HP has made a very good color laser printer at a relatively low cost. I have been using the HP 4500 in my home office for nine months and have never had any problems with it. I estimate that it costs me about 10 cents per page for color printing, which makes it economical for people who are frequently sending printing jobs out to printing companies that charge 8-10 times as much for color laser printing or copying.

The consumables are reasonably priced. Each color toner cartridge costs around $100 (there are four of them) and they seem to last for a long time (I think they advertise 5,000 color pages). I have not yet had to replace the toner and I have done a good amount of printing (however, I use a Lexmark laser for all non-color printing).

The paper transport is great. All trays feed properly without drawing extra pages or jamming up.

My only complaints with the printer are minor: These printers are loud - they sound like jet airplanes when they start up and clank louder than MRI machines when they print. They also seem to draw a lot of power (the lights dim momentarily when print jobs are sent to the printer). My last complaint is with their speed... Complex jobs do not print at 4 pages per minute as advertised and sometimes take 10 minutes to process the print job before they start printing. Otherwise, they are great printers for home offices, but I would not want to share them on a busy network.



Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 2400
Operating System: Windows