HP Color LaserJet 2600n Printer (Q6455A#ABA)
Don't be fooled by the 600 x 600 resolution listed. The printer outputs fantastic quality photo prints and (obviously) great text. If you are considering this instead of an inkjet for photos, be warned that a laser printer will only output as good as the source material. Pics from my 5MP Kodak EasyShare camera look beter than on my (also HQ) HP inkjet. But older lower res (3mp) photos exhibit color inaccuracies. In short, if your photo has a flaw, the 2600n will show it (Laser Printers don't hide flaws by "bleeding" like inkjets do). Laser printers also aren't for novices, you *will* have to play around with the driver menus to get optimal quality and speed- but when you do, you should be quite satisfied.
After getting my printer set up (which HP makes very easy to do) and the software loaded, I printed out beautiful color copies in just a few minutes. I was worried before ordering that this copier would be slow, but it delivers copies quickly and then shuts down to a "quiet mode" (power saver) after a short while. For a small business - at home - I could not ask for a better color laser printer!
had some trouble setting this up to work with some of my my other printers, in particular a photo printer. Spent hours on line with Tec support but now that it is all set up I love it. It prints quality prints and nice overheads for teachers!
Easy set up, great print quality. Hooked right up to my home wireless network. Speed is ok but not great. Same speed for b&W as color
Purchased this for only $250 new after special promotional discount at the local office supply superstore. Set up was a breeze, plugged it into our home network via Ethernet into our home router, worked perfectly from the beginning. Very nice output, love the networked feature that let us print from any computer anywhere in the house.(2 desktop G4 towers, 1 iBook, 1 Toshiba laptop). The toner cartridge access is a particularly elegant design in comparison to the prior generation HP SOHO printers.
Replaced/supplemented HP 2610 AiO that used a ridiculous amount of way over-priced ink.
Only real drawback is that this is a relatively slow printer. It takes just as long to print an all BW doc as color. It fast output is important, look elsewhere. As for toner, at this point the depletion rate seems quite slow, and for the price I paid, I could just as well wait for another deal and simply buy a new one for less than the cost of replacing all of the carts in this printer. (It comes with FULL carts, not the silly partials in some printers.) Ridiculous in a green sense, but sadly true.
I had been looking at the previous generation 2550N until this newest printer came on the market. As it happens, my wife's office installed the 2550N in her Windows only LAN. The thing has been a engineering and design disaster from the word go with toner problems, network access problems, and just last week, total failure of the network card. And this in a corporate office with a full IT staff and LAN administrators. I keep looking at our completely satisfactory 2600 and knocking on wood.
Only one other wish - automatic duplexing. The manual duplexing works well enough, but automatic would be wonderful.
You know, on paper, the HP 2600n probably makes no sense - not much memory, one-pass engine (speeds for black and color are the same), expensive replacement cartridges, slow black-only speed, average looks, small & unimpressive LCD display.
But.... In the real world, this printer will surprise and even amaze you! If you print ANY color in your documents, this printer will leave it's competition in the dust in terms of performance. Color print-outs are fast and come out instantly - no warm-up, etc. The unusual design allows it to take up minimal space on your desk and provides easy paper retrieval and cartridge replacement. The simple display is incredibly intuitive and features are easily & quickly located.
Instead of lots of memory, the printer makes use of your computer's memory and cpu (read: not post-script) - this may have a very slight performance effect on your computer. But, you never have to worry about purchasing extra printer memory ($$), since your computer probably has plenty of it available and probably more CPU power than you need.
Operating noise is acceptable and the printer never over-heats (common on some other color laser models). The HP support software isn't the flashy kind that populates your tool bars - just a very simple and effective set of utilities, which helps you configure and maintain the printer.
Color text print quality is the best I've seen on any kind of printer, and business graphics are unrivaled. The photo printouts are pretty decent for a laser, but not in the class of inkjets - but they sure come out fast!
While the cartridges are expensive - at least the printer comes with FULL capacity cartridges, which ironically cost more than the printer. (You are literally getting the printer for free!). I have printed several large documents (including many hi-res pictures) and the cartridges are still showing 98% capacity!
So, when should you NOT get this printer? If you mainly print-out reams of black/white documents, then this printer is NOT a good choice; go for a monochrome or 4-pass color laser instead. But, most home users do print some color (ie, web pages) which makes this a much better real-world printer.
They have the more powerful one-pass engine type HP color lasers where I work, and they are impressive; which makes me believe the 2600n should be reliable as well.
I was about to return my 2600 to OfficeDepot. Then I thought I should check if others are having the same problems with color. I guess I should check with HP tech support - maybe something is wrong with my printer only.
On my printer, the color quality is underwhelming. When I print pictures, they look like cartoons. When printing text, headlines in color print OK but colored vector graphics (simple ones) have ugly shades in them.
WTF.......4 hours to set this up!!!!!! I have Win98se and when you go to install and use the setup disk--it says win98 and WinMe not supported....it says-- use add printer and go carnel knowlegde yourself??? very, very unacceptable. just adding a printer isnt that easy--where the hell are the directions and where the hell is the win98 setup.exe??? Piss poor for the 21st century. very upset with HP. I would have looked elsewere if I had known. and where is the usb 1 support or just plain old printer cable support. usb 2.0 card is the next piece of crap to write about. finally after 4 f...ing hours I got the printer to work. nice printer. expensive toner. used enter computers.com and found it on tigerdirect for 80 bucks cheaper. 4 toners are around 300$--buy a new printer for 250$--they come with full toner levels on this model!! Have had printer for 1 day. will follow up. six foot usb 2.0 cable seems to work okay--keep it under 10 feet--dont need usb 2.0 card. printer takes 30 seconds to spool up and then 15 seconds for first print. alittle long and alittle noisey--but we had an inkjet printer--35 sheets and a 15$ cost!!
Excellent printer.
Solid color & graphics.
Network ready.
Local repair available
I bought this printer in October, 2005, primarily to print documents with occasional color use. To my surprise, about 3/4 of the way through my second black toner cartridge, the three color cartridges were exhausted. The supply counter reported that I had printed 4800 pages in color! I print VERY LITTLE color, and I just could not understand it. I called HP tech support, and was told that in fact even when you think you are printing black text only, the printer uses "a little" color toner too. I was not happy to hear this, since nowhere in HP's literature that I could find is this mentioned, but OK. . .they told me I could prevent this by printing in "draft" instead of in "normal," and by printing in greyscale. So, I loaded the new color cartridges (THREE of them, at approx. $80 each!!!), and guess what? The page counter CONTINUED to count pages for each of the color cartridges AND for the black cartridges! So, I called tech support back and was THEN informed that there is no way to avoid "using" color (I don't know if the printer actually uses color, or if the counter just "says" it does. The end result is the same. You can't print in black if your color cartridges are "out.") Tech support called this a "cheap" printer and said that the grayscale option isn 't available, no matter what you try to set up. Needless to say, I feel pretty disgusted and cheated. I will use up the remaining toner and then throw this machine away. I think HP should be ashamed. The tech guy seemed to think I should have somehow "known" about this. Phoo! Don't buy it. M. Zashin
Addendum: To be fair, I called HP tech support a third time and was then told that tech support #2 was wrong. You CAN print in grayscale and by doing so will avoid "using" color toner. It is also important to download and install the latest firmware from the HP site. I am following these suggestions, and will suspend judgment until I find out if this is now accurate information. M. Zashin
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).
I guess the way the printer is set up is to ASSUME that you are using the color cartridges on an average basis, regardless of whether they are actually being used or not. Thus, it estimates when the cartridges should run out and when that time comes, you are locked out of further printing until the cartridges are replaced even though they may be full of toner. However, reading through the User Guide, there appears to be a solution on using the Color Toner Cartridges beyond the "replacement" time.
Page 94 of the User Guide has the following instructions for those who would like to use the toner beyond their replacement time:
Configuration
Cartridge Out Override can only be enabled from the printer's control panel menu.
1. From the main menu, press (RIGHT ARROW) to System setup and press (SELECT).
2. Press (RIGHT ARROW) to Print quality and press (SELECT).
3. Press (RIGHT ARROW) to Replace supplies and press (SELECT).
4. Press (RIGHT ARROW) to Override out and press (SELECT).
5. Press (SELECT).
If Stop at out is selected, the printer will stop printing when a cartridge reaches the recommended replacement point. If Override out is selected, the printer will continue
printing when a cartridge reaches the recommended replacement point. The factory default setting is Stop at out.
The full story of the trials and tribulations of a hapless 2600N owner can be viewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_196413001348
Make sure you have the latest firmware loaded in the printer. I purchased the 2600N yesterday and had the 20050307 firmware. Noticed the page counter was showing the same number of pages being printed on ALL toners. Upgraded firmware to 20051208 version and now everything is correct (it actually reset the color toner page count to 3 less than the black which is correct).
