Hewlett Packard LaserJet 4550n Printer

First thing... this printer is kind of slow (4ppm color 16ppm B/W) compared to the newer models. But if you can deal with that you will have a printer that will run for a VERY long time. We have 4 of these, some with page counts well over 200,000, and they still print great. They produce professional looking color documents (far better than inkjets). I personally think they produce significantly better color than some of the newer 1 pass printers (like our Dell 5100CN). The toner is cheap. You can find it for about $25 for black and 99 for all 3 colors. The fuser/drum/and transfer belt are also reasonably priced if you look around. All in all I calculated the total cost per page at about three-quarters of a cent for black and white and about 2.7 cents for color(not including paper costs) This is almost 1/10th the cost of some of the newer "inexpensive" color lasers. You have to move up to a heavy duty one to get near this cost per page.

One other thing... This IS NOT a disposable printer. Some of the newer "cheap" models are not serviceable. You can't get individual parts (if you can get any parts at all). So if one little part breaks the whole printer is dead. With these 4500's pretty much anything that can wear out or break (solenoids, clutches) can be replaced. This extends the useable life almost indefinitely.

The only bad side is that if you get bad toner cartridges these printers are prone to toner "leaks” This USUALLY doesn't cause print quality issues, but does collect inside the printer and can make a mess. Toner cartridges do come with "toner wipes" for this very reason.



In the end I highly recommend this model.