HP- Color laser jet CP3505x review

The new printer from HP- CP3505x is efficient and affordable unlike some previous printers from HP. The printer works at a good speed. It prints back as well as colored text at a rate of 21 pages per minute; which is quite good. This is so because the printer has a single pass A4 engine.

Performance may vary, with the type of document being produced; however usually a good speed is maintained by this printer. The first page is almost always printed within 12 second; irrespective of the type of document.

Not only the prints are produced quickly, they are also of great quality. Photographs, graphics or plain text, all appear clear and crispy. The color contrast is good even on plain papers. You do not need to do much with the settings; good quality print is easily attainable on default settings.

This medium size printer has two standard A4 size paper drawers. One can accommodate up to 250 sheets while the other can hold up to 500 sheets. For handling labels, as with other printers, here too we have the manual feeder. The drawback with this manual feeder is that it can take only up to 10 envelopes in one go. The printer also has duplexer; which is required for double sided printing.

The consumables are easy to change. You simply need to open the front door and you can see all the four cartridges. They can then be easily removed. Each cartridge can produce up to 6,000 pages each. The replacement black ink cartridge cost 78 pound +VAT. Each of the three color cartridges (magenta, yellow and cyan) cost 101 pound plus VAT.

CP3505x has some pretty good electronic items. It has 384 MB memory in the form of 450 Hz Motorola V5x processor. By using standard DIMMs, this memory can be increased up to 1 GB. The printer also has a good networking support in the form of Ethernet print server.

This server allows HP laser to be used on different networks. It supports direct PDF printing as well as Internet Printing Protocol or the IPP. PostScript and PCL emulations are also there. Windows drivers are present within the printer itself. Linux and Apple Mac can be downloaded for free from the internet.

Installing and configuring CP3505x is pretty easy. It has a clear and small LCD display; which is required for local functioning. For setup and management, there is also a web supported interface. You can get also get hold of HP’s JetAdmin product which uses SNMP console for managing the printer.

If you are interested in this printer, then you must devote some time shopping around. This is because its price might vary at different places and times. HP’s CP3505x used to cost 800 pounds plus VAT when it was launched. Now its price has come down significantly. Even on HP’s website, it costs 499 pounds + VAT which is too less as compared to the initial price. If your budget isn’t too high, then you can probably try the other from CP3505 models which are priced cheaply. The price for these printers start from 199 pounds + VAT.

The CP3505x is an excellent printer because of its great print quality. The text quality is superb even on plain paper. In addition to this, it also has a duplexer, two paper trays and also a networking support. This color laser printer definitely stands out in comparison to other printers in the market. Its ideal for small offices.