HP Color Laserjet CP2025dn

That driver problem...

Just received this about two weeks ago or so so I cannot fairly comment on much but the installation. I have Windows 7 and the installation was a problem. The CD wouldn't install the program initially, and when it did, it worked that night and then began spitting out error messages the next morning when anything was sent to print.
So I uninstalled the software and then I did something the manual says not to do: I plugged the printer into the computer directly; and lo and behold Windows 7 found a working driver! Its options had to be tweaked a little to enable automatic duplexing, but that was that.

(To tweak the driver I right-clicked on the printer icon in "Devices and Printers" then chose "Printer Properties" and then "Device Settings" where I changed "Duplex Unit..." from "Not Installed" to "Installed")

That should solve the driver problem.

The four stars are for the fact that this did not diminish the product experience significantly.

Great printer, but beware of the cost of replacement toner

I love this printer. It is fast and makes great prints. The heat process in printing causes the pages to curl a little, but simply bending them backward straightens them out again.

Pro: Fast warmup, fast print (in color or black and white), high-quality prints.

Con: Large and heavy, a little bit noisier than comparable printers, and the manufacturer's replacement toner cartriges cost about $120 each (X4 colors) for 3,500 page cartridges.

nice - once you get it to work

The printer installed fine under Windows XP, but failed to print anything but the testpage under Vista 64 bit. Driver updates for the CP2025dn (2020 -series) did not resolve the issue. I would get the following message:

PCL XL error
Subsystem: KERNEL
Error: IllegalOperatorSequence
Operator: EndSession
Position: 14

Looking at several posts in HP's forum or (lack of) Knowledge Base did not produce anything useful. HP seemed to ignore the issue and many posts were left unanswered. One guy suggested swapping the USB cable or suggesting some "interference" - utter nonsense: it's a driver issue.

The CP2020-series USB driver does not fix it, however, the generic HP PCL6 driver (for Vista 64 bit)works fine and (so far) resolves the issue.
[...]

After 2 days: print speed is adequate, print quality is fine, the build quality is not as great as it used to be, but seems decent enough.

Fantastic with Adobe Illustrator

If you are looking for a printer that will provide excellent images for graphic design using Adobe Illustrator or other vector graphics program look no further. I attempted to use the Canon MX870 and the Epson Artisan 810--both really nice printers but were lousy for graphics. Color matching was impossible. The inkjet printing seemed really cheap and very pale. This Laserjet makes it look like the image was silk-screened on, very opaque images and super crisp vectors due to the Postscript driver. The output from this printer exceeds my expectations. I was not much of an HP fan in the past but this printer is in a different league--very superior for this purpose.

Pros:
Postscript 3 language
Super crisp vector graphics
Super opaque image quality
Accurate color matching
Fast
Durable - built like a tank
Easy to set up and configure
Mac OSX

Cons:
Expensive total cost of ownership

BEST printer in its class!

MAY 2010 (I don't know if this is a rant, book, or review. I know I invested easily over 12+ hours into researching for a printer before this purchase). Price I paid $550 (includes the tax).

This is my first laser printer purchase.

I DO NOT print marketing material, brochures or pictures.

I mainly print correspondence letters w/ colored letterhead and PDFs of documents e-mailed to us, which look like birth certificates, marriage certificates, etc. And basic B/W print jobs.

I run a small business, translation agency, and a service we offer is certified translations that people use for government, legal, immigration, etc. Print quality is extremely important to me for these projects.

For my business whether it was for 1 page or 20, I'd have to run over to my local print shop that offered high quality color laser printing. It was time for a laser printer.

I originally contacted Xerox. However, after not receiving the sample prints requested after a week, and after I followed up with them on the phone (and e-mail) and still not receiving them. I wasn't going to call a second time. I was originally looking at the Phaser 6140 (not to mention I didn't read a lot of feedback on this printer since there are hardly any user reviews on this product anywhere online - minus CNET, PCReview, etc.).

I started to look at what printers are available that I could purchase in stores.

The main things I was looking for in a laser printer were high quality printing (color printing a must) and low printing cost.

At my copy store I was getting .35 color.

Anyone considering a purchase of $500 for a printer I hope you know the basics, that you will NEVER get the page count that your ink box says.

Anytime it says what the page count is on a box of ink or specifications it's going by 5% ink coverage on a page.

Full cartridges is supposed to print 2,800 pages @ 5% coverage on this printer.
-5% coverage looks like 1/3 of the page, 2 small paragraphs. No bold characters, no graphics and no pictures.

