Strengths:1. Great value
2. Compact design
3. Excellent print speed
4. Modest noise level
5. Simple and easy to use software
6. Reasonably priced replacement toner cartridge
Weaknesses:1. Doesn't come with necessary USB cable
2. Smallish input/output trays
3. Pages come out curled on the edges
Posted Feb 4, 2006 - I pretty much had it with my old inkjet printer. There was no way I was going to sink any more money into that deadbeat. The days of poor print quality and horribly slow print speed were over. I did some research and decided on a laser printer. Rarely did I ever print anything with color graphics or full color text, so a black and white laser printer was the best pick for me.
I found the HP LaserJet 1020 on sale over the internet for ~$100 + shipping. I found this to be an excellent price, which wasn't going to be around for much longer. Along with the printer, I also purchased an HP toner cartridge for the LJ 1020 which cost ~$50 which is very reasonable, compared to competing printer's replacement toner cartridge costs. One excellent feature is that the roller drum assembly is integrated into the toner cartridge, and not fixed into the printer itself. So when the toner cartridge is used up, you put another new one in, with a new integrated roller drum assembly. This saves down the road on additional maintenance costs. I found it would cost over $100 to replace a roller drum assembly every ~12,000 pages, on other competing printers. One thing to be aware of is that the LJ1020 does not come with the necessary USB cable needed to link it up with your PC. Be sure to purchase this along with the printer, or you'll be making a trip to the local retailer. Prices over the internet for this USB cable will be much cheaper than in a brick and mortar store.
Upon receiving the printer, I opened up the retail box to find a well packaged and very secure little gray and beige mini-machine. I was surprised how small and compact the design was. It fit perfectly on my somewhat crowded computer desk, and was hardly much bigger than my old inkjet printer. I like how the input and output trays fold up when not in use, which minimizes the LJ1020's footprint. The only problem with the trays is that they are a bit on the small side, with the input tray holding 150 pages and the output tray holding 100 pages. With the speed of the printer, and the small tray size, you really have to stay on top of it, and keep the input tray full of paper. It tends to run out very quickly when printing many pages at a time.
Installation of the printer is a breeze. Plugging in the USB cable and power cord is a snap, and the latest drivers for the LJ1020 from HP's web site come in at a mere 2.5MB. In these days of bloatware and excessive, unecessary junk applications, it's nice to see that HP can still deliver a simple, small, and easy to use software interface.
Using the printer for the first time was a jaw-dropping experience. I printed a couple of test pages and was amazed how fast this little bugger was going. On top of that the print quality was just superb, with the text coming out razor sharp. The time from clicking 'Print' to the time the first page came out was indeed ~10 seconds as advertised on the retail box. The LJ1020 does heat up quite a bit, but this is to be expected with the speed of which is fires off pages. Speaking of which the pages do come out warm and this leads to alot of curling on the edges, which is a bit bothersome until they cool off. More of a new experience for me, than anything else. The sound of the printer is about average, being no more noisy than my old inkjet printer. It definetly won't bug you too much if you're sitting right next to it and printing 100's of pages.
Although I haven't had the LJ1020 for a very long time, my initial impressions have been very good and I feel that it will be a quality product that will last me for many years. If you're looking for a home/office black and white laser printer, check out the HP LaserJet 1020. You'll be surprised at the speed and excellent print quality that this compact little machine puts out. And it's definetly a worthwhile investment to bring you out of the inkjet doldrums.
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Rated 
a good low end laser printer for personal use
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