CNET Editor's rating: 6.6 out of 10
Reviewed by
Dan Littman
Review date: 05/26/06
Release date: 10/28/05
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.
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)
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.
Intro:
The HP Color Laserjet 3600N is a 17 ppm, color laser printer.Compared to other color lasers on the market, it is very inexpensive at around $370.This unit features 600dpi.
Noteworthy Features:
This printer supports color at a resolution of 600 dpi x 600 dpi.This printer can be plugged directly into a LAN, so it can serve as its own print server.Holding 350 sheets without using optional trays, this product goes longer between refills than many other printers.At 360 MHz this printer has a fast processor, which speeds up the printing of complex documents such as images.(A fast processor allows complex documents to be translated into printed graphics and text at a faster rate.)
Weaker Features:
Only prints at 17 ppm speed.This is not out of line with the product's price, but is slower than the average laser printer on the market today.This product does not support two-sided printing.
Suitability:
A color laser printer, suited for printing images, presentations, as well as documents in color.This printer is capable of accepting pages up to legal (8.5 in x 14 in) and A4 (8.25 in x 11.7 in).
Value:
Overall, this laser printer's features are as expected for this price.
1 out of 10 - Abysmal If it actually works out of the box, it's a good printer
I have never seen a problem like this with HP products and was stunned. I will give their tech support ...
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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by mvagenas (see profile) -
April 11, 2006
10 out of 10 - Perfect Great printer - after firmware update!
So - I got this printer with some hesitation after reading some internet user reviews - but I got it ...
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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by bb-miler (see profile) -
April 7, 2007
3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
8 out of 10 - Excellent Very good color laser printer
I had previously owned an Okidata C5150 printer for about two years. I had said that when the toner runs ...
I had previously owned an Okidata C5150 printer for about two years. I had said that when the toner runs out, I'll buy another printer. It's cheaper than buying 4 toner cartridges, and you get an updated model printer.
I went with the 3600N. It was on sale and HP gives a $150 trade in for this printer if you send in your old laser printer (working or not). Final price with all savings and rebate: $450.00. It would cost me $440 to replace all 4 of my Oki cartridges and $520 to replace them in the $3600n.
My Okidata prints a glossy toner that gives presentations an excellent look. HP has new ColorSphere toner that accomplishes a similar look. However, the HP absolutely smokes my Okidata in printing quality color photos. Make no mistake, I didn't get this printer for that, but it's an awesome ability to have. Almost no noticeable dithering unlike most color laser printers. That's quite a feat coming from a 4 color printer, much less a laser.
I print graphics with maps and vector graphics and lines. Here the 3600N fell a little bit. Colors were not quite aligned right which gave white spaces against parallel overlapping lines. Especially black lines over color ones. I recalibrated the printer, but it didn't improve. Note: most color lasers have some misregistration, but my old Okidata had a Overprint Black Lines setting that helped eliminate that. HP has no options like that.
Software installation was quick and easy, and I set up the printer on my network. Unlike my Okidata, you set the IP and other functions during installation, but it worked fine.
Resume from sleep to print is a lot faster than my Okidata as well. My Okidata took just over a minute to be ready, where this one takes about 20-30 seconds.
Overall, a good buy, especially if you get it on sale.
Updated I found that the misregistration problem is solved by performing a Full Calibration from time to time. Apparently, the printer only does a quick calibration every now and then. My yellow became way off, and when I did the Full calibration, There was almost no misregistration between colors at all. I'm very impressed. This is not something I see in most color laser printers.
Also, unlike the CNET review, my black text is fantastic. Very sharp. Color text down to 5 points is readable.
9 out of 10 - Spectacular Nearly everything I've grown to expect from an HP Printer
After reading the first two opinions posted on CNet,I was discouraged. This printer seemed to fit all of the ...
