Expert Verdict
The HP Laserjet Pro M118dw is built to be used in small offices, sales counters, or in personal or home offices. It is fast and compact enough to be fit on most desktops. It comes with a respectable set of features in its price including automatic double-sided printing etc. Just like most machines in its class, it is suitable for low volume printing. It is a good choice for an environment that needs to churn out a couple of hundred text pages every month. Being a mono laser printer, it supports black toner HP LaserJet Pro M118dw Toner cartridge only. Measuring 8.8 by 14.6 by 16 inches (HWD), the M118dw doesn't require much by way of controls. Starting from top to bottom, it has controls such as Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) for one-touch wireless connectivity, Attention LED (that flashes at the time of an error), Ready LED, Supplies LED (which indicates when toner is low), Resume (continues with the current print job), and Cancel. Coming to paper handling capacity, The M118dw's paper handling consists of one 250-sheet input tray. Right just above the primary input source it boasts a 10-sheet multipurpose tray for printing envelopes. This tray also allows printing other off-shape media, such as labels, without having to unload and reconfigure the lower tray. Furthermore, the printer setup and HP LaserJet Pro M118dw Toner cartridge installation are quite easy.
The maximum monthly duty cycle of M118dw is 20,000 pages, and its recommended monthly print volume is 10 percent of that, which is about average for entry-level machines in this price range. The standard mobile printing options of this printer are relatively good, but the add-on of HP's Smart App and its Smart Tasks preset workflow profiles helps it become more convenient and productive further. The standard networks are Ethernet, dual-band Wi-Fi, and USB 2.0. Whereas the mobile connectivity options include Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Wi-Fi Direct, and HP ePrint. Smart Tasks can also handle different destinations, such as sending scans to various locations. All of it can be done by tapping or clicking a Smart Task shortcut.
One of the more impressive attributes of this printer is its print speed, with the HP LaserJet Pro M118dw Toner cartridge, HP claims a speed of 30 pages per minute (ppm). But during the test, it didn’t seem quite that fast. While testing for the first time, a 12-page Microsoft Word text document, the M118dw averaged a rate of 26.5ppm. Compared to inkjet printers, laser printers deliver excellent-looking text, and thanks to its high-quality HP LaserJet Pro M118dw Toner cartridge, the M118dw is the best example of it. This printer has the ability to reproduce the characters in even small font test page documents accurately, with attractive leading and kerning, making the M118dw machine appropriate for most business applications. Though you will not be impressed with its grayscale output. You may find spots, streaks and other flaws in dark backgrounds, gradients, and embedded photos. However, these output flaws are not bad enough to make the M118dw machine’s output unusable.
Similar to most entry-level monochrome laser printers, if you buy its highest-yield toner HP LaserJet Pro M118dw Toner cartridge, this one prints pages with about 5 to 20 per cent toner coverage for about 3.4 cents per page. That cost is justifiable if you only print about 100 to 200 pages each month.
Concluding, The HP LaserJet Pro M118dw is a reasonably priced single-function monochrome printer with a smart feature set, but because of the high running costs and below-average grayscale output, it becomes a light-duty text printer. However, to minimise the running cost it supports compatible toner HP LaserJet Pro M118dw Toner cartridge.