Customer Reviews

HP Color LaserJet 4500N Printer

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have used my 4500 for about 6 months now and could not be more in love with it. I have owned about 6-7 color inkjets before this and finally made the big move to color laser. You can print perfect photos on just about any kind of paper. I would like to see some "true" glossy paper on the market for photos, however. Most specialty papers for inkjet printers (mostly glossy) will not work with the laserjet because of the heat. Keep in mind you can not do heat transfers with a laserjet printer. There are four cartridges that make up the 4500's color. They are VERY expensive, but I am still using the same one that came with the printer and have printed well over a thousand photos. Long term is much cheaper to run than an inkjet.

This is a great color printer. I have been using this in my office since the beginning of the year. The quality of the color is unbelievable. When I use it with my hp scanner, it is difficult to tell the difference between the original and the scanned output. While I haven't used it with a digital camera, I suspect that the result is similar.

Negatives are few. Obviously, the purchase price is a factor. It is also expensive to operate in comparison to ink jet printers. Each color has its own cartrige, which costs about $100. While the printer comes with a starter set, you'll want a spare of each color. Just think... you're printing that perfect digital image of your favorite subject, and the blue runs out. These cartriges are not stocked at your local office supply store. If you have any significant volume of printing, you will need to purchase a replacement drum kit. (I know it sounds odd, but this is normal.) You may also want to add on a duplexer; this costs over twice the cost of a duplexer on most other printers.

I don't quite agree with the other reviewers about the speed of this printer in black and white. If you are comparing it to low end desk jet printers, then I guess that they are right. If you are looking for speed in black and white, then I suggest that you look at the hp 4000n. While the 4500c is the fastest true "COLOR" printer that I have seen, it takes much longer to warm up then other printers. When you are just sending 2 or 3 sheets, get a cup of coffee while you wait.

If you are networking printers, you can be both time and cost efficient by also networking a fast black and white printer such as the hp 4000n, as well as a low end desk jet for the quick draft print.

There are three reasons to spend this amount of money on this printer. 1. Quality 2. Quality and 3. Quality. I highly recommend this printer.

I print A LOT of graphs and charts on both paper and transparencies. I was very happy to see how well this printer handled them. Using HP Transparencies the printing quality was consistent and clean. No jams at all. Using plain 20lb copy paper, quality was even and bright. You can load up your media and literally walk away knowing that when you come back everything will be printed without having to "baby-sit" the machine. With the amount of printing I do (10K+ a month) that is very important to me. Hope this review helps people in their choice for a color laser printer.

After using several B&W HP lasers for years, I'd always wanted a color laser. Finally, I splurged and got this one as my desktop printer about 6 months ago. I'm not happy- nor totally unhappy either. It's definitely a workhorse. Once it's warmed up, calibrated and running, it works beautifully. Furthermore, it is much less expensive to run than a regular inkjet. I had been spending close to $/month in ink with the PSC500 I was using before this printer. I'm still using the original cartridges which came with the printer...In this respect, it's a great buy.

However, to save energy it goes to idle after 15 minutes or so, and takes about 5 minutes to warm up, calibrate and get up to speed. If you get a paper jam, it will again require the whole cycle. Thus, it's not really suited to be a personal printer. It is best suited for specific large jobs, not as an everyday printer. Everytime I write a one page letter, cut a check or do something simple, I have to wait and wait, and it's definitely exasperating.

Also, it's not really good as a photo printer, although I have often used it as one.

I hope the new color laser series is better.

Not much to add to what the others have said. This is a great printer. It is very fast in B&W mode, does great color and is still reasonably fast when printing color. I have mine setup with letter size paper in one bin and envelopes in the other. The driver automatically picks the correct bin. About that cable: If you are going to hook up to a printer port (which you can do in addition to the network connection) you will need the DB25 to micro centronics cable, not the regular centronics. These are typically called A-C printer cable. I am using a Belkin F2A045-10.

I bought this printer for a home network with multiple PCs and Macs. There were zero problems in setting it up and achieving complete functionality from all systems. Print quality and print speed are outstanding -- color and b/w, paper and transparencies. Tremendously better speed than inkjets; tremendously better quality than "glue gun" color printers. "Power-saver" works well too -- printer drops to "silent and cheap" after a user-definable period of time, but quickly comes to life and prints.

THIS IS THE 100th or SO WONDER OF THE WORLD. IT IS FAST AND EXTREMELY EFFICIENT. I RECOMMEND BUYING THIS ONE BECAUSE IF YOU HAVE A NETWORK OR PLAN TO BUILD A NETWORK THIS IS A GREAT PRINTER. IT HAS FEW ADVANTAGES OVER THE 4500 yet IT IS NETWORKABLE.

FYI: I USE THIS AS A DESKTOP WORKHORSE.

THANKS HP!

I was about to shell out for this printer - it sounds great, however the hp support site lists it as discontinued and no longer sells supplies for it.

