HP Laser Jet 4

HP Laser Jet 4

The HP LaserJet 4 (abbreviated sometimes to LJ4 or HP4) is a group of monochrome laser printers produced in the early to mid-1990s as part of the LaserJet series by Hewlett Packard (HP). The 4 series has various models, including the standard LaserJet 4 for business use, the 4L for personal use and the 4P for small businesses. Additional models included the 4Si model, created as a heavy-duty business printer, and the 4V model, a B-size printer for desktop publishing and graphic artists. There are also Apple Macintosh specific variants of these machines with the '4M' designation. Hewlett Packard also released an upgraded version of the LaserJet 4/4M known as the 4 Plus ('4+')/4M Plus ('4M+').

The LaserJet 4, especially the 4/4M/4+/4M+ models, have become known for their durability, mainly due to their reliable construction, as well as the printers built-in PCL (and optional PostScript) printer language support which is still used in computers to this day. Hewlett Packard dominated the laser printing sector during this time in part due to their reliability, relatively affordable pricing, and the spread of LaserJet 4 models from personal use up to heavy business use.

The LaserJet 4 series was discontinued in the 1990s, and Hewlett Packard recommended the HP LaserJet 5 series as a replacement for the 4/4M/4+/4M+ models. However the driver for the HP LaserJet 4 is often used for other compatible printers as it can solve some tricky software problems with printing. The driver is very standard and can be used with old software with success, even when applied to other makes and models of printers.