capturing the browse in six to 8 seconds. One such model, the Brother HL-L2390DW, captured the scan to PDF in just 6.v seconds.

HP LaserJet M234dwe review: Print quality

The LaserJet M234dwe does not disappoint on print quality. Text documents printed with letterforms that looked very sharp and were sufficiently night. Graphics print quality as well was loftier. Images printed with precipitous details and shine gradations, overall. Some mild pixelation was sometimes noticeable, as well equally distorted edges and mild banding, but nothing and so pronounced that it was distracting.

This pixelation and mild banding was slightly more pronounced in copies than in prints, notwithstanding. Although copies tended to show a subtle loss of fine details around the edges in graphics, in particular, text looked sufficiently sharp.

The LaserJet made high-quality scans, with sharp details and accurate colors. Shadow areas tended to come out too dark, losing subtle details, all the same. In addition to flatbed scanning, the HP Smart iOS has a "camera scan" feature, whereby you take a picture. On my iPhone, using this characteristic was inferior to flatbed scanning, considering my magazine folio bulged upward, introducing distortions. However, the sharpness of the text and graphics were comparably sharp to flatbed scans.

HP LaserJet M234dwe review: Toner cost and yield

This LaserJet's costs per page are in a higher place boilerplate, based on estimated toner cartridge yields. Using the standard-yield cartridge, which prints an estimated one,100 pages, cost per page is 4.v cents. The category average is 4.1 cents. The Brother HL-L2390DW'southward toll per page with standard cartridge is 3.7 cents.

Using the high-yield toner cartridge (rated at two,400 pages), the LaserJet's cost per page goes down to 3.3 cents, versus the average of ii.7 cents (the aforementioned as the Blood brother HL-L2390DW). By comparing, the Xerox B215'due south high-yield cost per page is two.4 cents.

Also, you tin can opt for an HP Instant Ink (for toner), one of the better ink and toner subscription services, which may lower your cost per page (see table). If you lot consistently make a loftier book of prints, a subscription may be a good fit. (For more data on how Instant Ink works, come across our article, "What is HP Instant Ink?" Although this article addresses ink subscriptions, the toner subscriptions are like.)

HP Instant Ink (for toner) program tiers:

$1.99, 50 pages/calendar month = 4 cents cost per page
$3.99, 100 pages/calendar month = iv cents per page
$13.99, 400 pages/month = three.five cents per page
$nineteen.99, 800 pages/mo. = ii.5 cents per folio
$25.99, 1500 pages/mo. = i.7 cents per page

Note: An additional ten to 50 pages cost $1. If you don't employ all the pages in your monthly plan, you are allowed to roll over upwardly to twice the number of page in your programme.

HP LaserJet M234dwe review: Setup and software

No CD-ROM is included for setting up this LaserJet, which volition require an cyberspace connexion. Also, in order to install the HP Smart software from 123.hp.com, I had to create a Microsoft account (which I did non notwithstanding have). During setup, you tin can accept the gratis six-calendar month Instant Ink toner subscription trial.

To prepare HP Smart, you must create an HP business relationship, if you don't take i already. You will need to exist signed into this business relationship in club to use any shortcuts you gear up in the HP Smart software.

Unfortunately, the HP Smart software was a little disappointing. I found the edge detection feature while scanning to exist most worthless. Information technology tended to crop scans of a mag to a fraction of the folio. The folio had a lot of white space, and then this might have been forgivable. Merely a browse of a color photo came out similarly cropped to a narrow portion of the image, and was stretched out like a funhouse mirror reflection. This leaves the user in the unenviable position of having to manually crop each scan.

Besides potentially disruptive is that although the M234dwe is a monochrome printer, the print menu in HP Smart offered a colour option.

True to its cloud-focused philosophy with HP Plus, you can not gear up up a shortcut in HP Smart software to save a scan to a connected PC—only online locations. You can, however, save files to a PC after scanning with HP Smart. In improver, if you are particular well-nigh your scan resolution, you won't become help here: Scanning shortcuts in HP Smart do not offer settings selections for dpi resolution. The shortcuts don't show on the chief HP Smart page. You accept to click on the "Shortcuts" button to get to your shortcuts.

What is on the primary folio of HP Smart, nevertheless, will be "personalized content" based on your preferences "throughout your HP Smart experience", which are automated opt-ins if you don't uncheck them in the privacy preferences. What showed up in HP Smart during my testing was an advertizement for toner subscription plans, an advanced features pitch, and a shortcuts tutorial. I would have preferred to have my shortcuts front end and center, rather than another click abroad.

Using my iPhone with the M234dwe besides required the setting up of an HP business relationship. The app has two scan types: camera scan (taking a movie) and printer browse (from the flatbed). Using the camera scan feature, similar with the PC software, my beginning photo of a document was cropped to roughly a quarter of the page. I tried adding pages to the scan, but it crashed the app. Using the "printer scan" feature with the iOS app, edges of a magazine page were accurately detected.

The HP LaserJet M234dwe supports Apple AirPrint, Wi-Fi Straight, and is Mopria-certified.

This LaserJet starts upwardly in roughly 21 seconds, which is roughly the average.

HP LaserJet M234dwe review: Verdict

Equally a monochrome laser printer, the LaserJet M234dwe delivers the goods. It makes unmarried-sided and duplex prints of text documents apace and makes text copies at faster-than-average speed. Image quality is high and the price is a bargain, especially considering that you get six months' worth of toner.

Other performance was mixed, however. Printing our mixed text and graphics PDF was somewhat slow, as were scanning speeds. Most irksome in this section, however, was the HP Smart scanning software's inability to automatically observe edges and reliably crop scanned documents accurately.

Toner costs are a little above average, simply information technology's possible that a subscription program tin salvage y'all money—dependent on a high enough print volume and your power to manage the account (so you don't surrender unused rollover pages).

The online dependency of HP Plus will not be everyone'southward cup of tea. If you lot already manage all your documents online in the cloud and need easy integration with a printer/scanner, this LaserJet is likely a proficient candidate. If non, you may detect HP Plus unnecessary and tedious, and be in the marketplace for the ameliorate performance and lower costs per page of the similarly priced Xerox B215 or Blood brother HL-2390DW. If you are willing to spend more money up-forepart, you certainly can't go incorrect with our well-nigh recent Editor'southward Option, the Brother L2750DW, which offers faster speeds in printing, scanning and copying, and delivers a lower cost per page without any subscriptions needed.

Eric Butterfield is a freelance writer and musician from California. His work has appeared in PC Globe magazine, CNET, Taproot, and Alter Action — plus Tom'due south Guide, of form — while his music has appeared in more than than 260 Television show episodes for major networks such as NBC, Hulu, BBC America, and more. You can cheque out his piece of work on Spotify.