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Photograph: Rick Rizner
HP Laserjet 3550n Laser Printer (16 PPM, 600x600 DPI, Color, 64MB, PC/Mac)
Pricing
$599.99 - $729.99 From 3 Vendors Get Best Prices »
- Spec Navigator
- Printer Type
- Core Components
- Media Handling
- Vendor Rated Speeds
- Platform Support
- Dimensions
- General Features
- Resolutions
- Warranty & Support
Media Handling
| Maximum sheet capacity with standard tray | 850 sheets |
| Media sizes accepted |
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| Paper handling support |
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| Standard input sheet capacity | 350 |
General Features
| Functions | Printer |
| Interface connection |
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| Included network card | Ethernet (10/100 Mbps) |
| Printer languages supported | HP JetReady 4.1 |
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4 User Reviews Add your own »
$599.99 - $729.99
From 3 Vendors
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HP Color LaserJet 3550n
Laserjet 3550n Laser Printer (16 PPM, 600x600 DPI, Color, 64MB, PC/Mac) Review, by Paul Jasper January 12, 2005
The HP Color LaserJet 3550n is bulky, housed in a gray box whose front curvature adds to its sense of inflated size. Unfortunately this model's girth, and its $999 price tag, don't reflect the components inside, considering it cuts some corners in its networking, processing, and expansion options.
The 3550n lacks its own ethernet port, instead coming with an HP Jetdirect En3700 external print server that plugs into the printer's USB 2.0 port. If you don't need ethernet connectivity, you can buy the cheaper $799 Color LaserJet 3550, which is effectively the same printer without the print server. We found our 3550n easy to hook up to our network at the PC World Test Center, even with the added complexity of its print server. The two-line LCD isn't backlit, which could make it hard to read in low light. When you're not using the display for accessing the menus, it conveniently displays the toner level.
Instead of PCL or PostScript and a built-in processor, the 3550n's driver uses HP's JetReady language and your PC's CPU to render pages. Since today's PCs have very powerful CPUs, borrowing some of those clock cycles to drive a printer is a reasonable way to cut printer manufacturing costs. (We conduct printer speed tests using a Micron PC Millennia 920i with a 2.8-GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor and 512MB of RAM.)
When we put the 3550n through its paces in the lab, its print quality impressed us. The fine text characters could have been more readable if they had been slightly heavier, but they looked sharp and did not bleed together in bold fonts such as Hattenschweller. Some strangely shaped characters puzzled us, such as capital Cs with dot-like artifacts at the top. Our line-art sample looked nice and crisp; even the most closely spaced lines were still distinct when examined under a magnifying glass. The grayscale image had some minor banding, but none of the moiré patterns we usually see, and it showed nice, smooth tonal transitions. Our color photo looked too dark overall, though skin tones appeared natural. In our speed tests, performance was middling: The 3550n was below average for both monochrome (14.8 pages per minute) and color printing (3.9 ppm).
Up to 250 sheets load in the main paper drawer, and the manual bypass tray takes up to 100. The main output bin is on top of the printer, where up to 150 pages can land facedown. A rear output tray folds down at the back to give a straight path for thicker media such as envelopes.
You can add a single 500-sheet drawer for $299, giving a maximum paper capacity of 850 sheets. That's the only expansion option you get, however. A duplexer attachment is not available. Nor can you expand the printer's memory beyond its standard 64MB--with the processing happening on your PC, though, there would be little point in adding more.
The printer comes with two printed documents, a Start guide to explain the basic hardware setup and a Network Installation Guide. We didn't get far with the latter before it referred us to the Jetdirect Administrator's Guide, which was included as a PDF file on the software CD-ROM. The PDF led us through the installation steps quickly and effectively. A more comprehensive Use guide is also included on the CD-ROM, in both Windows Help and PDF formats.
Upshot: The HP Color LaserJet 3550n delivers decent print quality, especially for black-and-white documents, but the simpler technology doesn't translate into sufficient savings for the owner, and it isn't the fastest of the pack.
Paul Jasper
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User Reviews
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User Reviews From Around the Web
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Reviewed by: hotobhaga
Strengths: Excellent quality output, super fast, Good realiable product from HP
Weaknesses: Expansive paper tray
Overall: I like this baby very much. It is having expectionally good quality output, color or black and white. NO PAPER TRAY, which is an expensive add-on. But I recommend this printer.
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Reviewed by: stickzhang
Strengths: Color printing is very good. B&W printing is also good, but considerably slower than B&W only laser printer. But good product overall.
Weaknesses: an extra paper tray will cost you ~$250 more
Overall: Easily set up, used both USB and 10/100 network off of my router. Network use is simple and straightforward for Windows 2000/XP Operating Systems. Good crisp text, average color output, but for charts and forms it's perfectfully functional. For photo printing this printer isn't up to HP photo printer standards. Toner cassettes easily changed, but toners are expensive (as are all color toners).
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Reviewed by: bballcards
Strengths: Crisp, fast printing. Great value for the price I paid ($500), less so for SRP ($1000). The fact that it's networkable is a big plus.
Weaknesses: Exhorbitantly expensive toner. Buying a full set of toners will set you back over $500, or half of what the PRINTER normally costs brand new!
Overall: Overall, I am pleased with this printer, but largely because it was a great value for the price I paid. I wish the toner was less expensive, but other than that I am happy with my purchase. I would recommend it.
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Reviewed by: hongzhang77
Strengths: Output is AMAZING! Text is kickass, graphics are unbelievable, and photos are better then expected from a color laser. THIS IS NOT A PHOTO PRINTER, so dont buy it expecting great photo prints.
Weaknesses: There is no paper tray on the 2550L, and when I went to purchase a paper tray (an expensive accessory) directly from HP, they were "out of stock".
Overall: This is a NOISY printer. It clicks, bangs and cycles all the drums on EVERY print!!! There is NO PAPER TRAY. This is an expensive extra add-on. The print quality is no bad but no great either.
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