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Member Since 1987 |
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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 |
8.7 |
| Paper Handling |
7.8 |
| Supplies |
7.0 |
| Service/Reliabilty |
7.0 |
| TOTAL |
44.8 |
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In Short: The Color LaserJet 5500 is the latest tabloid color laser from Hewlett Packard and represents HP's first entry into the tabloid, single pass, color laser market. Unlike the 8500 series, this color laser printer is a bit more up to speed and can print up to 21ppm in color. Even though this is a 400% increase over it's predecessor, the HP 5500 lagged behind the faster Oki 9300 series and Xerox Phaser 7300 or 7700 series. Those manufacturers are several generations along and already offer bigger performance and lower operating costs. At 600dpi the HP 5500 prints smooth solid colors and color text. Print quality is 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 ok but the HP 5500 can not handle cover stock over 60lb. All configurations include PostScript3 emulation and at least 96MB. The 5500n includes an Ethernet 10/100BaseTX print server and the 5500dn includes auto-duplexing as well. The 5500dtn effectively doubles the RAM to 160MB and adds a second 500 sheet feeder. The 5500hdn is basically a 5500dtn with an internal hard disk drive.
The Bottom Line: The Hewlett Packard 5500 series is a fast color laser printer but we feel it has some deficiencies. The 5500n 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 HP 5500 does not feel as solid as the HP 8500 or other competitive models in our view. Due to the vertical orientation of the imaging units, the HP 5500 stands about 50% taller than other tabloid color printers. The biggest negative factor, however, 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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