WHAT'S HOT: The Color LaserJet 2500tn comes with three paper-input sources right out of the box--the standard 250-sheet tray, a 500-sheet tray, and a 100-sheet auxiliary tray--which makes it possible to stock the printer with letterhead, second sheets, and envelopes, for example. That's a lot of paper-handling hardware for the modest $1899 price tag. The 2500tn also generated clean--albeit somewhat light--text and evenly weighted narrow lines in our tests. Its on-screen manuals cover every aspect of using and maintaining the printer, though you only get a terse, basic set-up guide.

WHAT'S NOT: The 2500tn's 2.3-ppm graphics-printing speed is the slowest among color lasers we've seen recently, and its text-printing speed is the second-slowest, at 10.7 ppm. The toner cartridges and imaging drums turn on a carousel inside the 2500tn engine, so printing requires four internal passes. This partly accounts for the slow performance; it also makes maintaining the printer and clearing paper jams somewhat laborious. For example, to change a toner cartridge or clean a drum's lens, you first have to use the control panel to turn the carousel to the correct position. We don't have high expectations for the gray-scale quality of any color laser, so we weren't surprised by the 2500tn's banding and rough textures on those samples; on the other hand, a color laser should deliver color documents without the color distortion we saw from the 2500tn.

WHAT ELSE: HP doesn't sell the 2500 in a duplexing configuration, so if you want to produce brochures or booklets--or simply wish to save paper--this isn't the printer for you. You can send the 2500tn's prints along a straight path; but the straight path's exit is out the back of the printer, with no support tray, so you have to grab each page as it comes out. The printer's control panel has no LCD or complicated menus--just a few indicator lights and a button for accessing the toner cartridges.

UPSHOT: If being able to stock your printer with several types of paper matters more to you than top speed, the 2500tn could be the right choice for your office. But you might do better by adding that capacity to another printer.

SUMMARY

HP Color LaserJet 2500tn Rated 16-ppm text/4-ppm graphics color laser. 64MB RAM standard, 600-by-600-dpi maximum resolution, 875 sheets input, 150 output. $1899 800/752-0900 www.hp.com