HP Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw assessment: an absolute pleasure to make use of

HP Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw

MSRP $569.00

“HP’s Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw is a type of uncommon printers that is an absolute pleasure to make use of.”

Professionals

• Lightning-fast print speeds
• Good print high quality
• Two paper trays
• Straightforward setup and use
• Dependable operation

Cons

• Mounted-angle, monochrome show
• Colour price per web page is simply OK

Printers aren’t precisely identified for innovation. However each as soon as and some time, one comes alongside that catches your consideration.

The HP Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw did precisely that. The printer builds on the corporate’s lengthy legacy of high quality laser printers with its new eco-friendly and energy-efficient TerraJet toner and its distinctive dial-based consumer interface.

I put the brand new Colour LaserJet Professional by way of its paces to learn the way effectively this new expertise works, and checked print efficiency, high quality, and long-term price. To earn consideration as probably the greatest shade laser printers, it must excel in each means — and I’m delighted to report that this one did.

Design

HP’s Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw is a beautiful printer with a daring marine-blue entrance panel on a white physique. It has a sturdy design however isn’t too cumbersome, with a footprint of 16.6 by 16.8 inches and standing 11.3 inches excessive. The load is 36 kilos, so it’s not too heavy to maneuver round when you have to.

The consumer interface of the Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw is exclusive. To maintain prices down, printer producers typically embrace buttons and a typical display as an alternative of a touchscreen. Nonetheless, HP opted for a 4-line monochrome show and a dial, a intelligent alternative.

Take into consideration how simple it’s to regulate quantity with a dial or set the temperature on an oven. With a fast twist you get precisely what you want with out repeated button clicking. I loved utilizing the Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw’s dial to navigate and scroll. The dial acts as a button additionally, so I press to pick out or maintain to open a shortcut menu. 

A USB-A port on the high left is hidden behind a flip-up mud cowl. That makes walk-up printing handy.

A 250-sheet paper tray is a drawer on the backside of the HP Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw. The tall blue panel above tilts ahead to disclose a 50-sheet media tray for labels, envelopes, and various media.

Printing efficiency

The HP Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw is constructed for pace with out sacrificing high quality. The primary web page shoots out in as little as 9 seconds. For longer paperwork, pages roll out at 35 pages per minute (ppm). Colour prints simply as shortly as monochrome. Duplex speeds sluggish barely to 31 ppm and save paper through the use of either side.

HP’s TerraJet toner melts at decrease temperatures, utilizing 27% much less vitality and offering extra constant colours. In my assessments, the Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw dealt with photographs almost in addition to an inkjet printer and way more shortly.

To be clear, an inkjet handles delicate tones higher, affords borderless printing and a few, just like the Epson EcoTank ET-8500, use a six-color ink system to increase the dynamic vary and shade accuracy of photographic prints.

The HP Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw is designed for the workplace the place you want shade paperwork extra typically than shiny footage, and it excels at that activity. Blocks of shade graphics print cleanly with no streaks, strains, or blotches.

It’s an important shade laser printer that’s versatile sufficient and quick sufficient for any job.

Particular options

HP’s Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw has two USB-A ports: one on the entrance and one on the again. Each settle for thumb drives.

For walk-up printing, I attempted the entrance port and found I wanted to allow it earlier than it might work. The toggle is below superior settings within the HP Sensible app.

With the dial, I can choose any file on the flash drive, PDF or picture, modify print settings and print with out the necessity to set up a driver on my pc or an app on my cellphone. That’s fairly handy in a shared workspace.

I didn’t strive the rear USB-A port, however HP says it’s for job storage. A thumb drive can maintain print jobs to make fast copies of typically wanted paperwork or maintain prints till a specific individual arrives on the printer. Once more, it is a nice function for a busy workplace, however not as vital for residence use.

Software program and compatibility

Setup was fast and simple on the printer. HP’s dual-band, self-healing Wi-Fi linked to my community in seconds. I used the dial to enter my Wi-Fi password. Looking back, I ought to have pressed the WPS button on my router and selected that choice from the Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw’s menu.

There are USB-B and Ethernet ports on the again for direct connection to a pc. Home windows and Mac computer systems acknowledge the HP Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw immediately, and the HP Sensible app for iOS and Android let me examine toner ranges and entry superior settings.

As soon as I enabled the entrance USB-A port, every little thing labored as anticipated. I might print something on labels, envelopes, card inventory, or customary paper, shortly and with nice high quality.

Value

HP’s listing worth for the Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw is $569, however it’s simple to seek out for as little as $399. That’s an important worth for a dependable and durable shade laser printer with 35 ppm pace. The Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw’s sale worth makes it virtually as cheap as Brother’s HL-L3295CDW.

I researched toner prices, an vital consideration to evaluate the long-term worth of a printer. HP makes 210A and 210X cartridges. The latter lasts 3 times longer and affords important financial savings over time.

A regular black toner cartridge yields about 2,000 pages, whereas the high-capacity cartridge provides 7,500 pages. Every customary shade toner cartridge lasts for 1,800 pages, whereas the high-capacity mannequin supplies as much as 5,500 pages.

I calculated prices primarily based on the present cartridge costs and located monochrome printing to be cheap whereas shade is inexpensive. The typical price of monochrome paperwork is 2 to five cents per web page. The high-yield cartridges are extra vital for shade printing, which prices 12 to twenty cents per web page.

Colour print prices are decrease than Canon’s well-rated all-in-one imageClass MF654cdw, with higher pace.

Is that this the printer for you?

HP’s Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw is a superb shade laser printer that’s a pleasure to make use of. I just like the retro dial interface. The print high quality is phenomenal, and the pace is spectacular.

For small companies, there’s loads of capability as your workplace grows. The really useful duty-cycle is 4,000 pages monthly, however the printer can deal with as much as 50,000 pages to accommodate large tasks. An non-compulsory 550-sheet paper tray means you don’t must reload as typically.

Whereas the Colour LaserJet Professional 4201dw is a perfect alternative for small companies, it additionally works effectively for a house workplace. It’s inexpensive, not too massive or heavy, and may deal with something you want from a printer.

In case you want copy, scan, and fax capabilities, HP’s Colour LaserJet Professional 4301fdw has the identical print high quality and pace however features a flatbed scanner and computerized doc feeder.