Putting the HP Color LaserJet 8550n printer through its paces quickly reveals that one is looking at a product from Hewlett-Packard that has been built with a large or medium-sized workgroup within a medium-sized business in mind. It does its jobs in both color and monochrome (meaning black and white) equally as well, and it comes to its user at a relatively reasonable price. You’ll also need to check out HP Color LaserJet 8550n laser toners.

Print speed output in B&W comes in at a nice 24 pages in a minute and about 6 pages in a minute for a color print task. It’s clear that HP designed the printer to be a champion for black-and-white duties while throwing in the ability to print out a color job when needed. There’s nothing wrong with this intended mission; just keep print speed in mind when considering whether or not to purchase the 8550n.

The only way to connect the 8550n is through a parallel port or through a nice Ethernet port. There really is nothing to fret about when it comes to not having a USB connection, because every modern workgroup network will feature at least Ethernet capability. The parallel port connectivity function seems to be so that it can hook into older networks with no problems.

As far as the quality of the print job, Hewlett-Packard has ensured that there will be no unpleasant surprises. The 8550n comes standard with 600 dots per inch print resolution capability, which is usually more than enough for most business needs. Any graphics-intensive products should also come out looking acceptable, though business presentation documents could benefit from 1200 dpi.

The HP 8550n can also be ordered with two-sided printing capability; though that’s an option that many workgroups usually don’t take advantage of. Onboard memory is a fine 64 MB, which is upgradable to a full 512 MB in no time at all. Always check with the IT department so that they can assess the print needs of the workgroup before devoting any additional monetary resources upgrading memory that just might not be needed. Buy affordable HP Color LaserJet toner.

All print tasks are managed via use of a 200MHz microprocessor that’ll keep all incoming and outgoing print tasks prioritized and processed in short order. It also comes with 3.2 gigabytes of storage capacity on an internal hard disk drive (HDD). The printer’s also fairly hardy, with a 60,000 page per month monthly duty cycle. There’ll be little worry about durability when it comes to the printer.

As far as how much paper can be held onboard the 8550n, it is truly impressive at 1100 pages of standard paper stock. All of the different media varieties that can be printed out on are just as impressive, and includes glossy paper, labels, transparencies, envelopes and standard plain paper. An occasional replacement of its four printer cartridges is really almost all that’s ever needed. When you need new Color LaserJet 8550n printer toner cartridge, just do a search online.