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HP Color LaserJet 3600n

Manufacturer: HP Part number: Q5987A#ABA

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$149.00 - $525.85 at 13 online stores

CNET Editor rating:
3.0 stars Good
Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 18 reviews

More product information:: Editors' review; User reviews; Specifications; Product series; Manufacturer info

Bottom Line:: The HP Color LaserJet 3600n is an average-performing color laser printer.
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Best Computer retailer website five years running	Rate this store See store profile	In stock Home Office Solutions Direct from HP	Enter zip code to get total price: Price +Tax +Shipping =Total price	$499.99 Shop now as of 11/23/2008
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LA Computer Center	Rate this store See store profile	In stock		$149.00 Shop now as of 11/23/2008 Refurbished

*Total price for the HP Color LaserJet 3600n are estimated and may vary slightly based on exact tax, shipping, manufacturer rebate or any sale/promotion on the merchant site.

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CNET editors' review

HP Color LaserJet 3600n

price range: $149.00 - $525.85

Reviewed by: Dan Littman
Edited by: Felisa Yang
Reviewed on: 05/26/2006
Released on: 10/28/2005

The good: The HP Color LaserJet 3600n is well designed, handles paper well, and has a low cost for consumables.

The bad: The HP Color LaserJet 3600n has limited expandability options and its text quality is not up to par.

The bottom line: The HP Color LaserJet 3600n is an average-performing color laser printer.

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The $700 price tag on HP's Color LaserJet 3600n seems steep for an individual buyer but modest for a small workgroup seeking a network color laser. Unfortunately, its text quality leaves something to be desired and its expandability options are limited. Lexmark's similar C522 sells for $200 less and provides better text quality, though Lexmark's cost per page is slightly higher than HP's and the difference may add up over time.

The 60-pound 3600n is small and has deep handholds, so one person can carry it easily. The printer's front wall folds out to expose the paper path, four integrated toner cartridge/imaging drum units in a vertical rack, and the image-transfer belt clipped inside the front wall itself. The design couldn't make jam-clearing and maintenance any easier. However, the wall and hinges could be sturdier. The main paper tray also feels wobbly and has no stop when you pull it out, so users should be careful not to drop it. The paper-width and paper-length guides are easy to adjust. In addition to the enclosed 250-sheet tray, the printer has a 100-sheet auxiliary feed; you can add a 500-sheet feeder for $250.

A two-line backlit LCD on the 3600n's top panel displays a complete set of menus, which we found easy to navigate with buttons for drilling down through menus, selecting items, and backing out. The 3600n comes with 64MB of memory and unfortunately, you can't expand that, nor can you add a duplexer, which makes expansion options very limited. If you need those extras, consider HP's 3600dn, an $849 model with a duplexer and twice the memory.

The 3600n prints black text at a reasonable 13 pages per minute (ppm) and color graphics a bit faster, at 13.5ppm; for comparison's sake, the Lexmark C522n prints text at 14.2ppm and graphics at 12.3ppm. But if saving money is your real priority--and you don't print much color--consider Ricoh's inkjetlike G700, which prints fine text at 12.1ppm but drops the ball on graphics speed and quality.

The HP's print quality disappointed us on the important tests. Text looked grayish instead of black, showed some roughness in large point sizes, and lost fine strokes. Color graphics didn't negotiate shading ramps smoothly and produced blocky transitions, though the printer acquitted itself on color accuracy and detail. Plus it did a great job on grayscale photos, with fine detail and smooth shading.

CNET Labs' color laser speed tests (pages per minute)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Color graphics

Color text

Black graphics

Black text

Dell Color Laser 5100cn

13.43

11.3

24.48

24.43

Lexmark C522n

12.31

14.21

14.49

14.41

HP Color LaserJet 3600n

13.54

13.6

12.9

Xerox Phaser 8500n

11.05

11.87

10.93

12.07

CNET Labs' color laser quality tests
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Color graphics

Color text

Black graphics

Black text

Dell Color Laser 5100cn

Excellent

Good

Excellent

Lexmark C522n

Excellent

HP Color LaserJet 3600n

Good

Excellent

Good

Xerox Phaser 8500n

Good

Fair

Good

Fair

HP provides full toner cartridges instead of the almost-empty starter cartridges packed with many printers. The toner/drum combos are the only consumables; a page of black text should cost a reasonable 2.2 cents, and color about 12 cents. (Lexmark's C522 runs about 3.2 cents for black and 15.6 for color.) HP provides a one-year, next-day onsite warranty, as well as 24/7, free, toll-free tech support over the phone. You can find downloadable manuals, drivers, and software at HP's Web site, as well as FAQs, a user forum, and live Web chat with tech support, Monday through Friday 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. MT.

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User reviews

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Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 18 reviews
My rating: 0 stars

Showing opinion 1 to 10 out of 18

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10 stars

Great printer - after firmware update!

by bb-miler on April 7, 2007

Pros: Crisp color, good photo quality, great business features

Cons: Noisy fan, occasional banding, no native PS (but emulated PS in driver kit)

Summary: So - I got this printer with some hesitation after reading some internet user reviews - but I got it at a price I just couldn't refuse for a ...

