HP Color LaserJet 5550dtn > Reviews > Mega printer for the big office

Author's product rating:   

Picture quality	Good
Printing speed	Fast
Colour sensitivity	Satisfactory
Ease of use	Easy
Value For Money	Satisfactory

Advantages:	Does it all  !  !  !
Disadvantages:	None

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Hewlett Packard Colour LaserJet 5500dtn has been around for a few years now so the price has come down a little and you should be able to get a reconditioned printer for around Two thousand pounds, and new for around three thousand pounds.

Beware if your buying second hand that you're getting all good consumables for that kind of money, ask for a print of the configuration page before you agree a price. The configuration page will show how many pages the machine has printed and the amount of errors that have occurred.
Also ask for a print of the consumable levels, this will show how much of each of the Toners are left, and also the amount of life left in the Transfer and Fuser, all these items are classed as consumables and will have to be replaced in time, however you don't want to have to spend any extra money having just bought your lovely printer.
If it's running low on Toner, Transfer or Fuser, you should negotiate a discount.
A full set of Toners is approx £300.00
Transfer is approx £200.00
Fuser is approx £200.00

Having said all that if you're buying new all your consumables should be brand spanking new!!!

Once you have got the 5500dtn set up and running you'll find you have a Great printer, the "N" stands for Network so you can run loads of computers to this printer, I'm not sure what the maximum number of computers would be and Hewlett Packard don't specify, but I've seen it handle 17 computers quite happily in a large office.
The "D " stands for Duplex so you will be able to print both sides if the paper at once, The duplex does seem to cause more paper jams for some reason, but I haven't been able to work out why, also if the duplex is set to "on" it slows down single sided printing, I would suggest if your not doing loads of double sided printing you keep the Duplex set to "off" until its needed.
The "T" stands for Tray, this machine comes with an extra 500 sheet paper tray, which I have to say is essential in a busy office, and if you wish you can add extra trays, up to a maximum of five.

Hewlett Packard recommends a "duty cycle" of up to 120,000 pages a month on A4…….. Now that's a lot of pages!!!!
This printer was designed for the busy workload.
A point to remember. Paper going through a printer creates paper dust build up inside, so with this amount of paper going through you will build up lots of paper dust which eventually causes paper jams, and then eventually printer damage. To avoid this, get your printer serviced regularly, also using higher quality paper produces less dust.

The Colour LaserJet 5500dtn prints on lot of paper sizes including… A3. A4. JIS. B5. A5.
It will also print on many different media, such as…. Card stock. Glossy. Plain. Envelopes. Transparencies.

Don't forget this is a big printer so you'll need plenty of space for it, and no one is going to want to sit next to it, the 5500dtn is not a particularly noisy printer, but it's not silent either, also in the summer it's going to get a bit warm sitting next to it.

I Repair printers for a living, and I've just started getting calls to this model, and so far they have all been minor.
There is a little arm that hangs down from the Fuser that seems to get snapped of sometimes when there is a paper jam and the paper is pulled out a bit roughly, this can be sorted out with a bit of glue.

The other thing I have found is waste or spilt Toner and paper dust build up inside the printer. This happens with all Toner printers and is not especially bad on the HP 5500dtn. It just needs a careful vacuum out.

This is an excellent printer and being HP it is relatively cheap to run and repair. I would recommend to anyone.