I would like to first say a quick reply to Nunya, who seemed to be slightly technophobic. I have been a professional computer technician for over 8 years, and supported Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. I have to be brutally honest with you and tell you that your problem installing the HP Color LaserJet 2600N Printer is that antiquated system of yours. Honestly, your system is ancient, man. When Windows 98 was released, a $300 laser color printer was a dream. You have to accept the fact that technology moves forward and a PC only has a 5 year life span. It's 2006!
Now, this printer for its price range, is amazing. I have two of them and use them heavily for home usage. Of course I would recommend something in the $1K or above range if you wanted an office printer for anything larger than a small mom & pop shop.
It's an investment in your business, and with technology you always get what you pay for in one way or another. If you buy cheap or discounted you run the risk of paying high repairs because you may not have a warranty. If you buy new your covered in the worse case scenario. Always pay the extra money for the warranty people, I CAN NOT stress this enough. Repairs on anything nowadays are often more than the cost of purchase. Just do it, ok?
...and in case anyone thinks I sell printers, I don't. I've got 8 years of experience, and with that comes 8 years of screw-ups.
Ciao.
I also own a 2-3 year old Minolta magicolor 2300 (networkable) and thought that all low priced, home office color laser printers were the same... extremely high power consumption (dims household lights even with 200 amp home service), extremely long warm-up time (4 minutes), extremely long time before the first page comes out, extremely noisy while in ready mode, extremely long time before it goes into stand-by mode (when it finally goes quiet), extremely slow between pages and extremely heavy.
What a pleasant change this HP 2600N is. I bought it for my office at work because the price was unpassable. I haven't expensed it yet because I might take it home. The first page comes out almost instantly and doesn't make any noise when ready, and never goes into a stand-by mode.
Definitely not a high production machine, a little slow for that... but a lot faster than the magicolor.
Quality and color is excellent. We have a Xerox 6060 12 X 18" double sided color printer at work that does not out perform this machine in quality of color reproduction, though it might in resolution.
I'm very pleased with the value/performance ratio.
EXCELLENT BUY!
The HP Color LaserJet 2600N is my perfect home printer. The price is excellent for the value. The ease of installation and network ready flexibility is fantastic for anyone who needs a reliable, cost effective printer that can handle any of their home or small office needs. The print quality is great as is the ease of cartridge changes. The shear volumne of printing that can be done with this machine is awesome. A fine product!
Overall, the printer is simple and easy to use. Text looks great, and photos are acceptable. The printer has a lot of trouble with standard cardstock, though.
One bonus is that this printer ships with full toner cartridges, not "starter cartridges." This could save you a few hundred dollars in the long term.
SPEED
While it can't keep up with most business lasers, it's more than fast enough for home or small business use. It also has very little warm-up time, which is great for home users.
EASE OF USE
The printer is very easy to set up. Both the menus on the printer LCD and in the driver are simple and easy to use. On the other hand, the networking feature is mostly undocumented, with no wizards or setup guides.
TEXT QUALITY
Text is clear and sharp, what you'd expect from a laser printer. Color text looks good too, as long as it is fairly saturated. Some light colors like baby blue or pink show the pattern of dots too clearly.
If you use laser foil (for shiny gold lettering on certificates and such), you'll be pleased to know that the foil sticks to color toner about as well as it does to black toner. This lets you use a toner color similar to the foil color.
PHOTO QUALITY
This is a decent printer, but not photo quality. One coworker remarked that photos printed on my 2600N looked like "1970s magazine prints." Another mistook a printed photo for a print of a painting. Unfortunately, the low resolution leads to color flattening and visible dot patterns.
On the other hand, the printer works wonderfully for my wife's anime-style art.
NOT FOR CARDSTOCK
I've never had a problem with standard paper. It prints fine every time.
On the other hand, the printer has a lot of trouble with standard cardstock. When my wife needs to print a run of 20 or thirty cards, we have to baby-sit the printer because about every third piece of cardstock jams. Luckily, the jams are in the paper tray, and are very easy to pull out.
Additionally, prints on cardstock often have color registration problems, and sometimes even smears of toner.
I was initially disappointed in the printer for color text, but after the first few prints it sharpens up dramtically. You won't confuse this printer for a photo printer, but for a basic color printer that won't smudge and prints crisp black text, it's hard to beat the price. We'll see if I'm still happy when I have to replace the toner cartridges (~$80 ea. right now, and there are four of them), but hopefully that will be a few years down the road.
Great printer. I have worked full time from a home office for 14 years, this is the best printer I have ever worked with and used. Great value, great color prints. Only area of improvment would be speed and price of new cartridges.
This is a wonderful printer I have not had the opportunity to really take it through it paces yet. It is tall, large and heavy though. So, make certain that you have a good sturdy spot for it. Nice open paper path. Installs on the network in a snap.
first the drawbacks: this is NOT a photo-quality printer. even on HP glossy photo paper, the results are no more than OK. also, this thing is slow to print text, compared to almost any recent laser printer -- I've got a 3-year-old bottom-rung Samsung that blows the doors off this thing for text speed.
I'm glad I bought this, though. I've got it networked off a wireless hub (built-in ethernet) so I've got wireless b&w / color printing from anywhere in the house & yard, which is fun. The color is "good enough" to make color prints & pushpin them to the wall. (They look absolutely horrible at first but run a few prints through & most of the problems disappear.) Like any laser, this thing is ridiculously cheap to run, and the "inks" never dry out before you can use them up. Text is sharp & clear and paper handling is easy, if not hugely flexible (1 tray 1 slot-feed). Overall I think this would be ideal for a small office or home environment where it could be shared among a few computers. I like this thing.
Fantastic value, exceptional print quality. Probably doesn't do photos as well as a photo printer, but pretty darn good none the less. I'm constantly smudging the papers from my inkjet, since the ink is water soluable, and that's why I got the laserjet. VERY nice that all the colors have separate toner cartridges, so you only need to replace the one that runs out. Plus the print comes with FULL toner cartridges, not "demo" ones that only print a few hundred pages and need to be replaced.
Great, easy to set up network printer. Comes with full cartridges. Seller had it to me in five days
The product was delivered in record time. It arrived in a new box that contained all the included items. I set it up in a very short time with flawless results. I have used it since delivery (approx 3 months) without any apparent problems. The only negative I have to mention is a higher level of noise when printing and adjusting when compared to the Laser Jet III I replaced.
I've just had to return this printer due to its constant failure to feed paper correctly. The paper either fails to feed up from the tray or jams half-way through printing. This was already a replacement printer for another with similar problems so I think it's either a design flaw or a bad batch. The type of paper doesn't make a difference - light grade through heavy presentation types all jam in exactly the same way.
On the plus side, when it does print the quality is outstanding. I may have just been unlucky twice in a row, but the mechanical problems mean that I can't recommend this printer.
This is a wonderful printer, and I think easily the best at this price point. In fact, I would stack it up against anything under $1k in terms of quality and ease of use. The only difference is the 2600n takes a few seconds longer to print, but for SOHO or workgroup use this is a non-issue. The setup is simple. I took mine out of the box and plugged it into the router - it was immediately available on the network and within minutes I was printing from both windons and mac PCs - great - and much better than messing with USB and locally attached printers. Getting the right paper will really make this shine - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000099O2W/ref=cm_rev_emailcr_p1_c2020190_dp_1_h/103-8358517-9512640?n=1064954 - is wonderful. Also the 2600n comes with full toner cartridges, whereas most others come with "starter" sets which almost double the price since you have to buy new ones immediately. I have been using the 2600n for 2 months and have printed a fair amount of stuff (500-ish pages) and all my cartridges show full. Great printer.
I have burned through all three color ink cartidges after printing B&W documents. I became concerned when I realized that I was at less than half remaining ink after having printed only several dozen color pages. As I was more aware of color use, I watched the color cartridges slowly empty while printing ONLY black and white documents! These cartridges aren't cheap. Now I have to replace all four cartidges at as much as cost as nearly the cost of the dang printer. (Yes, I have the software set to print greyscale only.) This printer was purchased as a work printer, which was to be used mostly as a B&W printer with the ability to print color when necessary. I cannot complain much about its print quality as B&W and color documents came out great. Occasionally there was a 'ghost' image printed on the first page of a document, but as that copy always goes in my file, it is not a big deal. I would NOT recommend this as any sort of 'workhorse' printer. I also think that HP has set bad ink management for this printer on purpose so we have to buy more ink.
Do the math, folks: this printer comes with 2,000 page toner cartridges and runs around three to four hundred bucks. Each toner cartridge (there are 4) costs around eighty bucks so by the time you use 4,000 pages you've added a whopping three hundred fifty bucks (with tax) to the price.
