HP 4500 Toner
LaserJet 4500 Toner Cartridges

The HP Color LaserJet 4500 color laser printer is designed for small or medium office use. If you are looking for a personal printer, evaluate the HP 1600 toner printer. Its monochrome print quality is excellent, and its color print quality is good enough for most uses.

The HP 4500 color laser printer is a monster of a unit. At 15.4 x 19.7 x 22.4 (HWD) and weighing 112 pounds with the HP toner cartridges, it will take a lot of effort to move it around. The unit includes only a parallel port for connection, with no USB port available. Networking is possible with a print server, or connected to the network through a host PC. Using the Web JetAdmin software, it is easy for any network user to connect to the machine's web interface from a browser and view status, manage print jobs, and perform other tasks. Administrators can very easily connect a computer to the machine through the interface as well.

The unit's paper capacity may be a little small for some environments. A 250 sheet input tray is augmented by a 150 sheet multipurpose tray. This seems somewhat small, particularly given the overall size of the unit. Its 32 mb of memory may also come up short and cause printing delays from time to time, but it is possible to double the amount of memory to 64 mb if needed.

The unit comes in multiple configurations. The 4500 is the base model, the 4500N adds networking, and the 4500DN adds automatic duplexing.

Print quality is excellent, especially for monochrome text. Using the Image REt 2400 technology, it is possible to print at a simulated resolution of 2400 dpi. This allows for extremely sharp prints. Color print quality is average. Color lasers tend to have difficulty with color printing, and the 4500 is no exception, however, color printing is more than adequate for in-house printing, and may even be suitable for some uses that involve outside clients.

HP LaserJet 4500 toner cartridges have a large page yield. The black printer toner cartridges have a capacity of 9,000 pages, and the color laser toner cartridges have a capacity of 6,000, similar to Laserjet 3600 toner. Replacing the HP 4500 toner cartridges is a simple process and will not have to be done often since the toners come with such a large capacity.

Overall, the HP Color LaserJet 4500 is a solid performer with great text output and some nice features. Its bulky size may be an issue in tight spaces, and its lack of a USB port may turn some buyers away.