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The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles
Entire Contents © 2006 Prog
ressiv
e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 9
w
ith 16MB of nonexpandable memory and, as you’d
expect, uses host-based printing instead of PostScript. It
h
as a 250-sheet standard paper tray, and you can add
another 250-sheet tray for a total of 500 sheets of input.
Standard output is a modest 125 sheets with no options
for expansion. This machine has a 20,000-page monthly
duty cycle.
The Color LaserJet 2600n adds Ethernet and has a
35,000-page duty cycle. Otherwise, these machines are
identical.
Consumable costs are high for these machines, with
color toner running 15.4¢ a page and black-and-white
costing 3.9¢ a page. That’s based on HP’s list prices; we
expect moderate discounts from street prices for toner.
These printers have HP’s two-line LCD control panel
which provides status info and alerts of printing prob-
lems.
These machines are pretty typical low-end color laser
printers. Their color printing speed is decent, but the slow
black printing concerns us, since typical business users
would do most of their printing in black-and-white. In
the $300 – $400 price range, they could get better black
printing speed. But in terms of low-priced color printing,
these are impr
essive. The Color LaserJet 2600n suffers,
however, in comparison to OKI Printing Solutions
C3400n ($399), which prints at 16ppm in color and
20ppm in black-and-w
hite with comparable features for
the same price
.
Chart entries — page 74
Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 2605dn
Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 2605dtn
10ppm full color
12ppm black & white
Sum-up: Improved color speed at very reasonable price
points.
If nothing else, Hewlett-Packard’s new Color LaserJet
2605 family indicates the company is listening to its cus-
tomer
s
.
T
he Color LaserJet 2605 models seem to be a response
to w
hat was most likely the major gripe about the Color
LaserJet 2550 models: their slow 4ppm color printing
speed.
T
he Color LaserJ
et 2550 f
amil
y r
epresented a break-
thr
ough in ter
ms of
price: they were HP’s entry into the
under-$500 color laser printer market.
Now come the $500 Color LaserJet 2605dn and $700
Color LaserJet 2605dtn, which more than double the
Color LaserJet 2550’s 4ppm color speed, printing at
10ppm in color
.
That’s remarkable performance at this
price le
vel.
Y
et, there’s a drawback, even though it may be a minor
one to some users: the 2605 family’s 12ppm black-and-
white speed is slower than the 2550 models’ 20ppm. Both
have PostScript 3 and standard Ethernet.
On both models, the optional paper supply is limited to
one 250-sheet tray. Both machines are well equipped with
300MHz processors and 64MB of standard memory.
Like other recent color laser printers from HP, these
models utilize the company’s ColorSphere toner. They
also have HP’s ImageREt 2400 color technology, which
interpolates the printers’ maximum 600dpi color resolu-
tion to 2,400dpi print quality.
These are compact units designed to fit comfortably on
desktops in busy, cramped workspaces.
Output is limited to a skimpy 125 sheets, which is stan-
dard for HP’s low-end color laser line.
The printers are designed with HP’s customary focus on
ease of use. The front-panel two-line display enables
users to monitor print job status and consumables sup-
plies, and toner cartridges are accessible through a single
door
.
As one would expect, consumables prices run high for
this family, with color toner running 15.4¢ a page and
black-and-white costing 3.9¢ a page. That’s based on
HP’s list prices; we expect moderate discounts from street
prices for toner.
These models seem to be aimed at the user who wants
a decent-quality desktop color laser printer and is not
Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 1600/2600n/2605
Consumables costs at-a-glance
Price
Yield
Full-color cost per pa
g
e
Blac
k-and-white cost per pa
g
e
Black print cartridge $75.00 2,500 $ 0.030 $ 0.030
Cyan print cartridge $83.00 2,000 $ 0.042 N/A
Magenta print cartridge $83.00 2,000 $ 0.042 N/A
Yellow print cartridge $83.00 12,000 $ 0.007 N/A
Drum/black $173.99 20,000 N/A $ 0.009
Drum/4-color $173.99 5,000 $ 0.035 N/A
T
OTAL PER-PAGE COSTS
$ 0.1547 $ 0.0390
15.47 3.90