Stepping Into The Future, The HP Color LaserJet 4550 Printer Is Seriously Worth Considering
The E-enabled HP Color LaserJet 4550 printer and HP C4127X toner cartridges is the first generation of its kind offered by Hewlett-Packard. HP intends for this printer to be able to handle a wide range of in-house publishing print jobs, in fact, and at this it performs well. This color laser printer has been equipped by the manufacturer with what HP refers to as an Embedded Web Server that allows the IT staff to manage the printer through a standard web interface.
The 4550 weighs in at a hefty 112 pounds, so keep that in mind if moving the printer is going to be required on occasion. It’s also a fairly large model, coming in at nearly 23 inches high and 16 inches wide. It’ll take up a sizable corner of a desk, in other words. However, its size is more than acceptable when the performance of this printer is taken into account, because it’s outstanding.
One such indicator of outstanding performance is the 4550′s ability to print black-and-white product in a fairly speedy manner, at 16 pages per minute. Because color print jobs will emerge with a high level of quality, the printer is a bit slower at delivering copy. Still, four pages per minute puts its solidly in the performance ballpark for a quality color laser printer, it must be said.
In general, the HP 4550 connects with a networked workgroup via means of traditional wired technologies. Traditional, in this case, means an IT specialist hooking it up will be using an older style parallel port in addition to other methods. It’s certified for use with Windows Vista and it can be immediately set up to start operation through XP and other Microsoft OSs as well as Mac PCs via a plug and play interface.
When it comes to the quality of the print the 4550 will put out, it’s fairly standard at 600 dots per inch (dpi), though that’s not a criticism of the printer. Any print job sent to the unit will, in fact, come out looking nice enough, with crisp and clear print that shows no evidence of blurring or smearing. With a 233 MHz processor and 64 MB of RAM, the 4550 will also be capable enough at handling multiple tasks.
When it comes to the media stock types that can be used by the 4550, the list is long and diverse. Envelopes, labels, transparencies, semi-gloss photo paper and plain paper are all handled easily. The printer can also hold up to 400 sheets of paper in its paper trays, meaning that it’ll go for some time before needing replenishment.
The HP 4550 is also a durable printer and has a 35,000 sheets per month maximum duty cycle. This means that it can print out 35,000 pages before requiring anything other than printer cartridge replacement, generally. It requires 4 separate cartridges: one each of black, cyan, magenta and yellow. Color printing will deplete the cartridges, obviously, before straight black-and-white print tasks would.
The HP Color LaserJet 4550 printer is one of the first of its kind offered by Hewlett-Packard in that it’s been built so that a wide variety of publishing tasks can be handled in an in-house manner. It also allows for remote print management activities via use of an embedded Web server, meaning that IT specialists can manage its operation from a standard web interface. Refurbished models can be found for quite a bit under $1,000, as well.
Searching online will also show some great prices when it comes to the HP LaserJet 4550 printer. The quality of HP 27A toner is what produces these amazing prints and having some extra toners and cartridges around means this machine will continue working for you.
