HP Color Laser Printer Reviews

Review by Telecom Pete:

The Good:

1) The Price - it is on sale for 299.00 in a number of places. A network printer at that price is a steal.

2) Image quality is sharp and crisp. Colors are fairly accurate.

3) No problems were encountered installing printer on computer running Vista. However, there is a lot of stuff (optional programs) on the installation so a typical install can take a long time (in my case well over a half hour) during which time I did wonder why it was taking so long. I guess, in this age of "bloatware", this may expected.

The Bad:

HP does not make high yield toner cartridges for this series of printers (this one and HP Color Laserjet CP1215 Printer). High yield cartridges are a great money saver since they typically give you 2-3 times more pages while typically costing only 20-25% more than standard cartridges. So unless HP comes out with high yield toner cartridges for this printer in the future, you will be trapped into paying about twice as much per printed page than you would if you purchased a printer that can use high yield cartridges. At about 0.00 for a replacement set of cartridges, the low printer price savings could easily be overcome by higher printing cost if you intend on doing a lot of color printing.

The Product Description doesn't list the replacement toner cartridges. Here they are:

CB540A Black print cartridge with HP ColorSphere toner

CB541A Cyan print cartridge with HP ColorSphere toner

CB542A Yellow print cartridge with HP ColorSphere toner

CB543A Magenta print cartridge with HP ColorSphere toner

Review by J. Co:

I had a Samsung CL-300, about the same size as this pritner, but I hated the color from it. So when I got to use this HP at work, I was so surprised and HAPPY that the color is very close to what I see on screen. Prints nicely too. Since it's a laser printer, large scale photo doesn't look as nice as inkjets, but still does a great job!

I love the manual duplex. I didn't understand what it meant until I tried it. I always had a problem with figuring out which side I put back in for duplex printing, but HP made it easier. When it prints out, just put the one-side-printed-paper back in the paper tray, without flipping it over or turning it, or whatever. Just put it in the tray the same way it come out.

The worst thing about this printer is the toner usage. The toolbox application installed in the computer says the black toner is still 60% full, then after a minute, it went down to 10%... It's been less than 7 weeks and only printed 600 pages. It's suppose to print up to 2000 pages... After another print, the cyan toner did the same, from 60% - 10%... The toners aren't excatly cheap. The fuser is connected to each individual toners, so I guess that's why the toners are more expensive.

I am thinking of replacing my Samsung (at home) with this (buying one for myself). I love the color and that I can rely on the close accuracy on the colors, but the price of the toners is making me think twice.

Review by A. Baudoin:

I bought this printer about a year ago to print labels for our home business. All our inkjet printed labels were fading too fast to sell our product. We got the laser printer and now our labels look great and professional. I've had no problems. I have printed labels, party invitations, pictures, etc. on label paper, cardstock and regular paper. Everything looks great and professional. Very easy to use printer. Also, I am still using the original toner cartridges that came with it. I just ordered a new black cartridge but I probably won't have to replace it for another week or two. The color cartridges are still at 50% so they will last a while longer. I'm very happy with this printer.

Review by C. Ho:

PROS: low price, prints sharp and clean, quiet printing.

CONS: won't handle all paper stock. Warm-up time is 1-2 minutes.

I bought this printer to replace my 14 year old Hp LJ 4MP. I assumed the CP1215 would be capable of doing the same things my old one did and more in color.

My immediate need was to print out baby shower invites. The card stock was within the limits of HP's recommendations, no thicker than a 4x6 card. The printer would print 1 invite, then error out with "misprint". After 20 minutes of making sure I removed all the tabs and protectors that HP ships with and making sure this model supported 4x6 card stock, I found a way to get the rest of my stock printed. I had to press the resume button, causing it to reinitialize the warm-up sequence and then print. Took 30 minutes to do 30 invites.

This printer seems fine to print every day stuff. But if you print specialty paper, size and type, be aware it might not handle the paper well.

Review by usna 76:

I purchased this printer earlier this week to replace an HP 2600n that had failed. The software installed without issues on four computers, which run either Windows Vista or Windows XP operating systems. No problem printing on any (or all) of the computers. Printer prints both color and B&W very quickly. Duplex printing option works great. Prints are high quality.

The only issues to date include:

1. Installation software offered either default or custom installation options. Even though I chose the custom option, the software gave me no choices for installation, and everything was installed on all four computers. I had to call customer support to then uninstall unnecessary software on three of the computers.

2. HP defaults this printer to the setting: Stop at out. This setting stops the printer from printing when a print cartridge has reached the end of its estimated life. I've found that a print cartridge has several hundred usable pages of life left when this setting is reached. You can override this setting by setting: Override out.

