HP Printer Tops Image Quality

There has never been a better time for a business to buy new printers, and for solution providers there has never been a better time to sell them. Any color laser printer that's more than a couple of years old prints much more slowly than do new models. And customers used to the high prices of printers a few years ago will be pleasantly surprised by their low cost today.

SMBs that currently have several old printers supporting their employees can often get by with a single new printer, which will open up more floor space, save electricity and produce better output. With this in mind, Hewlett-Packard will unveil next week the LaserJet 9500, a new color laser printer intended for the SMB market.

MARC SPIWAK Technical Editor

The LaserJet 9500 is powerful enough to support large workgroups as well as SMBs. In fact, the 9500 is probably more printer than most small companies need or can afford, except those that currently do extensive out-of-house printing.

The printer features a 200,000 page-per-month duty cycle and HP's Jetdirect 615n EIO print server to easily meet the needs of departmental printer sharing and high-volume output.

Two models are offered. The LaserJet 9500n does not include an automatic duplexer or the 2,000-sheet input tray, and it can't be used with any of the finishing options. The top model, the 9500hdn, includes an automatic duplexer for full-color, full-bleed printing on both sides of the paper. The LaserJet 9500hdn includes two-sided printing and an embedded Web server for remote management. Options for the 9500hdn include folding, saddle stitching, multiposition stapling and stacking.

The LaserJet 9500 produces output fast, with color printing at 24 ppm and no additional time required for two-sided printing if that option has been installed. The printer features a 500MHz processor and 160 Mbytes of memory, expandable to 384 Mbytes.

Compatible with a wide variety of media types, the LaserJet 9500 will print on various stock including gloss, soft gloss, coated, tough paper, plastic, transparency and heavy-cover stock in weights up to 200 grams per square meter from standard trays and up to 220 grams per square meter from the printer's multipurpose tray and from all optional accessories.

The printer has a 600-sheet output capacity from two standard bins, a 500-sheet multipurpose tray and an optional 2,000-sheet tray for a maximum input capacity of 3,100 sheets, but only for the hdn model.

HP COLOR LASERJET 9500 SERIES Test Center Recommended

Not a small printer by any stretch of the imagination, the LaserJet 9500hdn weighs almost 300 pounds and stands 4 feet tall. But it's got casters, so getting it into a building is the only real hurdle.

An army of consumables must be installed in the LaserJet 9500, but the job takes only about 15 minutes. That, however, doesn't include the installation of any accessories that might be added. The solution provider must install four print cartridges, an image transfer cleaner, a waste-toner bottle, four image drums and paper. The software installs in just minutes off an included CD, and at this point the printer is ready to power up and print.

CRN Test Center engineers couldn't have been more impressed with the printer's performance. Its processing and printing speed isn't the fastest around, but its image quality might just be the best out there, period. No other color laser printer examined by the Test Center has ever produced such output. One of the test files from the Spencer & Associates test suite, a high-resolution photo of a castle, contains details that engineers couldn't see until the LaserJet 9500 printed it. Detail, contrast and color accuracy are the best in the business.

Performance is good, but there's still room for improvement. HP rates the LaserJet 9500 at 24 ppm in black and white or color, with the first page out in 17 seconds. In testing, however, a 10-page monochrome Word document took 50 seconds to print, with the first page out in 25 seconds.

Printing a 10-page Word document with some of the text in color took 49 seconds, and the first page printed in 25 seconds. Three other Spencer & Associates test files (Associates, Castle and Graphic RGB) took 1:11, 4:52 and 0:50 to print, respectively. All three images have been printed in less time on older printers, but never with the detail and clarity of the LaserJet 9500.

While the LaserJet 9500 is quite big in size and relatively expensive, it does suit the SMB market in a unique way. Because the photographic output is so crisp, and because there are so many finishing options available for it, the LaserJet 9500 will eliminate the need to send material out to a print shop for printing. Full-color brochures of any size and type can be put together automatically using this new HP printer. Over time, that can save thousands of dollars.

CHANNEL PROGRAM SNAPSHOTS
> HP COLOR LASERJET 9500 SERIES
PRICE: $6,700 (CLJ9500n); $9,650 (CLJ9500hdn)
MARGIN: 8 percent
WARRANTY: 1 year
DISTRIBUTORS: Arrow, Avnet, Ingram Micro, Synnex, Tech Data
TECH RATING:
CHANNEL RATING:

CHANNEL OVERVIEW: Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, Calif., provides broad support through PartnerOne, which includes compensation tools and customized marketing assistance. Marketing and sales materials and technical resources are available online. Solution providers focusing on the SMB market can receive additional marketing funds, rebates for demo equipment, sales and marketing assistance, and leasing programs.

Note: Vendors can earn up to five stars for technical merit and five for their channel program. If the average of these two scores is four stars or greater, the product earns CRN Test Center Recommended status.