HP Color LaserJet 4600 Printer

by HP

Product Details

Product Manual [3.89mb PDF]

• Item Weight: 81.1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 115 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: B000068IG0
• Item model number: HEWC9660A
• Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 2, 2002

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

With the HP 4600 Color LaserJet, you always know what to expect. Designed with the modern office in mind, the HP 4600 produces every page with the same speed and precision, be it a standard memo or a colorful sheet of graphics for tomorrow's meeting. With 600 x 600 dpi resolution printed at 17 pages per minute for both color and monochrome documents, the printer delivers the consistent quality and production speed you demand.

Outstanding HP technology combines premium style with cost effectiveness. Crisp text, smoothly blended color, and supremely accurate supply monitoring are the result of direct color laser printing--your images will be clearly legible and remarkably vivid, with realistic skin tones. The paper tray can handle 600 sheets of letter-size or legal-size paper, or 20 envelopes. Labels, photo paper, transfer sheets, card stock, and transparencies are processed individually.

The printer is compatible with Windows and Macintosh systems, and it connects via an IEEE 1284-compliant parallel plug. Memory of 96 MB of RAM is standard, and memory is expandable to an impressive 416 MB. Hewlett-Packard provides a one-year warranty with onsite service.

Product Description

Refurbished warranty & toner while supplies last. The HP Color LaserJet 4600 c9660a provides high quality fast color laser printing at the same speed as black and white in an efficient simple design for workgroups. The LaserJet Color 4600 has faster print speeds more memory and faster first page out times over its older predecessor the HP Color LaserJet 4550. New features include a high performance inline laser engine that prints both black and color at 17 ppm and has the first page out in 18 seconds. Other features include an enhanced 4 line control panel which displays text and graphics simultaneously making troubleshooting and configurations quick and easy. The HP Color Laserjet 4600&39;s inline direct to paper technology transfers toner directly from four print cartridges to media making printing more efficient and consistent. Above all it is fully expandable with optional networking extra paper trays hard disk drives extra memory and a wide variety of warranty and service options. The HP color LaserJet 4600 is designed with the workgroup in mind and is perfect for any office or workgroup.HP Color Laserjet 4600 FeaturesPrint Speed 17 ppm Black and ColorPrint Resolution 600 x 600 dpi with first page out in 17.5 secondsStandard Paper Handling 600 Sheet Paper Capacity Consists of1 x 100 Sheet Multipurpose Tray and 1 x 500 Sheet Lower Input TrayOptional Paper Handling 500 Sheet Input TrayMemory 96 MB Expandable to 416 MBConnectivity Parallel standard. Options include Ethernet and USBPrint Cartridges Black C9720A; Cyan C9721A; Yellow C9722A; Magenta C9723A;8000 copies at 5 coverage Environments PC and Mac CompatibleWarrantyNote Free starter cartridges with purchase of printer while supplies last; toners will not be included if supplies run out.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Inconsistent colors, March 25, 2004

By 

keviny01 - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP Color LaserJet 4600 Printer (Office Product)

I have used HP Color LaserJet 4600n printer for a year, and while it has impressed me with fast printing and good features, it has periodically produced inconsistent colors on the outputs. For a printer at this price range, it is very disappointing. Unlike the two previous reviewers, I have never encountered toner leakage nor smudged/blurry outputs. My experience has been that after printing every few hundred pages or so, the output would look a little too blue, or too red, or too yellow, and progressively worse over time. To make it look normal again, I would have to re-calibrate the printer, sometimes more than once. After another few hundred pages, the problem would resume.

I have installed the latest firmware (dated 7/22/2003, downloadable from HP's web site), but to no avail. The inconsistent colors just keep on happening. At HP's user support forum, a lot of people also seem to have this problem.

This problem also occurs when any toner cartridge is low on toner (in fact, the manual does say something to that effect). Also, after I change a toner cartridge, I have to calibrate the printer at least 2-3 times before the output is normal again. Each calibration takes about 5 minutes.

The toner cartridges cost $180 each (cheapest online price) for cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges, and $130 each for black. Each cartridge has a microchip inside that "tells" the printer whether it has been used on that printer. This is, of course, a way to discourage the buying of refurbished cartridges. Since consumable items rack up *major* revenue for manufacturers, they always want you to buy the ones THEY make.

One important issue related to toner cost is toner coverage, which is the percentage of a page that is covered with toner. Knowing the toner coverage helps to determine how long a toner cartridge will last. The 4600n printer keeps a record of your historical color coverage, which you can also print out. After a year of printing mostly color graphics of varying sizes, the printer shows that my coverages for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK) are 11%, 13%, 12%, and 7.5%. Based on HP's claim that each cartridge lasts for 8000 pages at 5% coverage, I was able to calculate MY page count for each cartridge: 3768, 2998, 3294, and 5398 pages for CMYK respectively. With the above toner prices, that comes to about 24 cents per page. Note that I only print pages of varying sizes. If you always print full-size pages, your coverage and cost per page may be significantly higher.

The HP 4600 series comprises of several models: 4600, 4600dn, 4600dtn, 4600hdn, and 4600n. They all have a few differences in features from one another. So be sure to check out the product info at HP's web site, and confirm with the seller which model he or she is selling. The model number is labelled on the printer itself.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Great when it is working, but................, February 14, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: HP Color LaserJet 4600 Printer (Office Product)

This is an amazing color printer - fast and perfect color reproduction. However there is a serious flaw with the toner cartridges. We have had toner leak out of two of the color cartridges, covering the inside of the unit with the powder. This was not due to installing the cartridge incorrectly since they both worked fine for 3-4 months before the problems occurred. It is nearly impossible to clean out all the toner powder from inside the printer (my company has outstanding IT support and they have given up). Everything now prints with a hazy yellow background. Our IT guys contacted HP and they deny the problem, but if you search the web you will find many other folks with the same problems. Between the down time, the cost of replacing the cartridges (around $250 each), the mess (we still have a magenta spot on the floor) and now the printing problems I have to recommend avoiding this printer until this problem is corrected.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Toner Problems, July 19, 2005

By 

JujuMama (LaLaLand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP Color LaserJet 4600 Printer (Office Product)

i have been using an HP 4600 for about 2 years now. There is one more printer of the same model in my building. BOTH printers have developed this problem of printing a nice, fat magenta line across the backs of pages. This problem was not so bad on my printer until just recently, but now over 50% of what I print goes straight to the recycling bin becuase the printer ruins the pages with that line!! VERY ANNOYING!!! It works great other than that. It seems like a problem that would be easy to resolve but its NOT. NO ONE can fix it! We have called several repair people who have come to look at it and they are all stumped. The only advice HP will give is to simply clean it with a damp cloth. This resolves the problem long enough to end your help session with HP and then the line is back again! The other 4600 in the building was just replaced becuase of the red line problem. I am on the verge of losing my mind and/or replacing mine!

They don't even make this printer anymore. I wonder why? HA HA!!

I have been lucky enough to not have the "dirty pages" issue, but this red line is just as bad. It comes off with an eraser, but its still noticeable enough that you can't use the pages for distributing to the public- too crappy looking!

THIS PRINTER IS A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY!