HP LaserJet Pro MFP M130fw - Review 2022

The HP LaserJet Pro MFP M130fw ($259.99) is an inexpensive monochrome laser all-in-one printer (AIO) designed for micro- and home-office use. Given its meaty size and characteristic set, it should perform well as a personal AIO, too. It'south significantly smaller and lighter than the Editors' Choice Canon imageClass MF227dw, but even though both machines are similarly priced, the M130fw comes upward short in a few key areas. Information technology supports only manual duplexing, for instance, and has higher-than-boilerplate running costs. Fifty-fifty then, the LaserJet Pro M130fw is a solid pick overall for low-volume small and abode-based office monochrome output, as well as moderate personal printing, copying, scanning, and faxing.

Design and Features

At 11 by 16.vii by 11.4 inches (HWD) and weighing a slight sixteen.eight pounds, the M130fw, compared with the Canon MF227dw (14.ii by xv.four by 14.6 inches and 28.2 pounds) and another competitors, is petite for a multifunction laser printer. It should fit comfortably on well-nigh desktops. You tin can connect via Wi-Fi, Ethernet, or to one computer with a USB cablevision. Mobile connections are available through Wi-Fi Direct (a peer-to-peer protocol that doesn't require either device to exist part of a network), AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Mopria, and HP'southward own ePrint, which allows you to print via email. To configure some of these features, or perform walk-upward tasks such every bit scanning to a network drive and making copies, you employ the 2.7-inch color touch LCD that, aside from the Back, Home, and Help buttons, comprises the unabridged control panel.

The M130fw'due south sole paper input source is a 150-sheet tray that pulls out from the front. HP includes a articulate plastic cover for the tray (information technology flips upwardly for easy admission) that you attach during setup. The 100-sheet output tray too extends out from the forepart of the printer, but beneath the automatic certificate feeder (ADF). The ADF holds 35 sheets, which is large for this small-scale MFP, just, like the print engine, it's not automobile-duplexing, so you'll have to plow over two-sided originals manually to scan both sides. The MF227dw'due south ADF doesn't have an automatic duplexer, either, though you can observe ane on the ADFs on the $50-more than-expensive imageClass MF229dw and the Editors' Choice imageClass MF249dw. In improver, all three of the Canon models support automatic two-sided press.

Security features on the M130fw are minimal, consisting of a password-protected embedded website, enabling and disabling specific network ports, and the ability to alter the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) community password. (SNMP is used for, among other things, collecting and providing information over an IP network. The M130fw'due south maximum monthly duty bicycle is 10,000 pages, with a recommended print volume of 150 to 1,500 pages, the same as the Canon imageClass MF227dw's. The MF249dw, on the other manus, has a duty wheel of fifteen,000 pages with a recommended volume of up to iii,000.

Setup and Software

Unlike with most laser AIOs, the M130fw's meaty size and light weight brand it very like shooting fish in a barrel to go out of the box and identify on your desk. Packing material is minimal, and HP'south JetIntelligence toner cartridges don't have to be taken out of the machine, unsealed, and shaken. Aside from attaching the aforementioned newspaper tray embrace and responding to a few language, time, and date queries on the brandish, the M130fw is essentially plug-and-play. For testing, I connected information technology via Ethernet. The installation program plant the printer immediately, and then asked if it should check online for the nearly contempo drivers and utilities.

The software package is minimal, consisting of print and scan drivers (including TWAIN for compatibility with third-party programs), some diagnostic tools, and I.R.I.South OCR, an optical character recognition program for converting scanned text to editable text. In all, including downloading the latest drivers and software, setting up the M103fw took no more than xx minutes.

