HP Color LaserJet 2605dn

• Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 46 reviews
• My rating: 0 stars

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• 6 stars

  The Basics...

  by e.m.c. on August 24, 2006

  Pros: Great print quality, fairly simple set up, automatic duplexing.

  Cons: Might not meet your needs for an office.

  Summary: We are a small business and this printer is the only color printer. It's used primarily by two people daily for general work and presentations.
  
  The print quality is
  
  ...

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  Summary: We are a small business and this printer is the only color printer. It's used primarily by two people daily for general work and presentations.
  
  The print quality is great. It's clear, sharp, and the color is nicely blended. It's fast enough, quiet, and fairly easy to install and setup.
  
  The thing no one tells you is that it cannot handle more than 40 lb paper. Being that we print lots of presentation packages, this printer was deemed immedidately useless. Printing on cardstock offers a ghost-like reprint slightly lower on the page. The same thing happens on labels of varying sizes.
  
  Another annoying aspect is that there is no option for an auxillary tray, only the single sheet feed slot. The slot can feed crooked so it's essentially useless too. That means the tray has to be pulled out and loaded each time you change paper types.
  
  The bottom-line: If you're only going to print on regular paper, some color, some black/white, and you need nothing else, this is a good fit. If you need versatility, you might need to do what we're doing - getting a different printer that can handle all paper types - not just sizes.
  
  Hope this helps.

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  31 out of 32 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 4 stars

  Here's how this printer screwed up on me

  by speleojeff on November 20, 2006

  Pros: Prints on 20-24 lb paper just fine

  Cons: Can't print on stock thicker than that.

  Summary: Perhaps I should have been more concerned about a color laser jet in the $400 price range. It seems to do a lot for not much money. Well, now I ...

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  Summary: Perhaps I should have been more concerned about a color laser jet in the $400 price range. It seems to do a lot for not much money. Well, now I know why it is cheap, they skimped on build quality and reliability. It does a lot, but it doesn't do it well. The only thing I found with this printer was that it will print to 20-24lb laser printer paper without a problem. However, put in thicker stock, and quality problems start. First, I put in Avery business card templates with paper designed for laser printers. The machine couldn't grab the paper. I readjusted the tray several times, and it finally grabbed the paper. Then I tried it again, and went through another bout of more 'ghost jams.' This is too inconvenient. Once I got a few samples of business stock, the colors, especially the green, smeared down the page over an inch. Same with laser printer glossy photo paper. Smears all around. And, the gloppy ink smeared onto subsequent print jobs. One image had a ghost tree outline 2mm away from the actual outline of the tree. Also, color photos had obvious banding. Not good. So, due to paper feeding problems of heavier stock, and the print quality problems with a variety of mediums, I can't recommend this machine for anything other than print jobs on regular 20-24 pound paper. I'm looking at the Lexmark and OkiData equivalents as they are rated more highly than this HP.
  
  Oh yeah, the colors looked flat and dark, and the magenta cartridge wouldn't seat properly. I had to put it in several times for the printer to finally recognize it.

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  28 out of 29 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 10 stars

  Brilliant for the price

  by hminney on December 9, 2006

  Pros: Does the job without fuss

  Cons: tiny mis-alignment between color and black print

  Summary: Silent when not in use, springs into action immediately and very fast for color printing. Also one of the smallest color lasers I've seen.
  Word to the wise -
  ...

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  Summary: Silent when not in use, springs into action immediately and very fast for color printing. Also one of the smallest color lasers I've seen.
  Word to the wise - if you want to print on card then it is courteous to let the printer know (in MS Word, when the Print dialogue comes up, go into Printer Options and select paper type) - it changes path thickness, print speed, temperature of sealing wire, and so on. I got brilliant results printing on 160gsm card from the manual feed, though I don't think card feeds through the duplex (corners too tight)

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  17 out of 17 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 5 stars

  Nice quality printing at very high cost of ownership.

  by cactuseater on December 27, 2006

  Pros: price & printing quality

  Cons: toner usage/cost of ownership

  Summary: have been devoted to HP printers for quite a while. All four of our business locations utlize them as their primary printer/s. The 2605dn that we recently bought seemed ...

