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An 840-MB hard disk is provided with the printer, which contains all of the HP LaserJet fonts and symbol sets. Although there are no font cartridge slots available, the hard disk acts as a sort of virtual font cartridge slot. Users can select a font cartridge within their application, and the printer will pull the required font from the printer's hard disk.

Configuration of the external Je tDirect Plus print server is easily accomplished via the GUI JetAdmin tool bundled with it. JetAdmin also lets the printer operator monitor the status of the printer, but we found that only basic information is available with this method.

The HP 5000 has a strong set of paper input options and supports up to 11" x 17" paper, but does not have a straight-through paper path like the GENICOM model. Additionally, it does not have an envelope feeder like Olympus' offering. One of our pet peeves when it comes to paper handling is that many printers have smaller output trays than input trays, forcing you to make frequent visits to the printer or let a long print job fall to the floor. Unfortunately, the HP 5000 suffers from this characteristic. The unit can hold up to 4,500 sheets, but even with the optional 2,000 sheet high-capacity output accessory, the HP 5000 can hold only 2,400 printed sheets. As with all the printers tested, paper tray chaining is supported, allowing the printer to pull from consecutive pa per trays as they empty.

In our print-quality tests, the HP 5000 had the best quality with solid blacks and smooth edges on letters. Its print quality was slightly better than Konica's and substantially better than GENIC OM's, Dataproducts' and the Olympus' print quality, because of its 600 dpi resolution and HP's Resolution Enhancement Technology (RET). The same technology is found on HP's popular LaserJets.

Dataproducts Corp. Typhoon 30
The Dataproducts Typhoon 30 is the middle child of the Dataproducts Typhoon line of printers. The Typhoon 30 offers strong networking capabilities, plenty of paper-handling options and middle-of-the-pack performance, making it a good fit for most small print shops or departments with multiple hosts. It offers the networking features usually found in larger workgroup printers, but that would fit most organization's high-volume printing needs.

At the core of this printer's networking is Dataproducts' Virtual Printer Technology (VPT), which allows the printer to appear on the network as 64 different virtual printers, each with its own distinct configuration. With VPT, the operator can configure the printer to meet the needs of various users and groups by providing a virtual printer configured to each user's exact needs (such as paper tray selection, fonts and printer emulations). This feature would be especially useful when there are attached hosts that do not have the ability to modify print jobs via a print driver. In these situations, a host prints to a virtual printer, which is preconfigured for items such as font type and size, emulation, orientation and duplex or simplex.

For administrators who do not want multiple logical printers on their network, the Typhoon 30 also supports autoemulation switching between PostScript and PCL5e. We found that this option works well; the printer was able to handle both PostScript and PCL print jobs from App le Macintosh and Windows95 computers logged onto our Novell NetWare and Windows NT networks.

In the networking area, the Typhoon 30 provided the best connectivity options of the units tested. It ships with serial and parallel ports and offers optional Ethe rnet, Token-Ring and LocalTalk network interfaces. Surprisingly, none of the printers we tested offer a 100-Mbps Ethernet interface, but all ship with a parallel interface, which allows for connectivity to an external print server.

Connectivity for Unix, NT and LAN Manager is handled via TCP/IP (LPD). NetWare 3.12 also is supported, but NetWare 4.1x administrators will have to use Bindery Emulation or a third-party print server for Novell Directory Service (NDS) support. Except for the HP JetDirect Plus, none of the networking solutions supported native NetWare 4.x NDS. Apple Macintosh also is supported via AppleTalk over Ethernet, Token-Ring or LocalTalk.