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Summary: So - I got this printer with some hesitation after reading some internet user reviews - but I got it at a price I just couldn't refuse for a good business class printer (with duplexing, networking etc. etc.).

First of all - NO - you don't have to use the GIANT toolkit for the printer. Instead just download the 10MB "direct host" drivers from HP (and unzip it), and when you plug in the printer - just search for the drivers - and you are good to go.

Second - with the printer out of the box my initial impression was that the color reproduction - in particular black levels - was misreable. After looking more into the issue - it turns out that HP actually fixed it - but it required a quite complicated firmware update.

The firmware that came with the printer (presumably all the printers HP ships out of the factory) was "20060203 3.002.4" The update on HPs site is called "03.003.1 27 Sep 2006" - and after you apply it updates the internal firmware to "20060828 3.003.1" (note that even with a direct-connected printer - the only way I could get the firmware update to take place - was to share the printer with myself [i.e. \\MYCOMPUTER\HPCOLOR] and then apply the copy command that HP has in the ReadMe file. The "port" suggested method just doesn't work correctly).

So - after the tweaks - we now have a FANTASTIC color business printer - and it spits out 40-page Power Points speedily, that beat the output quality of our Dell and earlier HP color lasers.

Keep in mind that since it has no PS - you should connect it to a powerfull computer that will use the driver set to perform the native image conversion. And - other than being a tad noisy, it's feature set makes it a pleasure to work with. Also - the supplies are significantly cheaper than all the other color lasers in the office - so (while I haven't fully done the math) it looks like this will be the cheapest printer by far in the long run.

GREAT one if you can find it for $500 or so (and given HP's current promotion of $549 - you might be able to find a dealer who can give it to you for around $500 easily)

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3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
1 stars

If it actually works out of the box, it's a good printer

by mvagenas on April 11, 2006

Pros: Good color, clean printing, fairly fast

Cons: out of 6 printers purchased, 3 DOA, 1 problematic, 1 worked and last one never unboxed

Summary: I have never seen a problem like this with HP products and was stunned. I will give their tech support and customer service kudos for dealing with this quickly, but ...

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Summary: I have never seen a problem like this with HP products and was stunned. I will give their tech support and customer service kudos for dealing with this quickly, but in my experience, the product is junk. 1st setup was flawless so I ordered 2 more, both of which had noisy mechanical problem and never worked. While returning those, I ordered a 4th. It printed all blue pages. 2 replacements arrived, first one had same mechanical problem as #'s 2&3. Last one never unboxed and all are going back.

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2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
9 stars

Great product but noisy...

by uahogs on August 28, 2007

Pros: Excellent printer for home use (just upgraded from a deskjet 960). Has all the features needed for an at-home or small business set-up.

Cons: Noisy when printing, makes a clanking noise before spooling the paper.

Summary: Am thrilled to have upgraded from a deskjet to laser. Cost wasn't too bad compared to others on the market.

Summary: Am thrilled to have upgraded from a deskjet to laser. Cost wasn't too bad compared to others on the market.

1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
9 stars

So far, a great buy

by johnmesich on February 21, 2007

Pros: VERY quick printouts, instant-on is awesome, even if the unit is waking up from power-save mode, ROCKS on quick color or B&W printouts. Network installation took 5 minutes out of the box!

Cons: The front fold-down feeder tray is really flimsy and appears cheap. Not sure if I'll expect a problem with that in the future.

Summary: I picked this thing up after thinking long and hard about getting the Multifunction HP or the Multifunction Canon, either in Color Laser. I am sick of maintaining 3 or ...

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Summary: I picked this thing up after thinking long and hard about getting the Multifunction HP or the Multifunction Canon, either in Color Laser. I am sick of maintaining 3 or 4 different machines that I have right now. I went to OfficeMax to buy the HP LaserJet 8420, and ended up being really impressed with the speed and instant output that this unit provided. Text and graphics all looked good, and I like the fact that you don't have to worry about replacing a separate imaging drum, because of the single-pass setup in this unit. I think the cartridges fit in very well, and the design (although it looks fragile) is pretty slick. Paper jams, although I haven't had any yet, look very easy to clear by opening the front door.
The menus and prompts give you tons of options, and this thing is pretty quiet, even when printing, it sounds like a normal LaserJet 4000n that I used to have. I had a problem printing envelopes and paper mis-feeds with the *ugh* OfficeJet 7320 that I have had been testing for the past few months, and so far, this one seems to print them fine. It auto-detects the envelopes and the paper size, which is good too.

I'm still skeptical, but so far, this unit looks very promising and very, very fast.

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1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
1 stars

Installation failed -- no printer

by r_b_b on February 17, 2007

Pros: looks like it would be great, if it worked

Cons: install failed repeatedly, no tech support

Summary: Looks like it would be a nice printer, but put me in the same camp as the other people who couldn't get it to work out of the box. ...

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Summary: Looks like it would be a nice printer, but put me in the same camp as the other people who couldn't get it to work out of the box. Software installation failed repeatedly to install the driver. Tech support phone number? Not a chance. Installing a driver shouldn't be this big a deal, but HP insists on custom bloatware (220 meg disk space required!) instead of Windows-standard "Add a printer"-type routine.

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1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

HP Color LaserJet 3600n

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