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HEWLETT-
P
ACKARD
Santa Clara, CA
800 752 0900
www.hp.com
Vendor Profile
Hewlett-Packard (HP) needs little introduction in any
discussion of printers, a market in which it exercises
commanding leadership. Its current generation of color
laser models is based on Canon engines, as are its mono-
chr
ome laser printers. HP is offering a variety of separate
product families aimed at different segments of the
market.
Up until recently, HP’s models were the undisputed
industry standard simpl
y because the
y sold far better than
all the competition. But the competition, especially
Lexmark, Dell, OKI, Konica Minolta, and Xerox, keeps
forging ahead. HP has responded with lo
wer prices and
higher speeds.
HP has become a leader in connectivity for its printers,
offering a v
ariety of
internal and external connectivity
options. In addition to a variety of servers, many that are
Web-ready, HP is putting increasing emphasis on wireless
connecti
vity. Many of the models offer IEEE 802.11b
(W
i-Fi) and Bluetooth wir
eless pr
otocols. In general, the
company offers the widest variety of connectivity options
in the business.
Image quality: When it comes to image quality, we
aren’t going to engage in specification-driven debates
a
bout w
ho has the highest r
esolution, and we don’t think
y
ou should be swayed by these types of arguments either.
Most of
the printer
s in this guide deliver perfectly accept-
able image quality for mainstream documents — and if
you’re interested in professional-level presentations or
g
r
a
phics printing, a good number of these models offer
higher r
esolutions for that kind of work, too.
HP has implemented laser-modulation technology that
it claims boosts the quality to 2,400dpi, even 3,200dpi
levels. HP calls this “ImageREt 2400” and “ImageREt
3200” — the “REt” standing for “resolution enhance-
ment tec
hnology” and the “2400” or “3200” loosely
referring to the dpi quality level to which this supposedly
equates. However, the number 2400 or 3200 is not a
measure of dpi — instead of being a specification, it is
merely a four-digit number selected by HP on account of
the positive connotations it carries.
Either way, ImageREt is by no means the only HP tech-
nology at work under the hood to optimize image quali-
ty. HP also stresses its automatic color calibration
process, which ensures consistent quality between
machines and, over time, on the same machine under
varying environmental conditions.
Hewlett-Packard has come up with a number of fea-
tures that enhance the usability of its color printers. The
newest models use a newly improved toner called
ColorSphere. This product gives more accurate particle
diffusion and better toner particle distribution, resulting
in higher gloss and a wider color gamut. In other words,
the color pages are much more vivid, which is especially
useful for printing photographic images.
Second,
HP updated its Web Jetadmin remote adminis-
tration utility, already the best-known in the industry.
Ver
sion 8.0 comes with excellent tools for color access
control and color usage costs.
Finally, a recently introduced universal driver for HP
printers means that you can have a single up-to-date driv-
er for all your HP printers, rather than a tangle of differ-
ent drivers. Aside from saving software clutter, this will
mean that HP printer users will get the same basic dialog
box no ma
tter what model the
y print to
.
Product Profiles
Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 1600
Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 2600n
8ppm full color
8ppm black & white
Sum-up: Decent color speed for a low price, but black speed
is slo
w
.
These new models appear to be HP’s entry into the ongo-
ing race to put out the cheapest color printer on the mar-
ket. The $299 (street) Color LaserJet 1600 and $399
(street) Color LaserJet 2600n are certainly inexpensive.
And for those prices, their 8ppm color printing speed
stacks up well against competing bargain-priced models
suc
h as the 5ppm Xer
o
x Phaser 6120N ($299),
the 5ppm
$299 Konica Minolta magicolor 2500W, and the 5ppm
Konica Minolta magicolor 2530 DL ($399). But the HP
printer
s also print at 8ppm in black-and-white, and that
could be a concern for potential users.
Aside from that issue, these machines hold up well as
basic desktop color printer
s
.
T
he Color LaserJ
et 1600 is
the base model, printing at 600dpi resolution. It comes
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