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  Summary: have been devoted to HP printers for quite a while. All four of our business locations utlize them as their primary printer/s. The 2605dn that we recently bought seemed to be just another in a long line of good deals from HP that would serve us for years to come. However, after what seems like weekly trips to the toner shop I realize we didn't get such a deal! This thing absolutely eats toner at a rate I have never experienced in another printer. The tiny 2500 page capacity toner cartrigages don't help matters either. The black is what we have the most problems with. We have resorted to printing in draft mode for most of our internal documents to help cut down on usage. I think others are experiencing similar problems as my usual toner supply shop is almost always backorderd on the cartriges.
  Besides that, it seems like a nice piece of equipment. Printing quality in black and color are good and the features and functions seem to all work as advertised. So, if you do even a moderate amount of printing, I’d look elswhere but if you only print ocassionaly, then this printer probabaly will be a great deal for you.
  
  All the other ******** and features seem to work quite well. We have had We have a which seems to be supported

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  11 out of 11 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 2 stars

  Terrible printing quality, avoid if possible.

  by dfalk57 on August 9, 2006

  Pros: Networking and duplex features are nice. Comes with full (not starter) print cartridges.

  Cons: Quality of black print is abysmal. Quality of color printing dull and lifeless. Toner cartridges are proprietary and cannot be refilled.

  Summary: The networking and page duplexing are really the only good thing about the printer. And the fact it comes with fully loaded toner cartridges is attractive. But this printer has ...

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  Summary: The networking and page duplexing are really the only good thing about the printer. And the fact it comes with fully loaded toner cartridges is attractive. But this printer has a lot of negatives. So many that I'm returning mine for a refund.
  
  The Cons include the following list:
  
  1. The quality of the "black" printing is abysmal. Because it uses the color and tone (i.e. black toner) printer cartridges, if the head aren't perfectly aligned, you will get a magenta (cyan or yellow) halo around your supposedly black text.
  
  2. The toner cartidges have a low capacity, are very proprietary, and cannot be refilled. HP has learned for its experience in the InkJet world that it can make more money from the cartridges than the printer itself. A lesson it has passed onto its laser printing division.
  
  3. The color of the color printing is extremely poor. The reds were almost a rust color, bright emerald green came out more of an olive green, and the yellow had a greenish tinge. This was very noticable when compared with the output from a larger HP color printer.
  
  4. Support for printing quality issues is very poor. If you buy this printer, you are on your own.
  
  5. The drivers for this printer are very bloated (150-250MB).
  
  Overall, this printer has very poor printing quality, and should be avoided if possible.

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  12 out of 15 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 2 stars

  Ghosts on Color Text and graphics

  by am57 on December 20, 2006

  Pros: Low cost, quite enough

  Cons: Bad quality color text, Poor color overall

  Summary: Each color toner had its own image on the page for graphics and text right out of the box. HP tech support helped me upgrade the firmware to no solution. ...

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  Summary: Each color toner had its own image on the page for graphics and text right out of the box. HP tech support helped me upgrade the firmware to no solution. They told me to return the printer. I upgraded the printer drivers later on that fixed the color separation problem somewhat. Not completly but at least the text was now readable with poor quality. Left a grey ghost of the top part of page about 3/4 way down the sheet. Postscript driver worked better.
  
  I wanted to return the printer but the online vendor I purchased from won't accept it without restocking fees. My options at this point are either to swallow about $150 of shipping and restocking fees and return it or keep this piece of crap until I just get too tired of it. What a great feeling to have with less than 24 hours of ownership!!

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  5 out of 6 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 9 stars

  Good quality, relatively inexpensive solution

  by zivag on March 16, 2007

  Pros: Nice printing quality - color and bw, networked, eazy setup and use

  Cons: very slow double sided printing

  Summary: I needed to pring 2000 copies of color, two-sided info sheet. After calling print shops I understood that it's cheaper just to buy a printer and print it myself. ...