After reading the first two opinions posted on CNet,I was discouraged. This printer seemed to fit all of the needs for my small law firm, including the ability to have a separate, 100-sheet, drop-down tray, to alleviate the need to feed "one-sheet" at a time. My local Office Max had a display model and, for me, the quality of the printed material seemed perfectly suited for our needs. Color and black, alike, were well-managed. I was unable to give it the proper test-run I wished, as the display models are never hooked-up to a PC to test envelope feeding, etc. I ended up ordering it through Staples.com. Although it is rather large, it certainly meets the criteria and needs of our law office. At present, it is my stand-alone printer, but has worked, wonderfully well, "out of the box", and I would highly recommend it to anyone (who has the space), in need of a color laser printer (office, or home-users, alike). If HP could compact its size to between one-third to one-half the existing height, allow the output media to be aimed towards the user (as in the LaserJet 4 and 5), rather than away, allow envelope feeding in the traditional manner of the HP LaserJet 4 or 5, and still put a similar price-tag upon it, we'll be snapping them up for both home and office use, beyond belief! I love this HP Color Laser Jet, despite the minute issues I have mentioned.
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by MeerkatLvr (see profile) -
August 25, 2006
2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
1 out of 10 - Abysmal "We can't help you..."
I bought this and it worked well for a while but then I had a snag with the toner override ...
I bought this and it worked well for a while but then I had a snag with the toner override setting not working. I called HP and since I'm past the one year warranty period they will not answer any technical questions unless I pay the $40 support fee. This is ridiculous especially when I've been buying their toner. I spent $250 on toner just in the last 2 months and they won't give me a few minutes on the phone troubleshooting the printer.
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by invertedflight (see profile) -
December 28, 2007
6 out of 13 users found this user opinion helpful.
9 out of 10 - Spectacular Great product but noisy...
Am thrilled to have upgraded from a deskjet to laser. Cost wasn't too bad compared to others on the ...
Am thrilled to have upgraded from a deskjet to laser. Cost wasn't too bad compared to others on the market.
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by uahogs (see profile) -
August 28, 2007
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
9 out of 10 - Spectacular So far, a great buy
I picked this thing up after thinking long and hard about getting the Multifunction HP or the Multifunction Canon, either ...
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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by johnmesich (see profile) -
February 21, 2007
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
2 out of 10 - Terrible Terrible printer - I've had other HP's and loved them but this one is really bad.
I'll hesitate to buy another HP printer. Support wasn't much help. Now, it's printing a red line ...
I'll hesitate to buy another HP printer. Support wasn't much help. Now, it's printing a red line on every page - but only from one computer. From the other computer, the red isn't there but it prints multiple pages - all blanks - untill the tray is empty.
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by hopeitworks (see profile) -
December 2, 2007
1 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
1 out of 10 - Abysmal Worst Printer have ever had
For a printer with 64mb of memory, it cannot handle any large documents. It constantly prints junk on large PDF ...
For a printer with 64mb of memory, it cannot handle any large documents. It constantly prints junk on large PDF files. On a simple PowerPoint slide it got hung up. This is by far my worst printer purchase. It is extremely noisy when it periodically calibrates itself. Not great for network printing either. have tried numerous drivers form HP on this but none seem to make it any better. This may be my last HP printer. Their quality seems to be decreasing.
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by fkwiatek (see profile) -
June 7, 2007
1 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
1 out of 10 - Abysmal 0 for 2 not trying for 3
Ordered this unit for a mid size office to be networked. First unit had a issue with the black cartridge. ...
Ordered this unit for a mid size office to be networked. First unit had a issue with the black cartridge. After a hour plus, HP service said sent it back. Ordered another while we waited for credit. 2nd unit had problems with the yellow cartridge. Both had the same problem, it would not "see" the cartridge in the unit so it would not work at all. Something to do with a small, fragile wire. Sending it back now. Even if unit did print, we were not impressed with the design. HP needs to re-think this one.
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by mkgustafson (see profile) -
August 16, 2006
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