Review by C. Nissen:

What a fantastic printer! After spending a small fortune over the past 6 years with two top-of-the-line Epson Photostylus inkjet printers, I'd had enough when my R1800 started chewing through 50% of the 6 ink cartridges it has just trying to get the nozzles cleaned....all at /cartridge. So I did a little research and found the CP2025dn brand-new from HP. What a joy!

I just hung it off the home router with its network interface and leave it on 24 hours a day. It goes into sleep mode (from which it only draws a couple of watts of power) yet it immediately wakes up begins printing within about 20 seconds. AND it doesn't clink and clang and make all kinds of fuss: it just prints! This is in what I would call an medium intensity home office or very intense personal use. Four people are using it, 3 from windows, 1 mac and everyone loves it. Using the HP glossy laserjet photopaper it even produces decent pics - not near what an R1800 would do BUT at a fraction of the cost, about 50x as fast, they're totally waterproof, and the quality is easily good enough for a school project, to mail pics to relatives, photobooks etc. But that's not the main thing it will be used for with prints from CVS and others only costing 10 or 15 cents for a 4x6.

Being that the inkjets seem like nothing but cash-cows for the printer manufacturers and the outrageously small number of pages that one gets out of a set of cartridges and the fact that the vast majority of printing is not for photos anyway - but day-to-day text/graphic use, laserjets seem the only way to go. From that perspective, this feels like the best money I've ever spent on a printer and I HIGHLY recommend it - you won't be sorry.

Review by D. Elliott:

I received this printer on January 22 and got it set up successfully last night (January 28). It is too early for me to comment on the print quality. What I have seen looks fine but I have only printed 4 pages so far and have not yet tried the duplex option.

I am writing this review to comment on HP's customer support, since an earlier reviewer had a totally negative experience. Some of my dealings with the customer support system were good and some were bad.

I received the printer on a Thursday while I was at work. I couldn't get to it until Saturday. Then I unpacked the printer and removed all the protective tape, etc. When I turned it on it stopped immediately after the memory check with an error message "Inflate failure. Download RFU file now. Download RFU on USB port" or something close to that. I knew I was in trouble. I went on line and found the latest firmware update (RFU = remote firmware update) and downloaded it to my Mac. But I couldn't figure out how to send it to the printer, since the instructions said to use ftp (which works over the Ethernet connection). That requires knowledge of the printer's IP address which it probably didn't even have yet, since the failure occurred so early in the startup process. And even if had one there was no way to find out what it is, since the keys on the console elicited no response at all. Besides, the instructions on the printer's display said to use USB. Nowhere in the instructions was the use of USB to do a firmware update ever mentioned.

So I made my first call to tech support. It is one of those horrible voice-activated menu systems. It took me several minutes, enunciating my responses as carefully as I could, to finally get transferred to tech support. It was at that point I was told that tech support hours are 5:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Pacific time M-F and closed on weekends. I was out of business until Monday.

Monday morning at 6:15 a.m. I called again. This time, while I was carefully saying the model number of my CP3525dn, the computer voice interrupted me. It said that it had determined that my printer was no longer under warranty, so I was not eligible for phone support. It told me to use the e-mail system and hung up. If I had not gotten further on Saturday, I don't know what I would have done at this point. Most likely I would have called the company I bought it from and had them take it back. But, because of Saturday, I knew that the real problem was the poor quality of their voice-activated menu system. So I tried again and finally, by about 6:25, I got connected to an actual human being.

The lady I first talked to was polite and friendly, but obviously working from a script and not very knowledgeable. She worked with me for about 45 minutes. She told me how to use USB to download the firmware update. But when I downloaded the file absolutely nothing happened. She had me try numerous things (restarting my Mac; power cycling the printer, etc.). Several times she put me on hold for 5 minutes or so to try to get help from another customer support rep. But nothing worked. She finally gave up and transferred me out of customer support to a department she referred to as simply "hardware". The lady there was also polite and friendly and sounded much more knowledgeable. She worked with me for an additional 45 minutes. She asked me a lot of questions and was able to determine that the formatter card (essentially, the internal computer in the printer) was malfunctioning. She thought it might be a bad connection of the memory module. She talked me through removing the formatter card from the printer and manipulating it. Then she had me re-install the card and try again. The same error immediately appeared. So she promised to send me a replacement formatter card. I asked if it wouldn't be more effective to send a repair person to my house. But she told me that the formatter card is considered to be a user-replaceable part and there was no way a repair person would be sent. The warranty I read on the Internet before buying this printer explicitly stated that the printer came with a one-year warranty which includes in-home repair by HP.

