I do a lot of work from home and needed a new printer that would let me print off reports in colour quickly, for a fairly cheap price and it had to be reasonable compact so not to take up much space in my tiny work area at home. Having always used Hewlett Packard printers everywhere I worked their online shop was the first port of call and after browsing through the wide range that they sell I opted for the Color Laserjet 2600n for £210.
When it arrived I was amazed by the size of the box, it was enormous but thankfully most of this was bubble wrap. The printer sitting nicely protected in the box was tiny compared with the colour laser printers I'd previously used being 40cm wide, 45cm deep and standing only 37cm tall. The weight was a bit of a struggle as it is heavy most the weight being positioned at the top of the printer where the inner workings and toner are placed. Overall weight without paper is 18.4kg.
Microsoft Windows 98 SE and ME, 2000, XP. At least a 233 MHz processor 64MB RAM 150MB of hard disk space CD ROM drive for the printer drivers USB or network port
Installation was dead easy, the drivers were installed onto my PC in minutes and after attaching the power cable and USB, I added the printer and was ready to roll. I was nicely surprised by how easy it was to sort out and get started as I am a bit of a technophobe at times. The instruction manual was set out in plain "idiotproof" steps so there were no fatal errors to report.
The printer can print in black and white or in colour, but this is where I feel let down a bit. It only prints 6 pages per minute and is so slow I feel like pulling my hair out at times. The Hewlett Packard website says it does 8 but that is plain rubbish. From the start it didn't print this fast. The only redeeming feature is that the quality of printing is awesome.
Another niggle is the noise this thing pumps out. It drowns out the radio or TV when it gets ready to roll. First thing in the morning this can be anything up to 30 seconds before anything is printed and it is very very annoying and much worse than older Hewlett Packard printers.
Trying to think of good points is tricky. The LCD display is clear and easy to read and the menu system to give guidance when you get a paper jam is easy to follow. It also holds a lot of paper in the two trays but that is it.
I'm not happy with my printer. It makes too much noise and doesn't print as fast as I would like. When printing off a batch of 50 page reports it simply takes too long and at times these are minutes I don't have to spare.
This printer would be good if you had an office at home and you did irregular colour printing but as a business tool it is not fit for purpose.
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Mar 23rd, 2006
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