I did some research and found a Dell 3100cn laser for three hundred direct from Dell, which costs about the same and comes with full toners for a whopping 4,000 pages!!!
The HP printer is smaller and prettier, though its print quality is not quite as good. Its color output is slightly faster but its black and white output is super slow in comparison. But bottom line is that 4,000 pages and another set of toners later, I would've had to pay TWICE as much as the Dell.
Needless to say, I made a beeline to Dell's website. Got the 3100cn for only three hundred clams with shipping, in fact. Shweeeeeeet!
I have had this printer for about a year now. Unlike a previous reviewer, I have found no decrease in the color toner when I print the majority of my documents in black and white. I use this printer in a small real estate office and it does a wonderful job of both black and white and color printing. I have replaced the black toner only once in that time period, and the yellow toner only once.
The only negative comment I have regarding this printer - and it might just be "operator headspace" - is that about three times a day it goes through a calibration routine that lasts about one minute. During its calibration, it will not print. On the positive side, it remembers everything you ask it to print while it performs its tests, so when it is finished calibrating, it will print what you asked it to. However, I find it mildly inconvenient when it does its calibrating - seems like those are the times I'm in a desperate hurry. This is the only reason I gave it four stars instead of five.
Other than that minor inconvenience, I am very pleased with the quality and speed of this printer.
I just installed our new 2600N Laserjet and I am very happy with the purchase. This printer is a steal, if you consider that it is a COLOR laser and comes with a network card built-in. This is the cheapest networked color laser printer on the market that actually has a good quality. It comes with toner cartridges, which is not the case with most others and the $0.15 estimated cost per page (pcmag.com) is cheap enough to make the trip to a copy shop obsolete if you need multiple copies of your printouts. I wanted this printer, because I am sick of constant paper jams, paper not being pulled in or ink cartridges being dried up and costing $50 a pop. If you consider cost of inket cartridges, this printer will amortize itself in no time, not even counting the agony of "yet another dried up cartridge needs cleaning".
Quality is very crisp and sharp for text and I was pleasantly surprised about the color print quality. This is clearly not a photo printer, large areas of uniform colors (blue sky) show some banding, but overall, the photo quality on plain paper beats the quality of my Epson 1280 photo printer hands-down at a much lower cost (and higher speed!). Printouts on plain paper actually have a nice satin sheen to it, which an inkjet won't do without photo paper coating. Even though it doesn't match the speed that I am used to from our full-blown office color jets, it is fast enough, does its printing in one pass (i.e. all 4 colors are applied in one step, instead of 4 steps) and will suffice for any home or small office printing needs.
I didn't bother to run the installation CD, simply downloaded the latest driver from HP.com and installed it that way. Nice features of the print driver, such as fit-to-page, color presets and manual duplexing (via front-load sheet feeder). I had it installed, warmed up and calibrated as well as configured on all 3 of our computers in a matter of 30 minutes. It fetched its own IP address automatically once plugged in and the only annoyance was that its settings default to an A4 paper size, instead of letter-size. Other than that, it's working without a hitch and I am looking forward to many printouts. Highly recommended!
Printer made a rattling/hammering sound most times when I hit the Print button; sometimes even had to turn it off to stop the action.
Color quality just OK on paper prints, but on photos was terrible, whether on glossy or matte paper. Color smeared on both front and back of photo paper, which jammed in the machine about half the time.
Be careful ordering this from Amazon; they use a no-name shipper instead of UPS, Fedex, or USPS - shipper used snail-mail to contact me, and setting up delivery was inconvenient since I live 50 miles from their nearest location.
I've had this printer for about 2 weeks and have been using it heavily... with great frustration. The printer jams constantly... to the point that I consider it to be unusable. I am now shopping for a new color laser printer. In addition, after just a couple days I had already used 25% of my black toner.
Update: I've been limping along with this printer, hoping to use it at least until I run out of ink... clearing jams every page or 2... However now the printer feeds the paper in at an angle, bending and ripping the paper as it passes through. So now I can't use it at all. Don't buy this printer!
I love the speed, print quality, and network and Macintosh friendliness of this printer. The colors are vivid, and the blacks are blacker than any of the dozen laser printers I've used previously. The footprint is amazingly small for a color laser, and the mechanics are much simplified from its predecessor, the 2550N.
I love this printer so much, in fact, that I didn't hesitate to buy a second one when the first shredded its transfer belt after only a few hundred pages. (I searched the web, and this seemed to be a fluke.) You can't replace the transfer belt, but when you can buy a whole new printer for less money than the 4 included toner cartridges would cost separately, the print engine is essentially a "free" disposable. (With $600 invested in toner cartridges, however, I bought the extended warranty on the second unit, just in case the pricing geniuses at HP sober up...)
A few problems:
The "manual" input is nearly useless. If I don't empty the regular paper tray first, the printer inevitably feeds a sheet from there, too, on "top" of the stock I am trying to feed manually. It also may require a little interaction with the front panel to confirm that, yes, I really do want to use the manual input tray I specified when I issued the print command on my computer. It's easier to put special stock on top of the regular stock in the tray, and use that.
It's a small hassle to load envelopes (no more than 5, I think), and they shimmy during feeding in a way that does not inspire confidence. I had been planning to retire my Epson 980ne inkjet, but now I use it exclusively as my envelope printer (for which it's a speed champ); a good complement for this weak spot of the 2600N.
As a thrifty person, I enabled the "cartridge out override" as described in the Amazon review titled "Cartridge problems can be overcome". Before doing so, the printer refused to print more than 2114 pages with the black cartridge, even though it had plenty of toner left. The first symptom of actually running out of toner was a smeary light gray band running down the page, which happened at 2395 pages in my case. Replacing the black cartridge cleared up the printout instantly, as I expected. My pages typically use much less color so I haven't replaced any of those cartridges yet. Although the printer says I've printed 1221 pages that used color, it has increased its estimate of remaining pages in the color cartridges to 2079. That would be nice! (but the estimate must be quite crude)
If you don't enable "cartridge out override", you face the irritation of perhaps avoiding jobs that don't use much toner, or troubling to declare many jobs to be grayscale, because you hate to pay 15 cents per page (for 4 colors of toner) when typical pages don't have much color or toner on them. If you do use the "cartridge out override", of course, you only have to buy new cartridges when you actually use up the toner in each.
The fuser is a little hotter than in my Apple LaserWriter, and it sealed some of the envelopes I printed with it! Purchasing different envelopes solved that problem (as suggested in the manual).
The print dialog has a lot of fine-tuning options for color. Most people will never need them, but I like having them. Benefiting from them does require a certain amount of special knowledge or experimentation, however.
I recommend this printer to all my friends, despite the hassle of its telling you to buy new cartridges even when they are not empty.
We are an all Mac company. We were doing some research about laser printers to quickly replace our all-of-the-sudden dead inkjet.
I read all kind of reviews on CNET, Amazon, etc. Very difficult to decide what to get. We did have a budget of around $400 to stick to.
The final two contenders were the HP 2600N and the Minolta 2430DL. We went to a specialized printer shop which had both and compared them. The final word given by the certified technician was: "You want great print quality? get the Minolta / You want good prints and a wokhorse? get the HP.
That's what we did. Once we got the HP, it took us five minutes to set it up on a Mac network. Called HP to make sure we were doing things right from the start, and they adviced to download the latest driver and "not" to install the software that came with the printer. By the end of the conversation and 5 more minutes. We tested all Macs with the printer and it was great! No complaints at all.
Keep in mind that we do not do any heavy printing; letters, invoices, envelopes, etc. is all we do. Sometimes full color graphics that do not need to be of excellent quality. Coming from the inkjet world, a laser printer is awesome and this one fits right with our printing volume and purchase budget.
We just got it for a few days. Maybe in a few weeks we will find something wrong with it, who knows. So far, I am extremely happy with its performance, quality and easy set up.
Also, about the bad reviews... lets think about the price, lets not ask too much of a $400 laser printer. I know that I could have spend $1000 for one with top ratings all across, but the budget was $400. This printer so far is GREAT! Hope my review helps....
The printer itself is great. very high quality and reasonably quick.
My only qualm is the cost of replacement cartridges. While all printer ink seems way over priced, HP has taken it to a new extreme. You can actually replace the ENTIRE 2600N for LESS than it will cost you to replace the 4 toner cartridges. Something is seriously wrong with this picture both from a cost and an environmental perspective.
Bought this printer based on reviews I had read. Although some reviews were slightly negative , on the whole the bulk were glowing, and after having had mine for 3 months now I have to concur.
For the price , I am very pleased with the print quality. Not top end quality, but certainly very good. If you wanted absouloutely pristine, razor sharp print quality, then this isn't the prniter for you. But then again, you would be paying 3 times the price for that.
Speed is more than good enough for home office use. But again, if you were after a fast , high throughput printer, you should be spending more money and going for one built for speed.