The replacement card was sent as promised. It arrived the next day (Tuesday, which was yesterday). I installed the new card and turned the new printer on. The initialization process was frighteningly long. I thought I had some new problem. But after a very long time the printer said "Ready"! At this point, the quick start guide says to print a configuration page and check for the IP address. I did so, and discovered that the IP address of my printer was 0.0.0.0. The manual says this means there was a failure to assign the printer an address. The manual makes all sorts of suggestions which were clearly not appropriate for my situation. It also asked me to make choices between options which I did not understand and the manual gave no explanation of their meaning. So I decided to wing it. I went into the Mac printer/fax system utility and told it to add a new printer using Bonjour (which I knew this printer is supposed to support). It worked. It found the printer, set it up, and I was finally up and running. What an ordeal.

So here are the pros and cons of my experience with HP regarding this printer:

Pros:

(1) friendly, courteous support reps; the second-level lady I talked to was clearly very knowledgeable.

(2) the replacement part came quickly;

(3) the replacement part worked;

(4) setting up the printer on my Mac was a breeze, once the hardware problem was solved.

Cons:

(1) An absolutely horrible and unreliable voice-activated menu system;

(2) The hours of tech support availability are terrible, and clearly designed for people who live in the Eastern time zone. Anyone (such as me) in the Pacific time zone cannot interact with tech support without taking time off from work.

(3) The in-home service part of the warranty does not cover all possible hardware problems. There are user-replaceable parts which you the user must replace. If you are afraid to dive into the hardware I strongly recommend against buying any printer from HP.

(4) The quick start guide which comes with the printer makes assumptions about the type of installation the printer will be used in (a commercial environment on a system which has a professional system administrator) which will be inapplicable to many customers.

(5) The how-to-use manual which comes on the CD has so little information it is laughable.

(6) Firmware updates are possible via both Ethernet and USB. But only the Ethernet method is mentioned in the instructions.

Review by Selwyn van Rooyen:

This is truly a wonderful product for a small to mid-sized business. It is quick, and prints beautiful pamphlets, newsletters, etc. in color. I cannot tell the difference between these prints and prints from a professional print shop... It also does card stock which lower end printers will not do well. It is a good sized printer and is heavy, but does a great job for in house printing. The cost per page on black and white is about 2.5 cents a page and in color it is about 14 cents a page which is much better than other lower end products. If you print more than 2,500 color pages a month, you'll save the costs of a lower end, 0 printer in less than 4 months. It does double sided printing well too.

Review by Robert Anthony Reis:

I bought several Epson ink jet printers over the last few years. 80% of the time I was just printing black text, hardly any pictures. Clogged nozzles and high costs for the ink made me move to a LaserJet printer. All was well and then the wife said I could upgrade and go to a color printer.

I bought the printer, connected to my 24" iMac directly by USB. I did not install the driver included on the CD but I was still able to add it as a printer. My test print worked fine.

I them moved the printer to my Time Capsule and set it up there. Again, my test print worked fine. Now my ball and chain can also print to the printer from her MacBook.

I will never go back to an ink jet printer. The print quality is good.

My one issue with this printer is that I have not been able to set up some kind of draft setting so that I could save ink. If I do, I will update the review.

Review by Sherri:

Everything about the printer is good, except the ink cartridges are expensive and it doesn't come with full cartridges. After about 600 copies the machine says I need to purchase another black cartridge. A full cartridge should print 3x that amount.

Review by PaulTheDane:

Beware! When these arrived, I was surprised to find generic white boxes as though they are either refilled or "compatible", yet it was labeled (New) and HP.

I called Amazon Customer Service and they immediately generated refund paperwork, but now I'm out the ink.

I ordered 6 cartridges and all 6 were similar in packaging. By the way, inside the one box I opened was loose packing and a generic-looking sealed black plastic wrapper (which presumably contained the "HP" cartridge). I didn't open the cartridge pack to see if it was an HP cartridge as I didn't trust it already... I just returned them all.

Review by German A. Martinez:

Fast shipping. Highly recommend this seller. This toner should last about 10 months.

Review by Audiopro:

You know, on paper, the HP 2600n probably makes no sense - not much memory, one-pass engine (speeds for black and color are the same), expensive replacement cartridges, slow black-only speed, average looks, small & unimpressive LCD display.

But.... In the real world, this printer will surprise and even amaze you! If you print ANY color in your documents, this printer will leave it's competition in the dust in terms of performance. Color print-outs are fast and come out instantly - no warm-up, etc. The unusual design allows it to take up minimal space on your desk and provides easy paper retrieval and cartridge replacement. The simple display is incredibly intuitive and features are easily & quickly located.

Instead of lots of memory, the printer makes use of your computer's memory and cpu (read: not post-script) - this may have a very slight performance effect on your computer. But, you never have to worry about purchasing extra printer memory ($$), since your computer probably has plenty of it available and probably more CPU power than you need.