I'm estimating I'm printing around 15% coverage(full page text) on average to 30% max.
-This cuts it from 2800 pages to 450-900 pages when I insert full cartridges. Median is about 675 pages.

Genuine HP cartridges ($400 to replace all 4).

You can buy re-manufactured/compatible for around $200 per set.

When it comes to quality, with HP the printing QUALITY will be there. If it's anything from the reviews I've read and my own experience, it's better if not the same than copy store printing which was my main goal.

I felt with a lower quality printer, I'd be investing in toners which is what I don't want to do. Just like the "disposable" ink jet printers you pick up for around $40-$99 and invest more in inks that print barely a 100 pages.

Before finding this HP printer I considered:

Brother brand laser printer, specifically model HL-4040CDN ($400) however I was really suspicious of the reviews. Amazon, and store retailer sites it seems every brother printer is rated 5 stars and great reviews. However, if you look at the few negative reviews, everyone specifically mentions the quality of printing, a reoccurring theme, and they seem to strongly disagree with the positive reviews. Not to mention it would need maintenance parts. I decided to forgot about this brand printer. I do own a small label printer (QL-570) by Brother which I've really enjoyed.

I thought about going back to Xerox, and ordering the Phaser 8560 ($799) specifically this model because of "solid ink" what they don't mention is it's basically wax. The machine has to be turned on at all times to keep the wax at the right temperature. When it's turned off and then on, expect 3 minute wait time to print and printer will automatically always print a full color test page when ready (which wastes ink). That still didn't deter me from buying this printer. I'll tell you what you did:

1. You can scratch off the ink with your nail (it's wax on paper!)
2. I don't feel it's safe for archival/long term purposes (since my clients are getting official documents translated/certified, you can bet these will be stored for a long time).
3. If the pages are scanned, and the scan glass becomes hot, the wax can melt causing smears, etc.
4. Since the printer is always on and wax is heated apparently overtime whether in use or not, this causes ink to evaporate (since I may go days without using it, this didn't seem like a good choice).
5. Apparently it sucks up a lot of juice when printing or cleaning itself, causing lights to flicker (I have old wiring in my home, so prob not a good choice).

If I was printing just marketing materials, etc - I may have actually pursued it to get some samples to actually see the hold up on this ink and put some of the above to a test. Since the solid ink did have some pros, seemed cost effective and ink never expired.

I looked up Minolta brand laser jet, but after researching toner costs and cost per page, it didn't take me long to not pursue any of their color lasers.

I did not research Lexmark (bad experience with this brand in the 90's).

Samsung, same thing as Minolta, once I start getting into toner expenses and cost per page, didn't seem reasonable.

I did not research any Canons too thoroughly, the ones in stores were "MultiFunctions" ($600+) which I didn't need.

A quick look compared to Canon and HP, at this point still looked like HP was a better deal on cost per page.

**Beyond the Brother printer, I did not research the other brands to find out what maintenance parts may have been needed or if needed.

Experience so far with my HP:

SET-UP:

Very easy to set up once it's un-boxed, HP is very "plug and play" friendly. I didn't even read the main set-up manual, just went by that 1 page that's taped on the printer that has like 5 steps. The software CD downloaded in like 5-10 mins (I have Vista). Remember not to plug USB into your PC until the software tells you too. I should mention it's heavy.

EASE OF USE:

Once all connected I was printing a page within a minute, that should tell you everything. I noticed we didn't have the traditional, normal, best, fast, draft, options like a normal ink jet would, which isn't an issue, anytime I'm using this printer I'd probably be doing the ideal setting anyway.

FEATURES:

Pretty basic, I'm not recalling any features specifically on this printer that stands out. One thing I would have LOVED is automatic wireless networking (like their office ink jets), but since I print only occasionally I don't mind moving my laptop to the printer to connect to USB.

Noise and Print Speed:

I'm neutral on those. These two factors really didn't play any factor in me purchasing this printer. As I start actually using it, I don't have a problem of how it sounds or the speed, the pages pop right out, way different than an ink jet.

Since I mentioned electricity earlier, I have horrible wiring in my house, older home, and lights didn't even flicker when printing, or calibrating, etc.

Quality:

No complaints here. This is probably why HP is a leader in this domain, their quality of printing. For what I print, it's excellent, A+.