Set-up was literally 5 minutes. Have not yet had to replace the cartridges (but then I am not a high volume printer), but would investigate the costs for this if you are (then again , if you are, see my earlier note about high throughput...)
In summary , for personal or home office use and for the price, I really don't think you can find a better printer. I researched most of the printers within this price range and relied heavily on user reviews. If you are doing the same, add my vote to the yays.
John McGeechan.
the text is crisp and the graphics is crisp... i can't ask for more... maybe just that the printer can include the 4000 page toner instead of the 2000 one... but oh well.
if you have paper jam all the time, it could be due to the orange thingy in the paper tray.... i don't know why but i don't see any paper in the package saying that the orange thingy should be removed. so i had paper jam all the time. after i suspect that the orange things are all supposed to be "pulled out", then i removed it and then no more paper jam any more!
I would recommend this printer to anyone who wants laser quality and needs output that doesn't take forever! Easy to assemble and operate, excellent quality, and a great buy at the price. I'm REALLY glad I got it!
I have the 2550n and I was upgrading (so I thought) but this machine does not have the quality that the other does. It also does not have the ink reserves I need. I do about 400 two sided color sheets per month on 60-80lb stock paper and this machine struggles with anything that heavy. The quality of print is bad as the ink bleeds regardless of how much it has been used. Pictures do not come out anything close to good quality. I would NOT recommend this to anyone that needs more than casual reports for work or simple flyers for home office or school.
After owning many monochrome laser printers, I recently bought one of these as my first color laser. Especially for the price, I'm very impressed!
As others indicated, this model is not aimed at printing large amounts of color all the time (eg photos), but rather at users who print monochrome with some color sporadically (eg web pages). Even so, I tested printing high quality color images. On plain paper, the image quality was average for a full-page photograph printed from Windows XP's bundled photo viewing/printing software, resembling a first generation color photocopier. However, switching to the HP high-gloss paper provided as a sample (and setting printer preferences to that kind of paper) provided a beautiful glossy 8.5"x11" photo. Very nice! It's still not dye-sublimation quality, of course, but with that paper it could compete with higher-end color inkjets.
The printer is fast and easy to set up physically. It feels solid and well made. USB setup is a breeze (cable not included). Network setup for Windows was another story and required "manual" installation of the network printer and drivers...the process was onerous for me (an experienced IT professional) so I can imagine the average user's frustration with the process.
There are four toner cartridges (black plus 3 colors) and this design is a lot of what gives the printer its substantial size. I'm scared to think of what it will cost to replace all four cartridges, but it appears that printing black-only (via software interface) is an option to save toner. The toner that comes with the printer is rated at 2500 pages for black and 2000 pages for each of the color cartridges.
Printing is quite loud (sounds like an office printer), but the printer is silent otherwise. Printer configuration can be done via a web interface (launched by a configuration utility if connected by USB).
Highly recommended with the caveat that network printer installation is harder than it should be (otherwise I'd rate it 5 stars).
Print quality is pretty bad. There are often streaks and discoloration on print outs. If you want a quality color laser printer, look somewhere else.
OK, this printer does print exceptionally well. I purchased it to use in pharmacy school. However, in my opinion, it ends up being a very expensive product to maintain. The main problem I have with the printer is that it will not print at all (not even in grayscale) if one of the cartridges "needs" to be replaced. With 4 cartridges at $80-90 each, it adds up. I have had the printer for 4 months and have replaced 6 cartridges thus far. So, buyer beware.
I can't speak to how well it functions as a network printer for Windows users or as a local printer. When I could get it to work, the print quality was pretty good (for the price). But I had constant problems getting the Macs on my network to find the printer. You have to use Bonjour (at least if you just want to configure the printer with the OS X printer setup utility). I downloaded the latest driver from HP. The first computer to print had no problems, but after that it was very hit-or-miss. The print job would try to start, and I'd get a message "Trying to find printer 'HP LaserJet 2600n'" - the printer never would be found. The printer has a control panel accessible via a web browser, but the built-in web server would often not respond when the printers IP address was entered. The printer uses DHCP. I also tried giving it a static IP address (both via configuring the printer itself with a static IP, and with configuring the router to assign it a static IP via DHCP) - none of this worked. I finally took it back. I'm still looking for a reasonably priced color network laser for Macs - maybe such a beast doesn't exist. This definitely isn't one.
Slow printing..goes into initializing phase at any time and takes forever to finish doing whatever it does. This is not good when you are trying to print a job in front of a customer
-The laser color is vivid and sharp.
-The toner cartridge lasts a long time. I still have half of the ink after one year regular usage.
-It does not use drum - good to save money but the printed paper curled. Fortunately, the curling allivated after it absorbed moisture.
-The network sharing feature works fine. The print sharing with PC may out of sync sometimes. Need to power cycle the printer to recover.
-When print name card, the second and later batches can get tainted. Need to wait until the printer recalibrated before it can print a clean one. The regular printing is good without the ink contamination.
This printer will NOT be supported on 64 bit operating systems! I learned this the hard way.
I have had my HP color Laserjet 2600n for about one year. I also have a regular HP monochrome laserjet for the bulk of my printing needs (faster & auto-duplex & lower toner cost), and an Epson color inkjet for printing better quality photos. I use the 2600n for two reasons: color webpage printing and printing the tray inserts for CDs that I produce in my recording studio (I use a special robotic inkjet printer for printing on the CDs themselves, no adhesive labels here!)
I went into this purchase with some trepidation, because the cost of replacing all 4 tomer cartridges exceeds the cost of the whole printer. I initially figured that I might just buy a new one every time the toner ran out, and donate the toner-less printer carcass to schools, etc. Well, nobody wants these as donations, because they would still need to shell out more money for toner than it would cost to buy a new machine WITH toner. I should add, however, that HP claims and independent labs have shown that the toner cartridges that come with this printer are as full as the ones you would buy later - they are NOT half full. It seems to be true that HP is giving the printer away in order to sell toner later on.
I have had nothing but good luck with the 2600n so far. I have not experienced paper feed issues, and the only print quality problem I have seen is when I try to print large areas of a single color; this printer, like most (if not all) laser printers, does a poor job of producing large areas of single color coverage. You get an unevenly printed area when you try. But one rarely has to print such things.
All 4 toner cartridges have been depleting at about the same rate, and are almost ready for replacement. I decided that, since the printer is inexpensive, I would experiment with toner replacement kits. I bought a well-reviewed kit on eBay for $135, including the four bottles of toner, refilling tools and supplies, and a set of new fuseable 'chips' that tell the printer that the cartridges are new after being refilled. If this does not work well for me, I have already purchased a set of new cartridges. The online information I have seen says that the cartridges have internal components that wear out, and one cannot expect them to hold up for more than their original lifespan plus one subsequent refill. So, whether the toner refills work well or not, I have the NEXT toner change already waiting in the closet.
Some reviewers have mentioned that the 2600n does not handle or print well on card stock or heavier papers. The printer does things differently depending on settings you can make in the driver configuration. If I am printing to heavy paper or card stock, I do get poor results if I forget to tell the driver about it ahead of time. With the 'heavy' paper setting, the printer is much slower; I assume that it is keeping the paper in the fuser stage for a longer time to heat the paper more thoroughly, the better to fuse the toner to the paper. This may also inprove print quality and paper handling as well, but I noticed that with heavy paper, unless I use the correct setting, the toner is not well attached to the paper and can rub or fall off.
(Epson told me, regarding my color inkjet printer, that when I change the paper thickness setting there, that it not only changes how much ink is sprayed, but the paper handling pick-up roller accelerations are adjusted to compensate for the different paper handling characteristics. I imagine that this may also be the case with paper handling on the 2600n....this is why I suggest you read the manual and/or study the driver's settings - you might be using the wrong ones and getting poor results).
Overall, I think what HP has provided a good quality, easy to use machine that allows entry level color laser printing. As with any office equipment, you can pay more initially to get lower operating costs. If you don't do a ton of color printing, the 2600n is a pretty good balance between initial afforability and subsequent operating costs. Even if you just bought a new one once a year, you would be getting a pretty good deal. think of it as an installment plan or an annual rent, where you expect to pay $350 each year to have color laser printing available.
I have had this printer for almost a month and am so far thrilled with it. I am on Mac and the set-up was painless and much easier than with the last HP ink jet printer I had. The print quality has been very good and I am printing brochures etc. Of course, it isn't photo quality, but it is VERY good and has surpassed my expectations. I would say it is a GREAT laser printer for the price. watch for it on sale various places and save even more.
For the few using this 64 bit version of Windows XP the supplied printer drivers do not work and there are no updated drivers available from HP. Also, there is no Vista 64 bit driver yet. The printer itself is great.
