A relative needed to print invoices from a Samsung XE303C12 Chromebook, to a small mono laser, so inks won’t dry out if only used occasionally (the Achilles’ heel of inkjets).
Information on what works with Chromebooks is sketchy (and conflicting), but we ruled out refurbished small laser printers due to questionable compatibility and settled on a new HP Laser 107w – an £80 incl. VAT 20 page-per-minute black&white laser printer which has a USB port and also supports WiFi and Wi-Fi Direct printing.
It has three illuminated buttons for power, resume/cancel and WiFi, but no LCD display, so initial set up is somewhat tricky.
We first tried to use just the USB connection but, although the Chrome settings/Add printer did recognise the 107w, it would not print to it.
So we switched to wireless, which required holding the printer’s WiFi button for 5 seconds, then pressing the WPS button on the wireless router (after enabling WPS). This did succeed in getting the printer onto the wireless network.
We then tried to configure Google Cloud Print (https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02817255), but although the printer showed under Chrome New Devices, attempts to Register repeatedly failed.
So we tried HP Print for Chrome, a Chrome extension available from the Google Web Store. This worked first time.
Additional Notes
During set-up, the printer spins its output rollers a lot (without lowering the paper pickup rollers). This gives the false impression that something might be wrong.
Hold down Cancel/Resume for 10 seconds to print a configuration page (which also shows the Wi-Fi Direct SSID and key, needed if you want to use Wi-Fi Direct printing); 15 seconds to print a supplies page. Presumably visiting the printer’s native web interface via a browser will also give access to this information, but you can’t do that until you’ve got WiFi configured.
The printer only supports SPL – Samsung Printer Language, presumably since this printer is one of HP’s reworked Samsung printers (the SL-M2026W perhaps?), following HP’s acquisition of Samsung’s printer division in November 2017. See https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Samsung/What-Chromebook-print-methods-will-exist-for-rebadged/td-p/7368779.
Even for an IT engineer with decades of experience, the whole episode was fraught with difficulty. Retailers must receive many returns because less experienced customers just cannot get these printers to work with Chromebooks. Bear in mind the HP 107w model was chosen specifically since it appeared positively on Chromebook compatibility lists.
Subsequent reading shows that Google Cloud Print is being retired in December 2020 and that native ChromeOS CUPS local printing will replace it. So HP Print for Chrome appears to be the way to go. Let’s hope the out-of-the-box experience improves.