Operating noise is acceptable and the printer never over-heats (common on some other color laser models). The HP support software isn't the flashy kind that populates your tool bars - just a very simple and effective set of utilities, which helps you configure and maintain the printer.

Color text print quality is the best I've seen on any kind of printer, and business graphics are unrivaled. The photo printouts are pretty decent for a laser, but not in the class of inkjets - but they sure come out fast!

While the cartridges are expensive - at least the printer comes with FULL capacity cartridges, which ironically cost more than the printer. (You are literally getting the printer for free!). I have printed several large documents (including many hi-res pictures) and the cartridges are still showing 98% capacity!

So, when should you NOT get this printer? If you mainly print-out reams of black/white documents, then this printer is NOT a good choice; go for a monochrome or 4-pass color laser instead. But, most home users do print some color (ie, web pages) which makes this a much better real-world printer.

They have the more powerful one-pass engine type HP color lasers where I work, and they are impressive; which makes me believe the 2600n should be reliable as well.

Review by Samuel Burrows:

I guess the way the printer is set up is to ASSUME that you are using the color cartridges on an average basis, regardless of whether they are actually being used or not. Thus, it estimates when the cartridges should run out and when that time comes, you are locked out of further printing until the cartridges are replaced even though they may be full of toner. However, reading through the User Guide, there appears to be a solution on using the Color Toner Cartridges beyond the "replacement" time.

Page 94 of the User Guide has the following instructions for those who would like to use the toner beyond their replacement time:

Configuration

Cartridge Out Override can only be enabled from the printer's control panel menu.

1. From the main menu, press (RIGHT ARROW) to System setup and press (SELECT).

2. Press (RIGHT ARROW) to Print quality and press (SELECT).

3. Press (RIGHT ARROW) to Replace supplies and press (SELECT).

4. Press (RIGHT ARROW) to Override out and press (SELECT).

5. Press (SELECT).

If Stop at out is selected, the printer will stop printing when a cartridge reaches the recommended replacement point. If Override out is selected, the printer will continue

printing when a cartridge reaches the recommended replacement point. The factory default setting is Stop at out.

The full story of the trials and tribulations of a hapless 2600N owner can be viewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_196413001348

Review by Barbara J. Allen:

With the cost of tonor for my color copier being so expensive, I welcome this price break. Will purchase from this company again. Rather have HP product over all other.

Review by C. Booth:

Product was just as described.. FAST shipping. Will continue to order from for future toners.

Review by Carl:

I've had the 3525 for over a month, an so far it's been rock solid. I print lots of color presentations for customers, and it prints color faster than any printer I've purchased in the past. I've switched from a Lexmark, it was a very good printer, it just went through supplies (toner especially) too quickly. So far, this printer appears to be easier on supplies, and prints quality presentations.

Review by Jobba:

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R20G0N5EZKL1EV I got this printer in order to develop professional quality prints and presentations, which include graphics, photos, and charts. My trusty inkjet printer, while fantastic on photo paper, bled ever so slightly to make graphics on normal paper look sloppy to a discerning eye.

I researched for 3 days, scoured every website regarding color laserjets, before deciding on this printer. And let me say I was not overly excited about going with an HP - service is notoriously iffy - but the quality to price ratio beat out all the other lesser brands (at least in the sub-k price range)

The printer is expensive, and toner incredibly expensive as well. (2 right now for the black standard capacity, and 5 for each of the 3 colors). It is true that the initial toner is 1/3 full, but they should last about 3,000 prints. A relative has the previous generation hp printer (the price of toner has not gone up), and he says that he bought one set of toner 3 years ago and they're still working, 5-7,000+ prints later.

If you have high yield needs, I would recommend doing a price comparison on toners and how often they'll need changing, but my need was much more quality based.

And the prints are fantastic. High resolution, good depth to color, no bleeding or smearing - exactly what I needed. Photos look nice also (though I'll still use the inkjet for photos on photo paper).

See the video to get a gauge on the print quality, time to print, and noise. Note that this is printed on standard, default quality. When it's not printing it's quite silent, although from sleep mode it does take 2+- minutes to calibrate, clean, and be print-ready.

Pros:

High quality color printing (my priority)

Fast

Cheaper than some other professional quality color laserjets

Cons:

Loud when printing

Big and heavy (2 people recommended to lift, but not impossible for one)

HP can be tough to work with should problems arise

Expensive toner

Depending on how you situate, the power and usb/network connections might be inconvenient (see video)

Large graphic files take a few extra minutes

But, all the cons are more than manageable for me again due to my priority of high quality printing, so 5 stars.

Review by Barbara J. Allen:

With the cost of tonor for my color copier being so expensive, I welcome this price break. Will purchase from this company again. Rather have HP product over all other.

Review by C. Booth:

Product was just as described.. FAST shipping. Will continue to order from for future toners.