Gear

HP Color LaserJet 4650n

Color laser printer boasts speed, quality text output

If you feel the need for speed from a network laser printer, Hewlett-Packard’s new Color LaserJet 4650 series will fill the bill. Delivering 22 pages per minute (ppm) in color or black output from a 533-MHz printer processor with 160-MB RAM standard (544-MB maximum), you have your prints in nothing flat; however, depending on your particular needs, you may find some hurdles on this fast track.

Once the initial warm-up time passes (about 17 seconds), prints simply fly out of the Color LaserJet 4650n to produce consistently clean, sharp text on standard, semi-matte/satin, and semi-gloss papers. The setup is fairly simple; the LCD screen takes the user through all of the reports, setup, calibration, paper settings, and more in plain English.

The LaserJet 4650n is fully network-ready with a bidirectional IEEE-1284-C parallel port, USB 1.1 port, HP JetDirect 620n Fast Ethernet internal print server, and two open EIO slots. Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity are also available. Output is a respectable 600×600 dpi with four large-capacity ink cartridges in cyan, yellow, magenta, and black. The Internet-enabled supply ordering and email alert capability makes maintenance a snap. With the options of additional RAM and hard disk space internally, you can “bump up” the LaserJet 4650n to handle large workloads and file sizes.

Text and 2D images were crisp, clear, and sharp—not so, however, for 3D or photo output. No amount of calibration, profile adjustments, PostScript, or change in paper was able to produce a better than passable document at best. With all of the improvements over Hewlett-Packard’s last 4600 series, well…no cigar, folks.

Clearly, if photo output is your game, Hewlett-Packard has some excellent offerings; however, this isn’t one of them. The versatility and balance of quality vs. economy just isn’t there, but the speed, networking, and add-on options are.

PRICE: $2,099
FOR: 9 and X
FROM: Hewlett-Packard Development Company
PHONE: 800-752-0900
WEB: www.hp.com
RATING: 3.0

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