You know, something quite funny happened to me as I was finishing this article. I was sitting in my office proof reading and making edits to a hard copy, pen in hand, when I thought about the paperless office. It's probably cliché at this point to say that the digitised, paperless office was promised to us many years ago and yet here I am, in the ecologically self conscious 21st Century, editing an article that was written on a computer by hand.

Thankfully for the survival of our planet the article was printed using the HP Laser Jet 1320; an office printer which comes with (thankfully) hands-free duplex printing. Coming in with a footprint of 350mm x 355mm and rising to a height of 256mm it's sizeable enough to hold a 250 page tray and the duplex printing mechanism, but not nearly as large as some other office or workgroup printers I've ever seen and it's certainly a fit onto most well-sized desks.

Designed with HP's eye for bland office conformity the 1320 looks like it belongs in a Dilbert comic, though this isn't such a bad thing considering that's exactly the kind of office environment it's designed for. Everything is contained within the box, from the 250 page tray, which can be expanded to 500 pages, the single sheet multipurpose input tray which can be used for envelopes and the like, but which is a bit finicky to use; to the on-top output tray and toner bay.

As well as the vanilla 1320, which weighs in at £199 ex VAT from HP, you can get several variations which have added functionality. The 1320n comes with an Ethernet network port on top of the standard USB 2.0 and parallel ports, but comes in at a pricy £245 for the upgrade.

Perhaps more enticing is the 1320nw, which comes with both Ethernet and 801.11g wireless connectivity for £319. Finally there is the 1320tn which comes with the second paper tray, bringing capacity up to 500 pages, and Ethernet network cable for £339.