HP LaserJet 2420 Monochrome Printer

 (4 customer reviews)

Bought the HP2420 to go with a new Mac G5. Great printer. Worked fine with Mac OS 10.3 where the driver software was provided by HP. Upgraded to the new OS Tiger 10.4.x where, unfortunately, the driver is now provided embedded in the Mac OS. Printer works fine, except that the Mac Safari browser cannot print to the 2420. When one attempts to print the printer generates an 0049 memory exception message. HP documentation says to turn the printer off to clear the memory. HP online says no driver is available for the Mac OS 10.4 since it is embedded in the OS. Catch 22--currently there is no fix available. Neither HP or Apple have responded to my complaints. Foxfire and Internet Explorer print just fine.

The HP 2420 is a decent printer with some nice features but also some worrisome aspects. Let me hit the good points first:

The printer is FAST. I'm replacing an old HP printer (2100M) that claimed it would print 10 pages per minute (PPM). Perhaps my old printer would hit 10 PPM if all I had it print was double-spaced text with no graphics. But for any serious work, the printer was closer to 6 PPM. This new printer literally flies. I've not timed it, but it must be very close to the claimed speed of 35 PPM even when I give it pages with some graphics. The printer is also quiet and I like the power-saving sleep mode.

Installing the printer was easy but I suspect it is VERY important not to connect the printer to the computer until the install software tells you to do so. Several years ago I connected an HP printer to my computer before I had installed the software that came with the machine. Boy, was that a mistake! It took about 2 hours working with HP service...Read more

Printer was constantly jamming and having problems. I saw Dell was having a sale and picked on up brand new for $50. No problems at all.