Designed for HP by Canon, the LaserJet 2600n is without a doubt the most astounding one-pass laser colour printer. However, while its price is low for a one-pass model, its overall cost per page is incredibly high. This limits its advantages for business use, despite the fact that it comes with a network port as standard equipment.

Ergonomics And Functions

Many people will be attracted to the LaserJet 2600n's relatively small size and weight. At 40 lbs (18 kg), it's a real lightweight compared to the competition. Its architecture, which puts all the cartridges on the top, considerably simplifies the paper path during printing, which reduces the risk of paper jams.

Printing Speed

Thanks to its one-pass technology and Instant-On Fusing, the LaserJet 2600n is particularly at ease with small colour documents. It can put out three or four pages in twenty or so seconds, while other printers are still in their warm-up phases. On the other hand, the 8 ppm printing engine was a little slow with monochrome output. It took three times as long to print 20 pages of text as some other models.

Print Quality

A lot of progress has clearly been made with the driver, compared to the first version of this printer, which we tested last year. This time around the colours were fairly accurate overall, and we noted very good reproduction of contrast on documents with a lot of black.

Cost Per Page

Since HP doesn't offer high-capacity cartridges for its LaserJet 2600n, and since the price recently increased by more than 20%, its cost per page was by far the highest of all the printers we tested: 5 cents for a black page and 22 cents for a colour page. But ironically, on this model, that's not of major importance. Since the combined cost of the four cartridges is actually higher than that of the printer itself, it's actually better to replace the whole printer when the cartridges are empty. This also gives you the benefit of a fresh warranty.

Conclusion

The LaserJet 2600n will be especially attractive to those who need to print black as much as colour. At low printing volumes, however, the high cost per page and limited capacity of the cartridges don't make it very economical to use. Its network port and Instant-On Fusing technology make it ideal for a small organization working in a group.