HP Laserjet CM2320nf review

It didn’t take long to get the CM2320nf up and running; probably less than thirty minutes. Users will need to go through separate fax, scan and e-mail setups but again these are automated for the most part and are simple to navigate if you have the correct information. For instance, when going through the fax setup, users will need the to know what phone line they plan on using the CM2330nf on and the provided phone cable. Depending on the line, the CM2320nf can be set up to answer all calls automatically (if the line is being used strictly for faxes) or users can answer faxes manually (if it is being used as a phone line, as well as a fax line). During Fax setup, you will also make decisions about receiving confirmation pages, adding company logos and adjusting the fax settings.

For e-mail setup, you’ll need the SMTP Gateway and port number; for scan setup you have to add/change computer destinations depending on who has access to the CM2320nf.

Ease of use

For the most part, I found the CM2320nf to be easy to use. The setup was a breeze and the control panel is easy to navigate thanks to shortcut buttons. I did have some trouble scanning directly from the device to a PC; mostly because the product wouldn’t recognize my computer or the destination I created. This wouldn’t be a huge problem in an office because most likely there will be an administrator that takes care of technical issues.

The HP Jetdirect software allows all users on the network to access the machine remotely. It is used through a browser and gives users real time information about print jobs, print status, supply levels as well as access to settings so they can stay efficient. Day to day jobs such as printing from a PC, copying a 35 page document with the ADF or faxing a form is where the CM2320nf really shines.

Performance tests

The CM2320nf is a laser printer and, so needless to say, it prints like one. The text quality is excellent; the letters are crisp and bold making documents easy to read. The colors are bright on any paper and you won’t have to worry about bleed through with color charts or images, large or small.

When using the provided HP presentation and brochure paper, the color documents were really nice; they looked professionally printed. I’ve come to realize that sometimes it pays to purchase a brand’s paper – the print jobs can be superior. Of course for a day to day basis, I would stick with plain old copy paper.

I was less thrilled about the HP laser photo paper. It just isn’t the same as printing out a photo on an inkjet or dye sub photo printer but it was still good quality and decent enough for presentation purposes.

Along with the sample paper, HP includes a business marketing design CD with information on their Logoworks program, access to marketing templates and a few free images from iStockphoto.

As for print speeds, the advertised 21pages per minute (ppm) was almost dead on. When printing black and white text documents, the CM2320nf printed an average of 20 ppm with a first page out in about 14 seconds. The first page out time was actually faster than what HP advertised – 17.9 seconds – when I was printing black text documents. On average, it took approximately two minutes to print my full 38 page print test (2:01).

When printing in color, you lose a little speed depending on what you are printing. A full color brochure is going to print slower than a text document with a color chart or image. When printing in color, the CM2320nf printed about 18 ppm and took closer to 17 seconds to print the first page (still a bit under HP’s advertised 17.9 seconds).

You can lose speed from the CM2320nf’s brief cleaning cycle although that only happened during the middle of a print job once in all the times I printed from the device. For the most part, the cleaning cycle took less than 20 seconds and was performed after the job was completed.

Copying large documents using the 50-page ADF was fairly quick. It took only an additional 28 seconds to copy and print my 38 page test document (2:28 copy job compared to the 2:01 print job). When I copied a five page color report using the ADF, it was finished in less than 30 seconds. That is pretty good, in my opinion, although there was some loss in color quality when comparing the original color document to the copied color document.

I found the scanner to be useful once I got my destinations setup. You can scan from the device to a file on a PC or to e-mail as an attachment. Users can also choose to send the scan as a JPEG, PDF, compressed TIFF, etc. The scan quality was good and HP includes the Readiris Pro 11 software on a separate disk. As usual with multifunction devices, the CM23220nf scanner lacked a little on recreating fine detail in the second image.

I had zero problems with the fax machine; I tested printing and receiving faxes and found that it usually took less than two minutes to scan the document, connect, send/receive the fax and then print a confirmation page. Users can opt to nix the confirmation page for testing purposes I went with it. I was kind of bummed that the CM2320nf couldn’t send or receive color faxes because it is a color device and that feature is included on our office inkjet all-in-one.

I was also annoyed when I realized that the CM2320nf does not have automatic duplexing; it has to be done manually although there is the option to manually flip the page two different ways. The CM2320fxi, the next model up in the series, does come with standard built-in duplexing but that configuration is $899.99 compared to $549.99 for the nf configuration. I just felt like the CM2320nf configuration should have built-in duplexing as a standard feature.

The CM2320nf is not Energy Star qualified, which actually surprised me quite a bit because I think it is the first HP machine I’ve reviewed without that feature. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the energy consumption of this laser printer. In ready mode, the CM2320nf consumes less than 20 W of energy and in Sleep mode that is reduced to 6 W. Speaking of, Sleep mode can be accessed directly from the device and can be set to turn on automatically after a certain amount of time elapses without use (examples included one minute, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, etc.).

When starting up the CM2320nf, the energy use does jump up to almost 800 W but only sits there for less than five seconds before dropping down to about 200 W and then resting at 19 W. It took less than two minutes for the CM2320nf to warm up/initialize after being turned off for an evening.

When printing, the CM2320nf pulsates between 700 W and 200 W of energy but as soon as the last page is spooling the energy use drops down to about 60 W before falling into the ready mode of 19 W or 20 W.

PROS

• Compact, light design (for laser MFP)
• 4-in-1 device: print, scan, copy and fax
• Good print speeds
• Easy installation

CONS

• Manual duplexing
• Not Energy Star qualified

CONCLUSION

The HP Laserjet CM2320nf multifunction printer is targeted at small and medium businesses because of the compact design, quick print speeds, 40,000 quality black and color pages a month, and four useful devices. That’s naming just a few; the CM2320nf can do plenty to help an office achieve greater efficiency.

What it can’t do is print two-sided document automatically and that really bugged me. I’m a big fan of automatic duplexing and it can be found standard on much cheaper models than this one.

However, the CM2320nf does perform well and I think a small business with a large workload could do much worse than the HP Laserjet CM2320nf multifunction printer.

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY

The HP Color Laserjet CM2320nf multifunction printer configuration is available now on the HP websitefor $549.99.

Supplies can also be purchasedon the site. Regular toner cartridges will be around $120 and yield 2,800 to 3,500 pages depending on the color of the cartridge. HP does offer a dual black toner package for $174.99 if your office goes through black toner extra fast or wants to save money.