Easy set up,prints great in color on regular paper.
photoes on laser photo paper are as good or better then from photo shops.
I highly recomend this printer.
Laser printers usually use little ink. There is a reason the printer is inexpensive.
If you print volume, in the long run, you are better off spending more and getting one that uses less ink
Printer works great over a network although have had difficulty setting it up with Bonjour.
It works out cheaper to buy a new printer and throw it away than a complete set of toner! Why don't HP work an exchange system giving a credit for empty toner cartridges.
I got this printer through another cheaper company, and it simply won't work on a MAC running 10.4.9. The drivers on HP's Web site are utterly useless. After all the updates, still nothing. It never shows up on the Apple at all, and Apple's site doesn't offer support. I bought this specifically because I saw it on Apple's Web site and thus assumed it would work with their machines. I guess not.
This printer is a baby HP3600N, a workhorse color laser. The 2600 is an amazing printer for such a cheap price. It is small and quiet. It delivers super quality. You gotta get one...throw out that inkjet junk and move up to corporate quality at a home price.
This machine prints great. Takes a while to initialize and does it quite ofter, so best if you leave it on all the time. Also had a problem with it thinking that it was out of the yellow ink. It was not. Took me skaking the cartridge and taking them all out and placing them back a few times to correct the error. But, otherwise this item is acceptable especially for the price
This is a wonderful printer. Ships with full ink cartridges which is a big deal! Price can't be beat, and it lives up to the HP name for quality. Takes seconds to install the drivers and set up the printer (I have mine as a network printer). Works on my MacBook perfectly, even has a great little icon for the Dock when printing! Couldn't ask for anything more.
Although I have been satisfied with this printer (HP 2600N) over the last year and 1 month, today's experiences have caused me to NEVER EVERY buy another HP product for as long as I LIVE.
Issue # 1 - Toner cartridge ran dry, so I bought a new one and it wasn't recognized by printer. After many attempts it was finally recognized but does not print properly. The coloring for the first 2 inches is very faded and then is okay after that.
Issue # 2 - Since my printer is out of warranty HP Support wants $25 with no guarentee that they can solve the problem. Was not allowed to speak to a supervisor.
Issue # 3 - I cannot continue to use my printer if any of the cartridges are missing. Meaning if I want to print in Black I must have all cartridges present and recognizable by the printer.
Issue # 4 - at $90 per cartridge (roughly) thats $360 per year on average for consumables. A brand new printer costs $260. Competitors can cost less. Hmmm.
What just happened today put a very sour taste in my mouth and gave me the determination to NEVER buy any HP product EVER.
Sorry, I am doing the only thing I can and that is voting with my $$$$.
After getting my printer set up (which HP makes very easy to do) and the software loaded, I printed out beautiful color copies in just a few minutes. I was worried before ordering that this copier would be slow, but it delivers copies quickly and then shuts down to a "quiet mode" (power saver) after a short while. For a small business - at home - I could not ask for a better color laser printer!
Don't be fooled by the 600 x 600 resolution listed. The printer outputs fantastic quality photo prints and (obviously) great text. If you are considering this instead of an inkjet for photos, be warned that a laser printer will only output as good as the source material. Pics from my 5MP Kodak EasyShare camera look beter than on my (also HQ) HP inkjet. But older lower res (3mp) photos exhibit color inaccuracies. In short, if your photo has a flaw, the 2600n will show it (Laser Printers don't hide flaws by "bleeding" like inkjets do). Laser printers also aren't for novices, you *will* have to play around with the driver menus to get optimal quality and speed- but when you do, you should be quite satisfied.
Purchased this for only $250 new after special promotional discount at the local office supply superstore. Set up was a breeze, plugged it into our home network via Ethernet into our home router, worked perfectly from the beginning. Very nice output, love the networked feature that let us print from any computer anywhere in the house.(2 desktop G4 towers, 1 iBook, 1 Toshiba laptop). The toner cartridge access is a particularly elegant design in comparison to the prior generation HP SOHO printers.
Replaced/supplemented HP 2610 AiO that used a ridiculous amount of way over-priced ink.
Only real drawback is that this is a relatively slow printer. It takes just as long to print an all BW doc as color. It fast output is important, look elsewhere. As for toner, at this point the depletion rate seems quite slow, and for the price I paid, I could just as well wait for another deal and simply buy a new one for less than the cost of replacing all of the carts in this printer. (It comes with FULL carts, not the silly partials in some printers.) Ridiculous in a green sense, but sadly true.
I had been looking at the previous generation 2550N until this newest printer came on the market. As it happens, my wife's office installed the 2550N in her Windows only LAN. The thing has been a engineering and design disaster from the word go with toner problems, network access problems, and just last week, total failure of the network card. And this in a corporate office with a full IT staff and LAN administrators. I keep looking at our completely satisfactory 2600 and knocking on wood.
Only one other wish - automatic duplexing. The manual duplexing works well enough, but automatic would be wonderful.
had some trouble setting this up to work with some of my my other printers, in particular a photo printer. Spent hours on line with Tec support but now that it is all set up I love it. It prints quality prints and nice overheads for teachers!
Easy set up, great print quality. Hooked right up to my home wireless network. Speed is ok but not great. Same speed for b&W as color
You know, on paper, the HP 2600n probably makes no sense - not much memory, one-pass engine (speeds for black and color are the same), expensive replacement cartridges, slow black-only speed, average looks, small & unimpressive LCD display.
But.... In the real world, this printer will surprise and even amaze you! If you print ANY color in your documents, this printer will leave it's competition in the dust in terms of performance. Color print-outs are fast and come out instantly - no warm-up, etc. The unusual design allows it to take up minimal space on your desk and provides easy paper retrieval and cartridge replacement. The simple display is incredibly intuitive and features are easily & quickly located.
Instead of lots of memory, the printer makes use of your computer's memory and cpu (read: not post-script) - this may have a very slight performance effect on your computer. But, you never have to worry about purchasing extra printer memory ($$), since your computer probably has plenty of it available and probably more CPU power than you need.
Operating noise is acceptable and the printer never over-heats (common on some other color laser models). The HP support software isn't the flashy kind that populates your tool bars - just a very simple and effective set of utilities, which helps you configure and maintain the printer.
Color text print quality is the best I've seen on any kind of printer, and business graphics are unrivaled. The photo printouts are pretty decent for a laser, but not in the class of inkjets - but they sure come out fast!
While the cartridges are expensive - at least the printer comes with FULL capacity cartridges, which ironically cost more than the printer. (You are literally getting the printer for free!). I have printed several large documents (including many hi-res pictures) and the cartridges are still showing 98% capacity!
So, when should you NOT get this printer? If you mainly print-out reams of black/white documents, then this printer is NOT a good choice; go for a monochrome or 4-pass color laser instead. But, most home users do print some color (ie, web pages) which makes this a much better real-world printer.
They have the more powerful one-pass engine type HP color lasers where I work, and they are impressive; which makes me believe the 2600n should be reliable as well.
I was about to return my 2600 to OfficeDepot. Then I thought I should check if others are having the same problems with color. I guess I should check with HP tech support - maybe something is wrong with my printer only.
On my printer, the color quality is underwhelming. When I print pictures, they look like cartoons. When printing text, headlines in color print OK but colored vector graphics (simple ones) have ugly shades in them.
Excellent printer.
Solid color & graphics.
Network ready.
Local repair available
WTF.......4 hours to set this up!!!!!! I have Win98se and when you go to install and use the setup disk--it says win98 and WinMe not supported....it says-- use add printer and go carnel knowlegde yourself??? very, very unacceptable. just adding a printer isnt that easy--where the hell are the directions and where the hell is the win98 setup.exe??? Piss poor for the 21st century. very upset with HP. I would have looked elsewere if I had known. and where is the usb 1 support or just plain old printer cable support. usb 2.0 card is the next piece of crap to write about. finally after 4 f...ing hours I got the printer to work. nice printer. expensive toner. used enter computers.com and found it on tigerdirect for 80 bucks cheaper. 4 toners are around 300$--buy a new printer for 250$--they come with full toner levels on this model!! Have had printer for 1 day. will follow up. six foot usb 2.0 cable seems to work okay--keep it under 10 feet--dont need usb 2.0 card. printer takes 30 seconds to spool up and then 15 seconds for first print. alittle long and alittle noisey--but we had an inkjet printer--35 sheets and a 15$ cost!!
