HP Color LaserJet 2550n - Your Office Will Love This Workhorse

Taking a look at the HP Color LaserJet 2550n printer using HP 2550n toner cartridges reveals a nice and inexpensive workgroup laser jet printer that Hewlett-Packard has obviously designed to fit a certain niche. Mainly, it's one that includes printers that are easy to join to small workgroups, yet are also durable and easy to maintain. It's found at nice prices all over the Internet, including units that are either used or refurbished.

HP has also intended that this black-and-white and color printer be able to deliver at least black-and-white output at a decent speed. The 2550n does this quite nicely, kicking out about 20 pages of printed product per minute. As far as color goes, it's also fairly certain that Hewlett-Packard intended the printer to be mainly for black-and-white, as this printer puts out around four pages per minute in color mode.

There will be little to complain about when it comes to the quality of this model's print output, because every page will come out looking nice and sharp thanks to HP toner. This is because of its standard 600 dots per inch resolution, which is more than enough for the business needs of the workgroup to which it will be joined. Hewlett-Packard included one of its image enhancement technology programs to help keep everything looking good at all times.

There are several different ways to connect the 2550n to a networked workgroup, including by traditional parallel port as well as USB 2.0 and even a nice Ethernet 10/100 Base-TX port. All of this versatility means that the company IT specialist will have little to no difficulty in taking the printer and quickly interfacing it with a new or existing workgroup. This factor has helped make the printer a favorite among IT specialists.

This HP printer also comes with 64 MB of random access memory (RAM), though that can be increased to 192 MB, if needed. Have the IT specialists assess the needs of the workgroup before spending the resources to increase memory if it isn't needed. Generally speaking, 64 MB is usually sufficient to meet the needs of most small workgroups. All of the print taskings are prioritized and handled by a 264 MHz processor too.

Total paper storage capacity in standard configuration (meaning within its included paper trays) comes out to about 375 sheets. Optional trays can increase storage capacity all the way up to 875 pages. In terms of durability, the 2550n has been rated at 30,000 pages per month of maximum image output. Hewlett-Packard recommends between 1,000 and 4,000 pages per month before arranging for very minor and speedy maintenance.

Given that this HP unit is a true laser jet printer, occasional replacement of its four printer cartridges (magenta, yellow, black and cyan) will be required. When it comes to the different operating systems that the printer can run off of, the range is quite large, including Windows XP and many different Macs, as well as Linux/UNIX and even Windows Vista platforms (it's certified to handle Vista with the addition of certain optional software).

All of these characteristics combine to make the HP Color LaserJet 2550n printer a nice value-priced business and workgroup machine that is sure to appeal. This is also because a refurbished unit can be found for around $350, while good-quality used versions with lots of life left in them go for about $250. This was a popular printer for Hewlett-Packard, which also means that plenty of parts and other accessories will be quite common.

Contact any online retailer that carries HP and you'll find that and more when searching for your printer toner refill needs.