HP Color LaserJet 3550 Printer

by HP

Product Details

• Item Weight: 105 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 101 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B0003MTITO
• Item model number: Q5990A#ABA
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 27, 2004

Product Description

The HP Color LaserJet 3550 printer produces vibrant results that will enhance your home and business documents. Print exciting color images and sharp black text at up to 12 pages per minute. The ImageREt 2400 color layering technology and new toner formula ensures photo quality images with an excellent range of colors. The printer's instant-on fuser virtually eliminates warm up time, so there is no performance penalty for allowing your printer to enter Powersave mode. Take printing to a higher level of professionalism with the HP Color LaserJet 3550.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HP Color LaserJet 3550 Printer, October 27, 2004

By 

DonF "DonF" (MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP Color LaserJet 3550 Printer (Office Product)

I looked at all of the laser printers and inkjet. Every article says there is nothing like an inkjet. I can tell you for a fact that they are wrong!! There is no comparison at all when printed on plain paper; this HP LaserJet 3550 is the best!! When printed on gloss paper a great inkjet is better but not by much at all. Meaning you will not need an inkjet unless you already have one. I read all the articles on all brands (OKI, Samsung, HP, Lexmark, Brother, Ricoh, Minolta, Panasonic, etc...) (trust me I spent 2+ weeks reading) of laser printers. I sent (and paid) for samples only to find out that the HP LaserJet printers (3500, 3550, 3700) produce the best output (B&W, color, and photo) and they only have 600*600 res., which goes to show you resolution means nothing (at least with HP)!!
This HP 3550 printer is fast and produced the best photos I have seen on any laser printer (no banding also!). Power consumption is low, it is Quiet for a laser, and of course it is bigger than an inkjet or a cheap (slow) color laser (that is why it is FAST) (they do sell cheaper, smaller, slower models). Trust me it is not that big in size (at least for what it does). HP does not put in half toner cartridges like others (Minolta, etc...). The only thing it could have is a duplex option, but it does a great job a manual duplex. I just can not say anything bad, I was very hesitant about buying a color laser but am very happy with this and am glad I did not go with any of the other brands (especially after getting in my samples of other printers) you will not regret this purchase!!!!! I have the LaserJet 3550n.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A whole lot of printer, March 3, 2005

By 

Island Girl (Tobago, West Indies) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP Color LaserJet 3550 Printer (Office Product)

I have the HP Color Laserjet 3550. Straight off the bat let me state that this printer is big. When I say big, I mean big. When it was delivered I was astonished at the size of the box and after unpacking it I spend a few minutes taking in its size. I then realized that it was taller than I anticipated, even though the dimensions quoted in my prepurchase research were accurate. Seeing is believing. Despite the size, it is well designed and infact, beautifully made.

Setup of the printer and toners was extremely easy, and the installation of drivers was okay. After following the instructions given in the setup guide, the installation process stopped on my PC for no apparent reason. I eventually restarted the pc with the setup cd in the machine AND the printer connected to the pc and everything sorted itself out perfectly.

When I did my first print (the printer's demo page) and saw the quality on plain copy paper, I knew that I had made the right decision on purchasing the HP LaserJet 3550. So far, I am extremely pleased with this printer. I run a home-based desktop publishing business, and this printer has handled everything I have thrown at it without problems - business cards, labels, flyers, invoices, etc. As DonF said in his review, you will not regret this purchase!!!!!

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HP Laserjet 3550 a GREAT color laser printer, September 16, 2005

By 

A Conrad "Ask Conrad" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP Color LaserJet 3550 Printer (Office Product)

I was pleasantly surprised with this color laserjet. I previously had the HP 4550, which was (is) the most disappointing color laser printers (at 4ppm and outrageously expensive ink drum). I was a little skeptical about the capabilities of the 3550, but with a little research online and testing at local computer stores, I decided to go with the 3500 (actually, I got the 3550n with networking). It did not come with a network card (like the 4550), but it did come with a USB network print server (which I like better anyway).

It boasts 16ppm for color (which is faster than my old one), but only 16ppm for b&w text (which is slow compared to my HPLJ 2420 at 25ppm). Others boast a fast 25ppm color and b&w text (Lexmark C762) but for twice the price. The comparable Lexmark unit is the C510, which prints 30ppm text, but a slow 8ppm color. This is why I went for the HP.

I will have to say that my inkjet printers (HP and Epson) can print better photo-quality than this printer, but that is a given. The 3550 was not designed to print on photo paper.

I purchased the 3550 about 6 months ago for over $1K, but I think you can get it for about $800 nowadays.

Summary: Text printing is fine (but slow), and color printer is fast (but crummy). I've had some people either like or hate the printer for its capabilities, but everyone unanimously agreed it is a monster size. So, if you have the space, I highly recommend this color laserjet printer.

Pros:
-excellent text quality
-very fast color printer (though not the fastest, but can hold its own against lexmark)
-easy to use; html toolbox user interface

Cons:
-HUGE footprint; I had to get a separate printer table for it because it would have taken up my work desk
-relatively slow all-text printing
-manual duplexing (similar to my HP Laserjet 2420)
-some issues with the color graphics; though good enough for home printing, I would not use it for business printing