Expert Verdict
The HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw is a monochrome laser MFP capable enough to serve as a shared printer, but small and inexpensive enough to consider for heavy-duty personal use. It's also one of the more impressive Multifunctional peripherals in its class, with fast print performance, excellent paper handling capacity, a full set of MFP features, and extras features like mobile and cloud printing. Its text quality is not what we expected for the breed, but it's easily good enough for most business purposes. The installation of software and HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw toner cartridges is also easy. The paper handling capacity of the printer is suitable for up to heavy-duty use in a micro office or light- to medium-duty use in a small to medium-sized office. This printer includes a 250-sheet drawer, a 100-sheet multipurpose tray, and an automatic duplexer capability. Alternatively, you can also use a 550-sheet drawer along with it, for a maximum 900-sheet capacity. Also, as this is a monochrome machine, it makes use of black HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw toner cartridges only.
For scanning, the M426fdw has a 50-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) that scans both ways - legal-size pages and duplex. Most inexpensive printers that scan both sides of a page use a duplexing ADF instead, which takes longer, but since it scans one side, you can turn the page by yourself over and then scan the other side. Oddly, however, you are not allowed to scan in a duplex when faxing. The running cost with the printers is low as the HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw toner cartridges are of high capacity.
If you plug this HP printer into your network, using either its Ethernet or Wi-Fi connector, it will let you print through the cloud, as well as connect a smart device through a wireless access point on your network for printing from and scanning to your mobile device. But if you connect the printer to a single PC via USB cable instead, you will not be able to print through the cloud. Thanks to the printer's Wi-Fi Direct capability, you can still connect it directly from mobile devices to print and scan. For smart phones with NFC, it also enables you to establish a connection simply by tapping the device to the NFC logo on the top-front right of the printer.
HP M426fdw prints at the speed of 40 ppm, which is the speed you would notice when printing text files with little to no formatting. On our tests, it delivered a suitably fast speed of 16.4ppm for printing mono texts from the black HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw toner cartridges. Coming to print quality, it is typical for monochrome lasers across the board, which makes it good enough for most purposes. Its text quality is quite low in its range, but it is still good enough to print highly readable text at 8-point size or smaller, thanks to its good quality HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw toner cartridges. For graphics and photos, the output is easily good enough for any internal business use. At 28 pounds 6 ounces, this printer is one of the lightest printers in its class. However, it's still heavy enough that you might want some help moving it from one place to another.
In conclusion, this printer uses high-quality HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw toner cartridges to offer text quality that's well within the expected range for a monochrome laser and easily good enough for most offices. It also comes with excellent paper handling, fast printing, and various features, ranging from duplex scanning to mobile printing, that helps it stand out from the crowd and make it suitable for heavy-duty use in a micro or small office.
Review
The HP LaserJet MFP M426fdw is a monochrome laser multifunction printer, that is capable enough to serve as a shared printer. Compact in size, this is an inexpensive printer used for heavy-duty work purpose and is ideal for small to medium-sized offices. It is also considered as one of the most impressive MFPs in its category, with fast print performance, excellent paper handling, and a full set of multifunctional features like mobile and cloud printing. It aims at delivering quality prints at fast speed and has a monthly duty cycle of printing 80,000 pages. The processor speed of the LaserJet Pro M426fdw printer is 1200MHz and the memory used is 256MB. However, the printer does not have a hard disk drive or an automatic paper sensor.
The MFP M426fdw measures 430 x 634 x 325mm and weighs around 12.86 Kg which indicates that you can probably move it around independently from one place to other. The LaserJet Pro M426fdw printer is supported with a flatbed scanner and a 50-sheet automatic document feeder and support duplex scanning. The standard paper tray capacity is 350 sheets and offers a maximum resolution of 300 x 300dpi. It can save up to 250 pages and has a transmission speed of 33.6kbps.
Advantages
- Fast Prints, scans, faxes, and copies.
- Offer duplex printing
- Offer Ethernet, Wifi and Wifi Direct connectivity
- Support cloud and mobile printing
- Uses high-quality HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw toner cartridges
- Has a print speed of 38ppm
- Includes 99-page multi-copy
Disadvantages
- Does not support automatic paper sensor
- No Hard drive expansion
- Text quality is at the low end for the range of monochrome printers.
Cartridge Requirements
The compatible HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw toner cartridges include:
- HP CF226A Black Toner Cartridge
- HP CF226X Black Toner Cartridge
Conclusion
With the multitasking features like print, copy, scan and fax, The HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw printer also offers moderate text quality and suits well within the expected range of a laser printer. The print quality is up to the mark because it uses high-quality HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw toner cartridges for printing, and saves huge on cartridge cost. Overall a good choice for most offices.
My HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw printer seems offline and is unable to print from Windows 8.1 OS. What should be done to resolve this issue?
The issue arises if you change the network location of your Windows 8.1 computer from private to public, and then back to a private network. Ensure that the network settings on your computer are correctly set to detect the devices on a private network. Follow the steps below to enable these settings:
- From the control panel, click on ‘Network and Internet’, and then select ‘Network and Sharing Center’. Then, go for ‘Manage advanced sharing settings’.
- Under the ‘Network discovery’, click on ‘Turn on network discovery’ settings, and then click on ‘Turn automatic setup of network-connected devices on’ checkbox.
- Under the ‘File and printer sharing’, select that option to turn on file and printer sharing.
- Select save or save changes and then reconnect to the private network.
The print quality is getting affected by the usage of EconoMode. What settings should be done in EconoMode to improve the quality?
The use of EconoMode might result in the HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw producing light printouts. It is not recommended to use EconoMode every time. Follow the steps below to change the settings for EconoMode:
Step 1: From the printer’s software program, select the print option.
Step 2: Select the name of your printer, and then click on the properties or preferences button.
Step 3: Click on the paper quality tab, and then locate the print quality area.
- Select the FastRes 1200 option.
- Disable the EconoMode by clearing the EconoMode checkbox.
Step 4: Click on the OK button to close the document properties dialogue box. In the Print dialogue option, click the OK button to print the document.
How should I distribute the toner within the HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw toner cartridges to continue with the printing when it indicates that the cartridge level is low?
You can continue to print with the current HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw toner cartridges until redistributing of the toner no longer results in acceptable print quality.
To redistribute the toner, follow these steps:
- Take out the toner cartridge from the printer and gently rock the cartridge back and forth about its horizontal axis.
- Reinsert the HP LaserJet Pro MFP M426fdw toner cartridge into the printer and close the cover. Print a test page to check the result.