I bought this printer in October, 2005, primarily to print documents with occasional color use. To my surprise, about 3/4 of the way through my second black toner cartridge, the three color cartridges were exhausted. The supply counter reported that I had printed 4800 pages in color! I print VERY LITTLE color, and I just could not understand it. I called HP tech support, and was told that in fact even when you think you are printing black text only, the printer uses "a little" color toner too. I was not happy to hear this, since nowhere in HP's literature that I could find is this mentioned, but OK. . .they told me I could prevent this by printing in "draft" instead of in "normal," and by printing in greyscale. So, I loaded the new color cartridges (THREE of them, at approx. $80 each!!!), and guess what? The page counter CONTINUED to count pages for each of the color cartridges AND for the black cartridges! So, I called tech support back and was THEN informed that there is no way to avoid "using" color (I don't know if the printer actually uses color, or if the counter just "says" it does. The end result is the same. You can't print in black if your color cartridges are "out.") Tech support called this a "cheap" printer and said that the grayscale option isn 't available, no matter what you try to set up. Needless to say, I feel pretty disgusted and cheated. I will use up the remaining toner and then throw this machine away. I think HP should be ashamed. The tech guy seemed to think I should have somehow "known" about this. Phoo! Don't buy it. M. Zashin
Addendum: To be fair, I called HP tech support a third time and was then told that tech support #2 was wrong. You CAN print in grayscale and by doing so will avoid "using" color toner. It is also important to download and install the latest firmware from the HP site. I am following these suggestions, and will suspend judgment until I find out if this is now accurate information. M. Zashin
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).
I guess the way the printer is set up is to ASSUME that you are using the color cartridges on an average basis, regardless of whether they are actually being used or not. Thus, it estimates when the cartridges should run out and when that time comes, you are locked out of further printing until the cartridges are replaced even though they may be full of toner. However, reading through the User Guide, there appears to be a solution on using the Color Toner Cartridges beyond the "replacement" time.
Page 94 of the User Guide has the following instructions for those who would like to use the toner beyond their replacement time:
Configuration
Cartridge Out Override can only be enabled from the printer's control panel menu.
1. From the main menu, press (RIGHT ARROW) to System setup and press (SELECT).
2. Press (RIGHT ARROW) to Print quality and press (SELECT).
3. Press (RIGHT ARROW) to Replace supplies and press (SELECT).
4. Press (RIGHT ARROW) to Override out and press (SELECT).
5. Press (SELECT).
If Stop at out is selected, the printer will stop printing when a cartridge reaches the recommended replacement point. If Override out is selected, the printer will continue
printing when a cartridge reaches the recommended replacement point. The factory default setting is Stop at out.
The full story of the trials and tribulations of a hapless 2600N owner can be viewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_196413001348
Make sure you have the latest firmware loaded in the printer. I purchased the 2600N yesterday and had the 20050307 firmware. Noticed the page counter was showing the same number of pages being printed on ALL toners. Upgraded firmware to 20051208 version and now everything is correct (it actually reset the color toner page count to 3 less than the black which is correct).
I would like to first say a quick reply to Nunya, who seemed to be slightly technophobic. I have been a professional computer technician for over 8 years, and supported Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. I have to be brutally honest with you and tell you that your problem installing the HP Color LaserJet 2600N Printer is that antiquated system of yours. Honestly, your system is ancient, man. When Windows 98 was released, a $300 laser color printer was a dream. You have to accept the fact that technology moves forward and a PC only has a 5 year life span. It's 2006!
Now, this printer for its price range, is amazing. I have two of them and use them heavily for home usage. Of course I would recommend something in the $1K or above range if you wanted an office printer for anything larger than a small mom & pop shop.
It's an investment in your business, and with technology you always get what you pay for in one way or another. If you buy cheap or discounted you run the risk of paying high repairs because you may not have a warranty. If you buy new your covered in the worse case scenario. Always pay the extra money for the warranty people, I CAN NOT stress this enough. Repairs on anything nowadays are often more than the cost of purchase. Just do it, ok?
...and in case anyone thinks I sell printers, I don't. I've got 8 years of experience, and with that comes 8 years of screw-ups.
Ciao.
I also own a 2-3 year old Minolta magicolor 2300 (networkable) and thought that all low priced, home office color laser printers were the same... extremely high power consumption (dims household lights even with 200 amp home service), extremely long warm-up time (4 minutes), extremely long time before the first page comes out, extremely noisy while in ready mode, extremely long time before it goes into stand-by mode (when it finally goes quiet), extremely slow between pages and extremely heavy.
What a pleasant change this HP 2600N is. I bought it for my office at work because the price was unpassable. I haven't expensed it yet because I might take it home. The first page comes out almost instantly and doesn't make any noise when ready, and never goes into a stand-by mode.
Definitely not a high production machine, a little slow for that... but a lot faster than the magicolor.
Quality and color is excellent. We have a Xerox 6060 12 X 18" double sided color printer at work that does not out perform this machine in quality of color reproduction, though it might in resolution.
I'm very pleased with the value/performance ratio.
EXCELLENT BUY!
The HP Color LaserJet 2600N is my perfect home printer. The price is excellent for the value. The ease of installation and network ready flexibility is fantastic for anyone who needs a reliable, cost effective printer that can handle any of their home or small office needs. The print quality is great as is the ease of cartridge changes. The shear volumne of printing that can be done with this machine is awesome. A fine product!
Overall, the printer is simple and easy to use. Text looks great, and photos are acceptable. The printer has a lot of trouble with standard cardstock, though.
One bonus is that this printer ships with full toner cartridges, not "starter cartridges." This could save you a few hundred dollars in the long term.
SPEED
While it can't keep up with most business lasers, it's more than fast enough for home or small business use. It also has very little warm-up time, which is great for home users.
EASE OF USE
The printer is very easy to set up. Both the menus on the printer LCD and in the driver are simple and easy to use. On the other hand, the networking feature is mostly undocumented, with no wizards or setup guides.
TEXT QUALITY
Text is clear and sharp, what you'd expect from a laser printer. Color text looks good too, as long as it is fairly saturated. Some light colors like baby blue or pink show the pattern of dots too clearly.
If you use laser foil (for shiny gold lettering on certificates and such), you'll be pleased to know that the foil sticks to color toner about as well as it does to black toner. This lets you use a toner color similar to the foil color.
PHOTO QUALITY
This is a decent printer, but not photo quality. One coworker remarked that photos printed on my 2600N looked like "1970s magazine prints." Another mistook a printed photo for a print of a painting. Unfortunately, the low resolution leads to color flattening and visible dot patterns.
On the other hand, the printer works wonderfully for my wife's anime-style art.
NOT FOR CARDSTOCK
I've never had a problem with standard paper. It prints fine every time.
On the other hand, the printer has a lot of trouble with standard cardstock. When my wife needs to print a run of 20 or thirty cards, we have to baby-sit the printer because about every third piece of cardstock jams. Luckily, the jams are in the paper tray, and are very easy to pull out.
Additionally, prints on cardstock often have color registration problems, and sometimes even smears of toner.
Great printer. I have worked full time from a home office for 14 years, this is the best printer I have ever worked with and used. Great value, great color prints. Only area of improvment would be speed and price of new cartridges.
I was initially disappointed in the printer for color text, but after the first few prints it sharpens up dramtically. You won't confuse this printer for a photo printer, but for a basic color printer that won't smudge and prints crisp black text, it's hard to beat the price. We'll see if I'm still happy when I have to replace the toner cartridges (~$80 ea. right now, and there are four of them), but hopefully that will be a few years down the road.
first the drawbacks: this is NOT a photo-quality printer. even on HP glossy photo paper, the results are no more than OK. also, this thing is slow to print text, compared to almost any recent laser printer -- I've got a 3-year-old bottom-rung Samsung that blows the doors off this thing for text speed.
I'm glad I bought this, though. I've got it networked off a wireless hub (built-in ethernet) so I've got wireless b&w / color printing from anywhere in the house & yard, which is fun. The color is "good enough" to make color prints & pushpin them to the wall. (They look absolutely horrible at first but run a few prints through & most of the problems disappear.) Like any laser, this thing is ridiculously cheap to run, and the "inks" never dry out before you can use them up. Text is sharp & clear and paper handling is easy, if not hugely flexible (1 tray 1 slot-feed). Overall I think this would be ideal for a small office or home environment where it could be shared among a few computers. I like this thing.
This is a wonderful printer I have not had the opportunity to really take it through it paces yet. It is tall, large and heavy though. So, make certain that you have a good sturdy spot for it. Nice open paper path. Installs on the network in a snap.
Fantastic value, exceptional print quality. Probably doesn't do photos as well as a photo printer, but pretty darn good none the less. I'm constantly smudging the papers from my inkjet, since the ink is water soluable, and that's why I got the laserjet. VERY nice that all the colors have separate toner cartridges, so you only need to replace the one that runs out. Plus the print comes with FULL toner cartridges, not "demo" ones that only print a few hundred pages and need to be replaced.
I have had this printer for about a year now. Unlike a previous reviewer, I have found no decrease in the color toner when I print the majority of my documents in black and white. I use this printer in a small real estate office and it does a wonderful job of both black and white and color printing. I have replaced the black toner only once in that time period, and the yellow toner only once.
