HP COL LASERJET 5550N 220V 27/27PPM 600X600DPI

Speed was a mixed bag, however. The 5550n printed color graphics faster than any other corporate-level color laser we tested for the February issue, at 5.6 pages per minute. Its text-printing speed was average, though, at 16.4 ppm.

Setting up the Color LaserJet 5550n using Windows XP was as easy as connecting it to our Test Center's network; Windows automatically recognized the device, and we proceeded to set up the drivers. As we've seen with some other HP printers, setup of the 5550n took a fairly long time compared with that of its peers; HP does warn you, at least, about the long wait times during installation.

This model comes standard with two paper trays: a 500-sheet drawer and a 100-sheet multipurpose tray that holds paper as large as tabloid. Three optional, 500-sheet paper trays ($499 each) boost the count to a maximum of 2100 sheets. The device's standard 160MB of RAM is expandable to 544MB, and its 533-MHz processor should make network printing from numerous stations fairly painless. An optional 20GB hard drive ($479) can store watermarks or frequently used documents for printing straight from the console.

Upshot: The 5550n handles big workloads, prints graphics quickly, and provides great image quality across the board, but it will cost you a chunk of change.

Lisa Cekan