When most think of laser printers, the Hewlett-Packard brand comes immediately to mind. Why, because HP has a long history of manufacturing quality printers for all segments of the business environment. From DesignJets for professional grade large scale printouts, to inkjets for home & SOHO, and increasingly departmental business environments, to their legendary laser printer, the HP moniker is synonymous with printers despite the fact that HP manufacture so much more. I particularly like their series of oscilloscopes with interchangeable modules. But HP does printers well, and when the age of the color LaserJet dawned in the mid-1990's, HP was once again the leader to catch, to emulate, to try and outperform. Which brings me to the HP Color LaserJet 4500n; "n" standing for Network Card the printer ships with.
The Product

The HP Color LaserJet 4500n is a big machine, weighing in at some 112 pounds, the printer dwarfs the HP LaserJet 4 series which it is loosely modeled after. This is not personal printer made to sit comfortably on your desk, but a departmental/ enterprise-class high performance, high output color printer. After the optional duplexer (two-sided printing) and a 500 sheet tray is added, the printer gains more heft and weighs in at some 170 pounds! Make no mistake, this is a big printer.

The HP Color LaserJet 4500n ships with a 133MHz Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISC) processor chip. The printer ships with 32Mb RAM standard, but a maximum of 208MB (an unusual denomination), can be added. This should increase performance dramatically; all of our printers came configured with 64MB of RAM.

As I mentioned above, the "N" model ships with an internal HP JetDirect 10/100 Ethernet network card, while the "DN" model adds duplex printing. The network setting can be configured via the printer menu, or through Jet Direct software, which offers a Windows or web interface. The default networking protocol is TCP/IP, but DTL, Apple Talk, and IPX/SPX. There is also a bi-directional parallel port, and a USB interface card can be purchased separately.

Color Everywhere

Unlike its inkjet brethren of the time, color LaserJet printers typically sport separate toner cartridges for each color; i.e. CYBM, Cyan, Yellow, Black and Magenta. The HP Color LaserJet 4500n is no different, sporting four large single color cartridges which over time become quite messy. Whenever, a color document is printed each cartridge prints onto the paper separately increasing the time it takes to print said documents some four time over monochrome or black documents. When printing mono documents, you would do well to select the mono setting in order to ensure quicker output.

HP Color LaserJet 4500n print driver, like all HP printer drivers allow you complete control over the print output; i.e. the printer driver has various setting that allow one to tailor the output. For instance, you can manually specify the paper type used, or the tray from which it is selected. The driver also supports HP proprietary ColorSmart II color calibration technology to ensure the color you see on your scanner, monitor screen, and printer, match for realistic output. Printing in color the HP Color LaserJet 4500n is capable of four pages per minute output, while printing in monochrome will yield up to sixteen pages per minute.

Speed / Performance

When idle the HP Color LaserJet 4500n goes into power save, and thus when a job is sent to it, it takes a few minutes to warm up. Be forewarned however, due to the rotation of the toner carousel when the printer is warming up and/or printing it is noisy; but once warmed to the task, the printer is relatively quiet. Once it warmed up, no matter the output, or content of the page to be printed the speed of the printing is constant. The standard paper tray will hold 250 sheets, and an optional 500 sheet tray can be added. A third tray for envelopes and legal sized or outsized papers is above the standard tray in a fold down drawer.

The HP Color LaserJet 4500n is not the fastest printer in this field, but the quality of the print outs is on or above par with the competitors. The HP Color LaserJet 4500n's native 600x600 dots-per-inches (dpi) is not as high as the 1200x1200 available on some competitors, but the difference is not notable enough to prevent purchase. Indeed the quality of the output is excellent be it mono text and color graphics, or a combination of both. While glossy paper is best for photos, even on ordinary plain paper, the output is good, but not exceptional. As in inkjet output, the whiter the paper, the sharper and crisper the output will be.

Consumables

This printer can be expensive to maintain. Like all printers, the real money is made not on the sale of the unit, though the HP Color LaserJet 4500n sports a heavy price tag, but the consumables. Each of the HP Color LaserJet 4500n's four genuine HP toner cartridges cost upwards to $100.00 new. Though third party refillable cartridges are available at a small savings, experience informs me that most are of inferior quality to genuine HP cartridge, and should be avoided. Other consumables include the Drum Kit ($75.00), Fuser Kit ($210.00), and the Transfer Kit (180.00). Granted these last three items do not need to be replaced at nearly the frequency as the toner, but they will need to be replaced during the life of the printer; in my experience, the drum it is second in line after the toner cartridge in terms of replacement frequency, it only last on average six months. The Transfer Kit can last a year or more.

Conclusion

My user base swears by these printers. As complicated as they are in design we have never had to service one, they just work and work well. Output is sharp, crisp, and vibrant. And while the tone tends to make itself evident throughout the inside of the printer, and can mar the output, but periodic maintenance should keep the multi-colored toner dust under control.

HP has started introducing business class departmental inkjet printer that dramatically lowers the cost of ownership, making color more affordable. However, they lack the higher duty-cycle of their Color LaserJet brethren, so true enterprise users might want to stay laser. All things considered the HP Color LaserJet 4500n meets or exceeds the business needs of my clients, providing the color output they need at a price they seem willing to accept.