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The Way We See It
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| Excellent |
| Good |
| Average |
| Poor |
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| Setup |
7.5 |
| Print Quality |
6.8 |
| Speed |
8.8 |
| Paper Handling |
8.0 |
| Supplies |
7.0 |
| Service/Reliabilty |
7.0 |
| TOTAL |
45.1 |
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In Short: The Color LaserJet 4600 is the latest offering from Hewlett Packard. Unlike the 4500 series, this color laser printer can finally compete with the likes of the Minolta-QMS 3100 and the Xerox 6200 series in terms of speed. The HP4600 series is rated at up to 17ppm in color. It ranked high in most of our speed tests, (for actual test-print times from our lab go to Printer Comparisons). Output quality is good overall. At 600dpi the HP 4600 prints smooth solid colors and color text. This is more than adequate for most office applications. The 600 dpi limitation does show up, however, when printing hi-resolution graphics or any document with small details. Paper handling is good but the HP 4600 can not handle cover stock over 60lb. All configurations include PostScript3 emulation and at least 96MB. The 4600dn also includes auto-duplexing and an Ethernet 10/100BaseTX print server. The 4600dtn effectively doubles the RAM to 160MB and adds a second paper feeder. The 4600hdn is basically a 4600dtn with an internal hard disk drive. The supplies for this engine are unique in that each toner is also an imaging unit. We have discovered that printing to this printer in monochrome will use all four imaging units but only the black toner. Ultimately you would replace the color toners even though you are not printing in color.
The Bottom Line: The Hewlett Packard 4600 series is fast enough to compete in the competitive color laser printer market. The 4600dn is adequate for most office applications but may not be the best choice for hi-resolution graphics or applications where detail and color accuracy are important. The printer works well with most all networks and is easy to set-up. The construction of the exterior overall seemed flimsy to us compared to other competitive models however. Also we can't help but notice that this printer stands at almost twice the height of other printer models due to the vertical configuration of the in-line imaging units. The biggest negative factor may be operating cost. If you print mostly black you end up either paying about 6 cents per page or you cut your print speed in half by putting the printer in a "mostly black " setting. If you print heavy color coverage you use up the toners faster than the imaging unit. This also increases you actual per page cost significantly.
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