Great printer. Excellent for a business!

We're a moderate volume printer -so- a fast, high volume, and most importantly - RELIABLE - printer is required. After the death of our Phaser 8500 - we needed a new printer. A couple of months of research went into the decision to pick up a Laserjet 3600n, and - I can say I'm quite satisfied with the results. I'll step through the "core features" of the unit.

NOTE: Earlier versions of this printer were rumored to be problematic. A firmware fix was released by HP to correct quality issues. The unit I am using was manufactured recently, and contains the newest firmware. Please consider this when reading my review.

Price

It's about $550-600 wherever you go, right now. The price isn't all that bad for this class. Average price for comparable printers is $450-$1000. This unit falls in the low-middle.

Setup
The printer's pretty light for a workgroup printer. It's about 35-40 pounds or so - and can be lifted with ease by an average person. Plug the printer into the LAN for optimal use. The drivers are pretty self explanatory. It auto-detects the printer on the network, and sets it up. Very simple. If you know how to lift heavy stuff, plug in an Ethernet cable, and click an "ok" button a few times, you can set up this printer.

Print Quality
This printer has ONE print quality - "best". You can't change it. That can be a pain, but - you need to factor in other things before judging it completely.

I've heard that the print quality of this printer is supposedly "not so good". So, I gave it a test. I printed an image with an HP Photosmart 8250 printer, full page 92 brightness paper on maximum quality. I printed the same picture on the 3600n. To me, it looked exactly the same. The black tone, however, was a little "blacker" on the Photosmart - I suppose this can be a problem, BUT, it's barely noticeable. To double check my judgment, I presented the two sample images to a co-worker. I said "The laserjet is supposed to have bad print quality. Pick out the laserjet's print."

She picked the Photosmart print as the "Bad" one!

Needless to say, I'm satisfied with the print quality.

Print Speed

This printer does about 15 pages per minute. But - here's the catch: That's in BEST print quality. Try that on another printer. On a Xerox: cut the print speed by 75%. When you see other companies throwing print speed out - they're giving you the speed on DRAFT quality - not on "Best". This printer is a REAL fast printer for text & documents.

As with most printers, complex files ( like a full page photo ) will take longer to do. That's a given.

For everyday use - this printer will deliver - and do it fast.


Cartridge Yield
Here's a touchy spot with a lot of printers. How much does it cost? Ahh! Expensive! But this printer has satisfied.

The cartridges cost about $130 each x 4 = $520 for a full set of toner.

Our page count after 4 months is about 9000 pages. That works out to about $0.05 / page for full color on everything. ( NOTE: CYM = 10% remaining toner after 9000 pages. The true cost per page is more like $0.045. Very good imo. )

A comparable printer -Xerox phaser 8500- we needed to buy $420 of ink every 2 months - plus a $120 maintainence kit every 4 months. The 2 month cost is $480.00 for 4500 pages = about $0.11 / page. It's cheaper to run for us - about half price from the nearest real competition. That's a big plus.

Noise
Meh, it's a business workgroup printer. It's fast -so- it's going to make noise. Don't expect to have a quiet printer for your home office or bedroom. Besides, what would you want a big old printer like this for a quiet spot? If you're looking for quiet - you want a PERSONAL COLOR LASER - not a workgroup printer. All lasers of this class will most likely make some noise.

Memory
Ok ok, 64mb .. yeah, that's skimpy. So - you can't print your 10mb photos on this. It's not meant to be a photo printer. Keep that in mind. For business copy, e-mail, invoices, packing lists, envelopes, and literally ALL copy that you print in the office - this printer eats the jobs, spits it out like crazy - and delivers very nicely. We haven't run out of memory once yet.

Time-to-output
This printer is EnergyStar certified - so - it sleeps. I was somewhat horrified by the sleep mode at first. We had a Phaser ... when it went to sleep - it took 5-10 minutes to wake up. AHHH!

So, the first time I saw it in sleep mode, I said ... well, I can't tell you what I said. (wink) Once the printer got alerted to the job - Wow! The print was out in a few seconds. Needless to say - I was amazed. Now, be warned - it does calibrate after a long unused period (like, first thing in the morning.) The process takes about 2 minutes to complete. But, in comparison to what we had ( 5-45 minutes ) - that's nothing.


Paper Capacity
The base is 250 sheets. That's ... bad. One thing I do like about this - is the manual/special-stock feed tray. It has CAPACITY of about 50 sheets. That's very handy for doing business cards / envelopes / resume stock / etc. Our old printer only handled 1 sheet at a time on the manual feed.

As any decent business class / workgroup printer should - this printer has the option of an external feeder. The feeder has a capacity of 500 sheets. You can only have 1 additional feeder. We, of course, picked it up within the first week of owning this printer. It's a lifesaver.

The feeder option is $250 new, or much less if you get it secondhand (we paid $50.) In comparison with Xerox: $500.00 for the feeder. Ouch.

Paper handling
Xerox claims that this printer handles paper bad.

My answer to that- is in the months we've been using this printer - we've had 0 jams caused by this printer. It hasn't jammed once.

I have had jams due to things being placed in the output tray - BUT - I will not count this. If you stick a book or a box of junk on the output tray of ANY printer, it will jam. Operator error isn't the printer's fault.

Total cost to operate: POWER CONSUMPTION
This is one of those business expenses that just adds up. The more equipment you have, the higher your electric bill.

I've seen this printer bashed as being "not green" and what-not due to the cartridges.

Well, I'll prepare a rebuttal to that argument based on experience with the machine.

We got our first electric bill after dumping the Xerox Phaser 8500.

It went DOWN by about 50%.

I don't think I need to say much more.

So - for that advertisement I've seen where Xerox shows a pile of Laserjet 3600n cartridges piled next to some Phaser ink sticks - they should toss a huge pile of COAL under those ink sticks to represent the power drain of the heaters required by a Phaser.

If you've got a solid ink color laser - you can save money by switching to toner.

Repair Parts

This, is something you don't want to think about. But, I did take this into consideration when selecting a printer.

I checked the most expensive part on the printer - I believe - it was the fuser unit. It was about $200.00 to replace.

On our old printer, the printhead was the most expensive part - and - on our old printer, this part FAILED.

We paid $450 for our old printer. The replacement printhead cost: $650.00. A service call to repair the printer cost: $1200.00. So, basically, we had a disposable printer.

Needless to say - the repair cost for this printer is low. That's a plus - that not everyone would consider. Now you know the "hidden" cost - and it's reasonable. This machine is meant to perform - and perform for a LONG time.

Conclusion

So - overall - we've had a great experience with this printer. The toner consumption is great! Cost of ownership is low, the print quality is good, the speed is great, the handling is great, and the office is happy.

The only complaints I can even THINK of with this machine -

- Low paper capacity.
- Low memory.

If you're applying this printer correctly, it's going to be a gem. If you've got an office that prints a ton of documents, and you need color - this printer is a MUST HAVE!