Customer Rating:  
Summary: Nice, but expensive in the long run
Comment: First, the good news. The HP 2600n works well. Setup over the network was simple and it produces nice looking documents.
But, there's not so nice news.
First of all, it's slow. Really really slow, slowest laser printer I've ever owned.
Second, it has problems with handling stiff cardstock. It appears to bump the paper against some internal mechanism so that a horizontal line of text will appear smeared. Not every card, but about half of them.
Finally, it's expensive. Not the printer itself, I caught it at 50% off one day, so I only paid two hundred. The toner costs look like they'll be hefty. So far, my printing with very little "color" is using all four toners cartriges evenly, which works out to 10 cents per page (about five times the cost of my normal lasers).
According to HP's documentation, the printer uses all four toners even when producing black (to control a color cast in the black toner?). I've been told that the "grayscale only" option only affects the color rendering, not the toner use. There is another "neutrals greys, black only" option, I'm going to try that and see if it effects usage.
I've also been told that the other three toner carts spin no matter if they're being used or not, so there's wear from wiping the drums and the printer counts pages evenly across all four toners.
I only use it for limited items that need color, for the speed issue alone I'd prefer using my other lasers instead. It's great for occasional use, but I can't imagine having it as my primary printer.
Customer Rating:
Summary: good value for the price
Comment: This is probably the cheapest color laser jet you can find. and it does its job well!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wake up inkjet users!
Comment: For the past few years inkjet users have been paying dearly for color printing capability. Two or three years ago a color laserjet printer that uses dry toner was very expensive (commonly $1000). Then prices on these machines began to crash. Other manufacturers were first to market with less expensive printers. When HP, which always produces best of class hardware entered the fray with this beauty it was time to move. It has commonly been available for about $250-$300. While the full retail price of 4 dry toner cartridges is about $300, the cost per print is less than 3 cents. A new machine comes with a full set of cartridges (so the machine is actually free!).
Inkjet cartridges are very expensive by comparison, about 12-13 cents per print (thousands of dollars per gallon). If you go on vacation for a few weeks you are at risk of having liquid inks dry out in feed lines.
I've never been able to keep an inkjet working for more than 2 years. I retired a HP laserjet that was still functioning well after a decade opting for a faster machine.
The only downside is that this is a fairly large machine better suited to an office than home environment (depending on the size of our home, I guess).
Customer Rating:
Summary: HP Color LaserJet 2600n
Comment: i don't like this printer as much as i liked my 2500 laser printer. there are times when it doesn't print, and i have to go to the software and pause the printing and then resume it. i also don't like the tray for paper underneath. it slides out and takes up a lot of room which i don't have. i also have to make adjustments for envelopes. the 2500 had an open tray which was easier to deal with. of course, this printer was far less expensive than the 2500. basically, it's a nice printer. i have nothing negative to say about the printing itself.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Best $300 I ever spent!
Comment: I've had my 2600n for almost 2 years now and it's easily the best $300 I've ever spent on a technology/computer related product. I have the printer networked to all our home computers and it is used quite often. I've replace the black cartridge but still have much life left on each of the color cartridges. Despite opinions of other reviewers, my printer seems quite stingy with the toner while still producing very decent looking color printouts. Great printer, easy to network, fantastic bargain!
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