Reviewing the best laserjet printers under $250: Budget and Student Printers, Family and Small Office Printers.

Best Laser Printers Under $250

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Below is a list of the best LaserJet Printers you can buy for under $250. All offer highly impressive print quality and speed, outstanding flexibility and control of print media, with extensive features for such necessities as duplex, wireless and multi-job printing.

Dell LP1720dn

Price when reviewed - $220 (4 out of 5)

The Good

• Slender design, compact unit which is easy to handle and manoeuvre. Very robust having witnessed in use in many diverse settings.
• Easy access to internal parts. Easy to replace toner, drum, roller components, all at the ‘push of a button'.
• Control panel is clear and easy to understand, with extensive configuration features for personal printing preferences.
• The impressive print alert utility is a handy feature for troubleshooting and manual intervention.
• Toner is arguably the cheapest of all in this range.
• Very fast text based printing, graphics slightly slower but still impressively quick.
• Print quality is very impressive for such a low priced model. Crisp, resolute character and image quality.
• Minimal distortion of high intensity black images which incorporate considerable shading.
• The auto-duplexing feature works very efficiently. Making this a superb printer for the home office or small workgroup.

The Bad

• Not advisable to use with refill kits or re-conditioned cartridges
• Additional consumables, such as drums and rollers can cost a lot (if you are unfortunate enough for one to fail on you).

HP P1505

Price when reviewed - $240 (3 out of 5)

The Good

• Another neatly designed HP laserjet printer with a small footprint. Excellent handling and resilience.
• Networking capability is superior to most, simple to setup and faultless in connectivity, both wired and wireless.
• Printing is quick and delivers impressive results. Even over wifi it prints remarkably quickly and handles job scheduling smoothly.
• Toner can be expensive for heavy duty and extensive image prints. Otherwise practical and efficient.
• A superb printer for the small workgroup or home office. This is the best in class workhorse printer, once the feeder is setup for your optimum printout.

The Bad

• The feeder mechanism is fiddly, lacking clear markers and somewhat difficult to place precisely.
• Input tray (protruding from the front of the unit) is cumbersome and looks flimsy. But does fold neatly back up into the unit.
• Doesn’t support duplex printing.

Samsung ML-1630

Price at time of review - $200 (4 out of 5)

The Good

• Superior design body, a small, compact ‘shoe-box’ printer. Excellent for small office or home use. The glossy black finish is highly professional.
• A superior ‘plug and play’ monochrome laser printer with a fantastic price tag.
• Low profile design makes it a super fit in almost any setting.
• User guides are intuitive, the LED is informative and impressive blue neon indicators are flashy, not tacky.
• One of the quietest printers I’ve ever used, which also does not detract from the printers speed.
• Text based printing is excellent and general cost per page is good. Consumables are very reasonably priced.

The Bad

• Has a low capacity media tray and cannot output the array of media types others can in this range.
• Struggles with larger print jobs when using cheaper paper. Can jam or chew paper (mis-feed).
• A steady performer, but not the workhorse variety of printer. Not as durable as the HP 1505.
• Print quality is average for image based prints.

Lexmark 33S0300

Price at time of review - $240 (4 out of 5)

The Good

• Simple ‘box’ design is functional and practical but doesn’t have the elegance of the Samsung ML-1630. Still has a reasonably small footprint.
• Very easy to configure, both for print setup and network accessible printing.
• Network connectivity is impressively quick at handling jobs. Some delays during multi-job process management.
• Quality of text based printing is almost best in class, but not quite matching the Brother HL-5250DN. It does excel compared to the rest however.
• Have seen this printer in operation across multiple organizations and in many homes, rarely does it have maintenance issues and is a very durable, long term producer.
• A solid workgroup printer with built in duplex capabilities. A very good buy for the home or small office.

The Bad

• As with the Brother HL-5250DN, no LCD display could leave some ‘hands on’ users searching for ‘tweak ability'
• Print speed for text based prints is average, which is a disappointment considering images are output very quickly.

Brother HL-5250DN

Price at time of review - $225 (5 out of 5)

The Good

• Another ‘box’ design printer with a low profile and simple chassis.
• A highly reliable printer, delivering a consistently high level of output.
• Superb print quality, one of the sharpest ever seen, certainly at under $250.
• Excellent network connectivity, handles jobs quickly and without any mismanagement.
• Outstanding print speed coming in at 30ppm and not diminishing quality during heavy usage.
• Excellent duplex printing, both in terms of quality and speed.
• Reasonable price for replacement parts and consumables.
• A seriously impressive printer for intermediate levels of activity. Best in class for print quality and speed as a combination.

The Bad

• Ideal for small office and certainly home use/office, but be aware of capacity…
• Paper tray capacity is not the largest (300 sheet max). Would run out in no time if running large jobs, multiple user connectivity.
• No LCD display can feel alien to some users, but it genuinely is not needed such is the online configurability.

Looking for a LaserJet with a little more quality. Review of Best LaserJet Printers (under $500)