The only negative comment I have regarding this printer - and it might just be "operator headspace" - is that about three times a day it goes through a calibration routine that lasts about one minute. During its calibration, it will not print. On the positive side, it remembers everything you ask it to print while it performs its tests, so when it is finished calibrating, it will print what you asked it to. However, I find it mildly inconvenient when it does its calibrating - seems like those are the times I'm in a desperate hurry. This is the only reason I gave it four stars instead of five.
Other than that minor inconvenience, I am very pleased with the quality and speed of this printer.
Do the math, folks: this printer comes with 2,000 page toner cartridges and runs around three to four hundred bucks. Each toner cartridge (there are 4) costs around eighty bucks so by the time you use 4,000 pages you've added a whopping three hundred fifty bucks (with tax) to the price.
I did some research and found a Dell 3100cn laser for three hundred direct from Dell, which costs about the same and comes with full toners for a whopping 4,000 pages!!!
The HP printer is smaller and prettier, though its print quality is not quite as good. Its color output is slightly faster but its black and white output is super slow in comparison. But bottom line is that 4,000 pages and another set of toners later, I would've had to pay TWICE as much as the Dell.
Needless to say, I made a beeline to Dell's website. Got the 3100cn for only three hundred clams with shipping, in fact. Shweeeeeeet!
I've had this printer for about 2 weeks and have been using it heavily... with great frustration. The printer jams constantly... to the point that I consider it to be unusable. I am now shopping for a new color laser printer. In addition, after just a couple days I had already used 25% of my black toner.
Update: I've been limping along with this printer, hoping to use it at least until I run out of ink... clearing jams every page or 2... However now the printer feeds the paper in at an angle, bending and ripping the paper as it passes through. So now I can't use it at all. Don't buy this printer!
Printer made a rattling/hammering sound most times when I hit the Print button; sometimes even had to turn it off to stop the action.
Color quality just OK on paper prints, but on photos was terrible, whether on glossy or matte paper. Color smeared on both front and back of photo paper, which jammed in the machine about half the time.
Be careful ordering this from Amazon; they use a no-name shipper instead of UPS, Fedex, or USPS - shipper used snail-mail to contact me, and setting up delivery was inconvenient since I live 50 miles from their nearest location.
I just installed our new 2600N Laserjet and I am very happy with the purchase. This printer is a steal, if you consider that it is a COLOR laser and comes with a network card built-in. This is the cheapest networked color laser printer on the market that actually has a good quality. It comes with toner cartridges, which is not the case with most others and the $0.15 estimated cost per page (pcmag.com) is cheap enough to make the trip to a copy shop obsolete if you need multiple copies of your printouts. I wanted this printer, because I am sick of constant paper jams, paper not being pulled in or ink cartridges being dried up and costing $50 a pop. If you consider cost of inket cartridges, this printer will amortize itself in no time, not even counting the agony of "yet another dried up cartridge needs cleaning".
Quality is very crisp and sharp for text and I was pleasantly surprised about the color print quality. This is clearly not a photo printer, large areas of uniform colors (blue sky) show some banding, but overall, the photo quality on plain paper beats the quality of my Epson 1280 photo printer hands-down at a much lower cost (and higher speed!). Printouts on plain paper actually have a nice satin sheen to it, which an inkjet won't do without photo paper coating. Even though it doesn't match the speed that I am used to from our full-blown office color jets, it is fast enough, does its printing in one pass (i.e. all 4 colors are applied in one step, instead of 4 steps) and will suffice for any home or small office printing needs.
I didn't bother to run the installation CD, simply downloaded the latest driver from HP.com and installed it that way. Nice features of the print driver, such as fit-to-page, color presets and manual duplexing (via front-load sheet feeder). I had it installed, warmed up and calibrated as well as configured on all 3 of our computers in a matter of 30 minutes. It fetched its own IP address automatically once plugged in and the only annoyance was that its settings default to an A4 paper size, instead of letter-size. Other than that, it's working without a hitch and I am looking forward to many printouts. Highly recommended!
I love the speed, print quality, and network and Macintosh friendliness of this printer. The colors are vivid, and the blacks are blacker than any of the dozen laser printers I've used previously. The footprint is amazingly small for a color laser, and the mechanics are much simplified from its predecessor, the 2550N.
I love this printer so much, in fact, that I didn't hesitate to buy a second one when the first shredded its transfer belt after only a few hundred pages. (I searched the web, and this seemed to be a fluke.) You can't replace the transfer belt, but when you can buy a whole new printer for less money than the 4 included toner cartridges would cost separately, the print engine is essentially a "free" disposable. (With $600 invested in toner cartridges, however, I bought the extended warranty on the second unit, just in case the pricing geniuses at HP sober up...)
A few problems:
The "manual" input is nearly useless. If I don't empty the regular paper tray first, the printer inevitably feeds a sheet from there, too, on "top" of the stock I am trying to feed manually. It also may require a little interaction with the front panel to confirm that, yes, I really do want to use the manual input tray I specified when I issued the print command on my computer. It's easier to put special stock on top of the regular stock in the tray, and use that.
It's a small hassle to load envelopes (no more than 5, I think), and they shimmy during feeding in a way that does not inspire confidence. I had been planning to retire my Epson 980ne inkjet, but now I use it exclusively as my envelope printer (for which it's a speed champ); a good complement for this weak spot of the 2600N.
As a thrifty person, I enabled the "cartridge out override" as described in the Amazon review titled "Cartridge problems can be overcome". Before doing so, the printer refused to print more than 2114 pages with the black cartridge, even though it had plenty of toner left. The first symptom of actually running out of toner was a smeary light gray band running down the page, which happened at 2395 pages in my case. Replacing the black cartridge cleared up the printout instantly, as I expected. My pages typically use much less color so I haven't replaced any of those cartridges yet. Although the printer says I've printed 1221 pages that used color, it has increased its estimate of remaining pages in the color cartridges to 2079. That would be nice! (but the estimate must be quite crude)
If you don't enable "cartridge out override", you face the irritation of perhaps avoiding jobs that don't use much toner, or troubling to declare many jobs to be grayscale, because you hate to pay 15 cents per page (for 4 colors of toner) when typical pages don't have much color or toner on them. If you do use the "cartridge out override", of course, you only have to buy new cartridges when you actually use up the toner in each.
The fuser is a little hotter than in my Apple LaserWriter, and it sealed some of the envelopes I printed with it! Purchasing different envelopes solved that problem (as suggested in the manual).
The print dialog has a lot of fine-tuning options for color. Most people will never need them, but I like having them. Benefiting from them does require a certain amount of special knowledge or experimentation, however.
I recommend this printer to all my friends, despite the hassle of its telling you to buy new cartridges even when they are not empty.
We are an all Mac company. We were doing some research about laser printers to quickly replace our all-of-the-sudden dead inkjet.
I read all kind of reviews on CNET, Amazon, etc. Very difficult to decide what to get. We did have a budget of around $400 to stick to.
The final two contenders were the HP 2600N and the Minolta 2430DL. We went to a specialized printer shop which had both and compared them. The final word given by the certified technician was: "You want great print quality? get the Minolta / You want good prints and a wokhorse? get the HP.
That's what we did. Once we got the HP, it took us five minutes to set it up on a Mac network. Called HP to make sure we were doing things right from the start, and they adviced to download the latest driver and "not" to install the software that came with the printer. By the end of the conversation and 5 more minutes. We tested all Macs with the printer and it was great! No complaints at all.
Keep in mind that we do not do any heavy printing; letters, invoices, envelopes, etc. is all we do. Sometimes full color graphics that do not need to be of excellent quality. Coming from the inkjet world, a laser printer is awesome and this one fits right with our printing volume and purchase budget.
We just got it for a few days. Maybe in a few weeks we will find something wrong with it, who knows. So far, I am extremely happy with its performance, quality and easy set up.
Also, about the bad reviews... lets think about the price, lets not ask too much of a $400 laser printer. I know that I could have spend $1000 for one with top ratings all across, but the budget was $400. This printer so far is GREAT! Hope my review helps....
the text is crisp and the graphics is crisp... i can't ask for more... maybe just that the printer can include the 4000 page toner instead of the 2000 one... but oh well.
if you have paper jam all the time, it could be due to the orange thingy in the paper tray.... i don't know why but i don't see any paper in the package saying that the orange thingy should be removed. so i had paper jam all the time. after i suspect that the orange things are all supposed to be "pulled out", then i removed it and then no more paper jam any more!
The printer itself is great. very high quality and reasonably quick.
My only qualm is the cost of replacement cartridges. While all printer ink seems way over priced, HP has taken it to a new extreme. You can actually replace the ENTIRE 2600N for LESS than it will cost you to replace the 4 toner cartridges. Something is seriously wrong with this picture both from a cost and an environmental perspective.
