In terms of print quality, our plain-text samples looked great, with a crisp black that few colour lasers achieve, and sharp, clean letters, even at 2-point size. It also printed greyscale graphics well, with some blotchiness in areas but good detail, particularly on photos. The weakest area was probably colour graphics: gradients made abrupt transitions, solid colours had odd mixtures of extra colours, and photos came out unpleasantly dark and brown, though they did preserve detail well.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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Colour graphics |
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Colour text |
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Black graphics |
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Black text |
Upkeep for the 2600n is expensive. A page of black text uses about 2.5p worth of toner, and a lightly covered colour page uses about 12p worth, according to vendor specs. However, there are no other consumables to replace, and HP provides full cartridges in the box instead of the increasingly common half-full 'starter' cartridges.
Edited by Elsa Wenzel
Additional editing by Nick Hide
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Barry Chinchen 6 November 2006
Good: Simplicity. No waste toner, no fuser oil, no drum, takes card as well as paper. Nice copies
Bad: Cartridges do not last as long as expected, I had a problem with marks on copies
Comment: The problem with serious marks on copies which were not cleared by the cleaning program has been solved. The Supplier gave me a telephone number for Hewlett Packard. Hewlett Packard said that it was due to a faulty cartridge. My supplier has replaced the cartridge free of charge.
Users may discover that tools and user settings are not easy to find. Calibration clears up fuzzy prints. Ticking the boxes "Print text as black" or "Print as grey-scale" should reduce the waste of colour toner and improve print quality. The cleaning facility can remove faint extraneous markings on copies, but if they do not clear and are repeated down the sheet in a single colour the cartridge is faulty.
I estimate that I get about 1000 ordinary copies per cartridge, not the 2500 suggested in some literature. The black is used up most quickly (as I only switch on the colour when required).
I like the machine but might look for one which is cheaper on toner.
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