Average Workgroup Color Laser

Having the 'little brother' (HP2600n) at home, I was interested to see how this newer, faster version would work when it was purchased for my library.

I think that the most impressive feature of this printer is the speed at which it is able to pump out color pages. Warmup from cold is anywhere from 8-10 seconds and color copies are printed at about 13.5ppm.

Another plus is the fact that HP packs it with full toner cartridges - a plus in today's market where most manufacturers ship with toner that drops out ever so quickly. HP also combines the toners and drums in one unit which is very convenient - I have a Dell B&W at home that has separate toner/drum, so it's a constant calculation to see which one needs replacement first.

The TCO (total cost of ownership) is another bonus given the moderate price of replacement toner. Depending on your use, B&W averages 2.2 cents per page and color is around 12 cents.

Color matching to the computer screen is VERY accurate. I have found that it truly produces the WYSIWYG - unlike other color printers that I have used. Unlike the other two reviewers' experience, I found color saturation to be quite adequate for my purposes. It is possible that their printers may need adjustment. HP provides a multitude of 'tweaking' options for the fuser, speed, toner, etc. Grayscale printing was smooth and crisp.

Setup is a breeze as is with all HP network printers. It is a true no-brainer to install the drivers and software. Finding the printer on the LAN is a snap.

Another feature that I like about the design is that all of the toner cartridges are in a straight line with the transfer roller in the front door. This makes for a clean paper path thus reducing the amount of jams, increasing the speed of printing (as opposed to those printers that use a rotating carousel of drums) and making the clearing of an occasional jam a snap.

This is about it for the plus side. There are a few definite minuses and some negatives that I have to reserve judgement upon continued use. So, on with the negatives:

* This unit ships with only 64MB of memory with no upgrade options. If you want more memory capacity, you need to shell out a few hundred more for the duplex model which doubles the memory to 128MB. I had the same complaint with my 2600n that I have at home. How difficult is it to add a DIMM slot, HP?

* The paper tray capacity is truly skimpy at 250 sheets. In my opinion, this would be OK for a home printer, but considering that this is a workgroup machine, it would have been better to have a 500 sheet tray - if you have quite a few people sharing this printer, I would venture to say it will run out of paper quite a bit. For $250 you can add an auxiliary tray that holds a ream.

* There are a considerable amount of 'clunking' sounds when printing as well as when the printer performs its automatic calibration routines. This concerns me because I wonder how much flimsy plastic parts are inside creating that incredible din - parts which may wear and break with repeated use. My little 2600n sounds more 'solid'. Did HP skimp on some parts in order to keep the price and/or the weight of the machine down? Only time will tell on this one - I just know that several people have commented on the clunky noises that it makes and I agree with them. Since this printer is in a library with many users, I will be sure to post updates as to whether it holds up to multiple users and print jobs.

So in conclusion, I would have to give this printer an 'average' rating. I think that it's a good value for the money and it surely is relatively inexpensive to operate. The hefty price tag virtually eliminates it for home use. My biggest concern is the apparent flimsy plastic parts. It just doesn't have a solid feel and I'm afraid that it will not hold up under heavy use. I'm glad that my District (public school system) requires a contract with 3-year warranties. I would highly recommend an extended warranty to anyone who purchases this machine as I know they cost a fortune to repair.

PLEASE NOTE: The price paid is a government contract price. Don't expect to buy the printer this cheap at retail. That's why I made the comment about the 'hefty price tag' - I am referring to the average user purchasing the printer at street price.

UPDATE 10/2/06
We just had a major project at school with Clifford the Big Red Dog. I took a ton of pictures including individual shots with students and Clifford. The printer was going all day printing about 450 8x10 pictures. Volunteers who were helping me were amazed at the speed at which the printer pumped out the photos and the quality was excellent. We used a 96 brightness, 65lb white vellum paper. The prints were gorgeous.
Because of the size of the pictures and the sheer number of prints, I used up about 40% of the toner. When I went to place a re-order for the toner cartridges I was shocked at the price - $167/cartridge!
This is a huge consideration if you will be purchasing this printer to print a lot of photos. The previously quoted 12 cents per page for color is assuming that the majority of printing will be for general color printing such as newsletters, color charts, etc.
I am not a huge fan of printing pictures at home anyway - I don't use my color laser at home to print any pix that I take with my digital. I found out long ago that it was cheaper and faster to take the pictures to Walgreens or any other photo center and have them do the prints. The quality rivals that of a photo lab and the cost is very reasonable.
So, when you consider this printer, bear in mind that if you start pumping out pictures the majority of the time, the cost per page dramatically rises to almost 30 cents per page - again, it's probably much cheaper to have them printed at a photo lab.
Aside from this consideration, the printer has still remained consistent in quality and had NO feed problems while pumping out prints for a full day.
One final note: I originally tried to use a glossy photo paper which came out of the printer curled and with ghosting of grayscale images on the page. I have yet to determine if this is a problem with the printer itself (defective) or, if there are any parameters that can be changed. I had selected "glossy" when I chose the printer properties, but this didn't seem to make a difference. I have the 2600N at home (which is the little brother of this printer) which came with an HP toolbox that allows me to alter many parameters such as fuser temp, toner density, roller speed, etc. On examining the installation disk of the 3600N, there is no toolbox to control these variations.
I will write another update once I have determined why this problem is occuring with glossy photo paper.