Operation

HP rates the M130fw at 22 pages per minute (ppm) when printing monochrome text pages with about five per centum toner coverage. When printing our simply formatted monochrome Microsoft Discussion text document, the M130fw managed 15.5ppm, or six.5ppm brusque of its rating. The Catechism MF249dw, on the other paw, printed unmarried-sided pages at 27.5ppm, and the Brother MFC-L5700DW (a higher volume, somewhat higher-priced monochrome MFP) churned out the same certificate at 42ppm. Both the aforementioned Canon MF227dw and the MF229dw, notwithstanding, were tested earlier the deployment of our electric current benchmarking methodology, with unlike documents and hardware; hence comparing the M130fw'south scores to either of theirs would exist misleading. (I tested over Ethernet with our standard Core i5 testbed PC running Windows ten.)

HP LaserJet Pro MFP M103fw

When I added our more complicated colour Acrobat, PowerPoint, and Excel documents containing graphics and photos to the mix, I measured the M130fw'southward print speed at 10.5ppm, which is significantly slower than the MF249dw'due south 16.3ppm, and slower however than the MFC-L5700DW'south 21.6ppm.

The M130fw printed our test photographs in nine seconds, compared with the MF249dw'southward 8 seconds and the MFC-L5700DW's 7 seconds. Because of the way laser printers image pages—by compiling the entire page in retentiveness then etching information technology onto the page in one swift pass—information technology'due south not unusual for them to spit out grayscale images in less than 10 seconds.

Output Quality

Compared with the Canon printers mentioned here so far, the HP M130fw's impress quality is a bit below average overall. Text quality is terrific, very near typesetter quality. The smallest font size we test, 4 points, came out well shaped and highly legible (even though I needed magnification to see information technology clearly). Text output, then, should be suitable for most business organization scenarios that don't crave color.

Graphics and photo quality, on the other mitt, while passable, could have been amend. The darker fills and gradients in our test PowerPoint slides and Excel charts and graphs came out with some noticeable banding and other flaws, such every bit hairlines of about 1 point and smaller that didn't render properly. Photos, too, showed some banding, and particular wasn't every bit good as we've seen from some other monochrome light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation printers. This is not to say, though, that graphics and photograph output was cruddy; most users volition probably discover it acceptable for internal business concern employ, if not for prospective clients and others you lot desire to impress.

Running Costs

Nosotros don't expect entry-level MFPs like this i to accept depression running costs, but the M130fw's toll per page is one of the highest we've seen lately. Using HP's advertised toner cartridge yield estimates and prices, running costs come to nigh 3.9 cents per page. The Canon MF227dw, MF229dw, and MF249dw are all 0.iv cent lower at iii.5 cents per page, which isn't actually that much of a departure if you're printing merely a few hundred pages each month. Press 1,000 pages per month on the LaserJet would cost y'all an boosted $4 monthly than the same number of pages on any of the Canon models.

HP LaserJet Pro MFP M103fw

The Brother MFC-L5700DW, on the other mitt, delivers running costs of 1.6 cents per page, or two.3 cents lower than the M130fw. Printing the same 1,000 pages on the Brother MFP would save you $23 each calendar month ($276 per yr). Given the list price of these ii machines, opting for the MFC-L5700DW would take six months or so to brand up the difference. The more than you print, the more you lot save, the more than sense choosing the college-volume machine makes. (Only you exercise give up the M130fw's pocket-size size and depression contour when choosing any of the Canon or Brother MFPs discussed here, though.)

Conclusion

The HP LaserJet Pro MFP M130fw'southward petite size and weight makes it ideal for use equally a personal laser MFP, and in other environments where infinite is at a premium, such as, say, college dorm rooms and home-based offices. Its high toll per folio makes it less attractive for settings that print more than a few hundred pages each calendar month, and graphics and photo impress quality relegates it to internal use in nearly small-office and workgroup settings. If you lot need to impress several hundred (or thousands of) pages each month and running costs are of import to you, yous'd exist amend off with the Brother MFC-L5700DW, just and then it's much bigger than the M130fw, and frankly its graphics and photo quality isn't much amend. Canon's comparable imageClass machines discussed here impress better, but they, too, are bigger and heavier than this LaserJet. In cramped environments where first-class text quality with so-so graphics and photos are acceptable, the HP LaserJet Pro MFP M130fw is a viable solution.