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  Summary: I needed to pring 2000 copies of color, two-sided info sheet. After calling print shops I understood that it's cheaper just to buy a printer and print it myself. So I went out and bought this HP 2605dn for 400 CAD. Setup is eazy - be it USB or network. Just follow the steps on the chart that comes with printer. I had problems with advanced setup, but then, I don't really need it. Printing on several kinds of paper from generic photocopier paper to fairly heavy(but not glossy photo inkjet) paper showed very good results. I can't say excellent because there was a tiny, really tiny, but still offset on color test page. Would I not be a pro, I would not notice it. Another thing - when working in Photoshop, this printer doesn't print exactly as you see it on the screen - printer makes things darker. Watermark on my image went out almost black. I had to make it almost invisible on screen for it to be gray on paper.
  And double-sided image printing is dog-slow. If you get two pages a minute - you are lucky. I counted around 3 pages in 5 minutes. Double-sided pages with images. But overall, for this price - I can say this is a very good printer.

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  3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 9 stars

  This printer is an awesome value.

  by jrnorma on December 8, 2006

  Pros: Excellent. Fast, great print quality.

  Cons: None, so far

  Summary: I bought this printer for my wife to replace her aging HP 970cxi inkjet. I got a very good deal at Officemax for 399.99 and I also had a ...

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  Summary: I bought this printer for my wife to replace her aging HP 970cxi inkjet. I got a very good deal at Officemax for 399.99 and I also had a coupon that knocked another 5 percent off. I researched this printer and weighed all the pros and cons, which I am very very satisfied with it. I just retired from I.T. and I have worked on HP printers and I have always trusted their quality over any other brand. I also tied this printer into our home network and it is just as quick as printing directly from the USB port. We printed photographs from a friend wedding and they came out great. If you can find this printer like I did for under $400 dollars then buy it. People sometimes expect to much out of a printer like this for the price. We love it and I am glad we invested the money.

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  3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 7 stars

  Great printer for the price

  by Ephraim_Baron on December 4, 2006

  Pros: Low cost; duplexes; networked; great print quality

  Cons: Some trouble with envelopes; poor menu system

  Summary: When my 15 year old NEC laser finally died, it was time for a new printer. I checked around, and this was the best deal I could find in a ...

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  Summary: When my 15 year old NEC laser finally died, it was time for a new printer. I checked around, and this was the best deal I could find in a color laser printer. The 2600n was a bit cheaper, but I gladly paid for the duplexing option.
  The printer comes with full toner cartridges, which together would cost nearly as much as the printer. So if I don't like it, worst case is I use it until the toner runs out and then toss it.
  For basic functions, it works great. Color is sharp, and the speed is not bad.
  I had some trouble when I tried to print envelopes. The manual feed tray (tray 1) is actually a slot in the front of tray 2. I kept trying to feed envelopes and it kept balking. The front panel controls are clunky at best. The software "Toolbox" did not seem to have a useful job monitor.
  All in all, this is an excellent value as long as your needs aren't too exotic.

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  3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 3 stars

  You get what you pay for

  by geeharry on October 12, 2007

  Pros: Good price for features, color

  Cons: Toner does not adhear to some paper well, poor duplex, overall just not worth it when there are others available that are better

  Summary: Thought I got a good price from Costco at $379 but when I took it home and started printing, I noticed the toner would be dirtying up other parts (including ...

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  Summary: Thought I got a good price from Costco at $379 but when I took it home and started printing, I noticed the toner would be dirtying up other parts (including the rear) of the paper. Tried 2-sided copying and toner dirtied up the clean parts making it useless. I tried waiting and after not using for awhile, went back and the first few sheets came out okay, but then it started again. Not sure if its just this printer, but I took it back and got my money back.
  
  Ordered a Xerox 8160 directly from Xerox and they got it to me overnight (just paid $45 for overnight to Hawaii for 80# box). Just completed two sided job -- awesome! Very clean, no toner "overspray". I understand Xerox uses a different kind of toner that is much smaller than normal and makes it easier to adhear to paper. Paid a couple of hundred dollars more, but it is worth it. Why have a cheap one that gives me years of grief? Best decision I've made as the Xerox has real Adobe Postscript and Pantone color matching. Really was hoping HP would have done the job because of the price, but given the features and quality of the output, I can only say good things about the Xerox 6180 and give this HP a poor rating.

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  2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.

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