Bought this printer based on reviews I had read. Although some reviews were slightly negative , on the whole the bulk were glowing, and after having had mine for 3 months now I have to concur.
For the price , I am very pleased with the print quality. Not top end quality, but certainly very good. If you wanted absouloutely pristine, razor sharp print quality, then this isn't the prniter for you. But then again, you would be paying 3 times the price for that.
Speed is more than good enough for home office use. But again, if you were after a fast , high throughput printer, you should be spending more money and going for one built for speed.
Set-up was literally 5 minutes. Have not yet had to replace the cartridges (but then I am not a high volume printer), but would investigate the costs for this if you are (then again , if you are, see my earlier note about high throughput...)
In summary , for personal or home office use and for the price, I really don't think you can find a better printer. I researched most of the printers within this price range and relied heavily on user reviews. If you are doing the same, add my vote to the yays.
John McGeechan.
-The laser color is vivid and sharp.
-The toner cartridge lasts a long time. I still have half of the ink after one year regular usage.
-It does not use drum - good to save money but the printed paper curled. Fortunately, the curling allivated after it absorbed moisture.
-The network sharing feature works fine. The print sharing with PC may out of sync sometimes. Need to power cycle the printer to recover.
-When print name card, the second and later batches can get tainted. Need to wait until the printer recalibrated before it can print a clean one. The regular printing is good without the ink contamination.
I can't speak to how well it functions as a network printer for Windows users or as a local printer. When I could get it to work, the print quality was pretty good (for the price). But I had constant problems getting the Macs on my network to find the printer. You have to use Bonjour (at least if you just want to configure the printer with the OS X printer setup utility). I downloaded the latest driver from HP. The first computer to print had no problems, but after that it was very hit-or-miss. The print job would try to start, and I'd get a message "Trying to find printer 'HP LaserJet 2600n'" - the printer never would be found. The printer has a control panel accessible via a web browser, but the built-in web server would often not respond when the printers IP address was entered. The printer uses DHCP. I also tried giving it a static IP address (both via configuring the printer itself with a static IP, and with configuring the router to assign it a static IP via DHCP) - none of this worked. I finally took it back. I'm still looking for a reasonably priced color network laser for Macs - maybe such a beast doesn't exist. This definitely isn't one.
Slow printing..goes into initializing phase at any time and takes forever to finish doing whatever it does. This is not good when you are trying to print a job in front of a customer
This printer will NOT be supported on 64 bit operating systems! I learned this the hard way.
I have had my HP color Laserjet 2600n for about one year. I also have a regular HP monochrome laserjet for the bulk of my printing needs (faster & auto-duplex & lower toner cost), and an Epson color inkjet for printing better quality photos. I use the 2600n for two reasons: color webpage printing and printing the tray inserts for CDs that I produce in my recording studio (I use a special robotic inkjet printer for printing on the CDs themselves, no adhesive labels here!)
I went into this purchase with some trepidation, because the cost of replacing all 4 tomer cartridges exceeds the cost of the whole printer. I initially figured that I might just buy a new one every time the toner ran out, and donate the toner-less printer carcass to schools, etc. Well, nobody wants these as donations, because they would still need to shell out more money for toner than it would cost to buy a new machine WITH toner. I should add, however, that HP claims and independent labs have shown that the toner cartridges that come with this printer are as full as the ones you would buy later - they are NOT half full. It seems to be true that HP is giving the printer away in order to sell toner later on.
I have had nothing but good luck with the 2600n so far. I have not experienced paper feed issues, and the only print quality problem I have seen is when I try to print large areas of a single color; this printer, like most (if not all) laser printers, does a poor job of producing large areas of single color coverage. You get an unevenly printed area when you try. But one rarely has to print such things.
All 4 toner cartridges have been depleting at about the same rate, and are almost ready for replacement. I decided that, since the printer is inexpensive, I would experiment with toner replacement kits. I bought a well-reviewed kit on eBay for $135, including the four bottles of toner, refilling tools and supplies, and a set of new fuseable 'chips' that tell the printer that the cartridges are new after being refilled. If this does not work well for me, I have already purchased a set of new cartridges. The online information I have seen says that the cartridges have internal components that wear out, and one cannot expect them to hold up for more than their original lifespan plus one subsequent refill. So, whether the toner refills work well or not, I have the NEXT toner change already waiting in the closet.
Some reviewers have mentioned that the 2600n does not handle or print well on card stock or heavier papers. The printer does things differently depending on settings you can make in the driver configuration. If I am printing to heavy paper or card stock, I do get poor results if I forget to tell the driver about it ahead of time. With the 'heavy' paper setting, the printer is much slower; I assume that it is keeping the paper in the fuser stage for a longer time to heat the paper more thoroughly, the better to fuse the toner to the paper. This may also inprove print quality and paper handling as well, but I noticed that with heavy paper, unless I use the correct setting, the toner is not well attached to the paper and can rub or fall off.
(Epson told me, regarding my color inkjet printer, that when I change the paper thickness setting there, that it not only changes how much ink is sprayed, but the paper handling pick-up roller accelerations are adjusted to compensate for the different paper handling characteristics. I imagine that this may also be the case with paper handling on the 2600n....this is why I suggest you read the manual and/or study the driver's settings - you might be using the wrong ones and getting poor results).
Overall, I think what HP has provided a good quality, easy to use machine that allows entry level color laser printing. As with any office equipment, you can pay more initially to get lower operating costs. If you don't do a ton of color printing, the 2600n is a pretty good balance between initial afforability and subsequent operating costs. Even if you just bought a new one once a year, you would be getting a pretty good deal. think of it as an installment plan or an annual rent, where you expect to pay $350 each year to have color laser printing available.
For the few using this 64 bit version of Windows XP the supplied printer drivers do not work and there are no updated drivers available from HP. Also, there is no Vista 64 bit driver yet. The printer itself is great.
I have had this printer for almost a month and am so far thrilled with it. I am on Mac and the set-up was painless and much easier than with the last HP ink jet printer I had. The print quality has been very good and I am printing brochures etc. Of course, it isn't photo quality, but it is VERY good and has surpassed my expectations. I would say it is a GREAT laser printer for the price. watch for it on sale various places and save even more.
Printer works great over a network although have had difficulty setting it up with Bonjour.
It works out cheaper to buy a new printer and throw it away than a complete set of toner! Why don't HP work an exchange system giving a credit for empty toner cartridges.
Easy set up,prints great in color on regular paper.
photoes on laser photo paper are as good or better then from photo shops.
I highly recomend this printer.
Laser printers usually use little ink. There is a reason the printer is inexpensive.
If you print volume, in the long run, you are better off spending more and getting one that uses less ink
I got this printer through another cheaper company, and it simply won't work on a MAC running 10.4.9. The drivers on HP's Web site are utterly useless. After all the updates, still nothing. It never shows up on the Apple at all, and Apple's site doesn't offer support. I bought this specifically because I saw it on Apple's Web site and thus assumed it would work with their machines. I guess not.
This printer is a baby HP3600N, a workhorse color laser. The 2600 is an amazing printer for such a cheap price. It is small and quiet. It delivers super quality. You gotta get one...throw out that inkjet junk and move up to corporate quality at a home price.
This machine prints great. Takes a while to initialize and does it quite ofter, so best if you leave it on all the time. Also had a problem with it thinking that it was out of the yellow ink. It was not. Took me skaking the cartridge and taking them all out and placing them back a few times to correct the error. But, otherwise this item is acceptable especially for the price
This is a wonderful printer. Ships with full ink cartridges which is a big deal! Price can't be beat, and it lives up to the HP name for quality. Takes seconds to install the drivers and set up the printer (I have mine as a network printer). Works on my MacBook perfectly, even has a great little icon for the Dock when printing! Couldn't ask for anything more.
Although I have been satisfied with this printer (HP 2600N) over the last year and 1 month, today's experiences have caused me to NEVER EVERY buy another HP product for as long as I LIVE.
Issue # 1 - Toner cartridge ran dry, so I bought a new one and it wasn't recognized by printer. After many attempts it was finally recognized but does not print properly. The coloring for the first 2 inches is very faded and then is okay after that.
Issue # 2 - Since my printer is out of warranty HP Support wants $25 with no guarentee that they can solve the problem. Was not allowed to speak to a supervisor.
Issue # 3 - I cannot continue to use my printer if any of the cartridges are missing. Meaning if I want to print in Black I must have all cartridges present and recognizable by the printer.
Issue # 4 - at $90 per cartridge (roughly) thats $360 per year on average for consumables. A brand new printer costs $260. Competitors can cost less. Hmmm.
What just happened today put a very sour taste in my mouth and gave me the determination to NEVER buy any HP product EVER.
Sorry, I am doing the only thing I can and that is voting with my $$$$.