Paper:

I feel the quality of paper also has a lot to do with the quality of prints. I noticed when the copy store would accidentally print my paper on regular copy paper, it would look horrible/low quality.

For my HP, I'm using Hammermill Color Copy, 28lb, 100 brightness (has an apple on the front as of May 2010, retails $13 in a chain store).

I compared it to HP paper, HP 100 paper (I think 24lb on HP) to Hammermill 100 paper, HP actually looked gray!

Forgot to mention---printer comes with introductory (half-filled) cartridges, supposedly 1200 pages @ 5% - I'm expecting around 200-400 pages.

I'll update this review once I use the intro cartridges out and let you know how it did on page counts.

I know this was a long read, but if this was all in one place when I was searching it would have saved me a lot of time.

Thanks!

---------(UPDATE FEB 2012: I still have the original intro/half-filled cartridges in the printer. I have gone through a few reams of paper, and colors are still 50%, and I just replaced the black cartridge with a genuine full HP toner. I got way more copies out of the toners than I expected. I'm still very pleased with this printer nearly 2 years later. As long as HP continues to deliver quality products like this, all my future printers will be HP.)

Very good printer

Purchased this printer for a small business. This is a very good printer. I always judge a product by asking: would I buy it again? Yes is the answer for this one. This printer doesn't jam. Prints nicely. Cost of ink is reasonable (but not cheap). I have this printer on a Apple router (Time Capsule) on a network. Shared by 4 computers. All stay connected. We print our marketing ads ourselves. The colors come out great. I don't regret this purchase one minute!

Do not buy it! DO NOT BUY IT!!

The only good thing I have to say about this printer is that the duplexer works really great. The CP2025 is noisy and slow, and its cartridges are VERY EXPENSIVE. Once any ONE color cartridge runs out, it stops the entire printer: you cannot even print monochrome after that. It stinks like burning plastic when doing 100 pages or more. It prints pictures darker than they should be. After every ten pages it stops to "CLEAN." All paper, even 28 or 32 lb paper comes out all crooked; do not even consider doing manual back to back printing. Index cards come out bent diagonally, and are impossible to file. I have worked with HP printers for about 25 years now, and have always held them in high esteem. This one, despite the glowing reviews I read up front, has greatly disappointed me. The tray comes out too easily and is flimsy. You cannot override the settings to ensure the printer uses only one tray. I loaded as many index cars in tray as it will take, and started a print job. Once the printer finished printing all those cards, it immediately started pulling letter paper from tray 2. I had wasted about 50 pages before I realized what was going on. I admit, that is my stupidity. I should have known by that time I dare not trust this printer! I will gladly give it away (to someone I hotly dislike), but that would load the recipient with a liability rather than an asset, and a costly one to maintain, too. I know no one I so hotly dislike!!! Website support is HyperPathetic. (Capital letters intended). Numerous times I had to go through a maze, only to be informed the CP2025dn is not a valid printer name, and that even though I registered the printer after buying it. I once sought help on the website but got nowhere. I emailed the webmaster, and he was very helpful in response. But not being technical support he could not give me a proper answer. Do yourself a favor: do not buy this printer!

HP 2025dn printer

Overall an excellent product as far as performance goes. Incredible speed from low power mode to the printed page being in your hand. Duplexing and networking works wonderfully. My only issue (and it is a big one) is that this is one of those printers that cycles ink from all of the cartridges no matter if you are using them or not. I installed 3 new color cartridges (and later in the middle of the print job another 1). And after completed a 98% black (3 blue 14 point titles), 2000 page print job, all of the color cartridges were down to 80%. Honestly, this is a breaking point to me where if I had known it, I would not have purchased it because the cartridges are $89 to $125 each retail.

Summary:
Performance and interface are great!
Consumables (toner) can be an issue.
I would not purchase again.

Excellent photo print quality for a color laser

Any color laser will do the job if color accuracy and tonal range aren't important, as when you're printing simple color charts, and all you need is solid blocks of recognizably different colors. Photos are a different story, however.

A color laser is never going to give you the sort of lab-quality prints you expect from a high quality injket photo printer matched with the right paper. However, it can come close enough when simply "very nice looking" is all you need, and you want the results faster and cheaper. For example, a real estate brochure or something similar.

Unfortunately, not all color laser printers are up to "good enough" when it comes to photos. I owned a Xerox 6110n, for example, which did a terrible job with the subtle color ranges in flesh tones. As a result, faces looked flat and cartoonish, completely unacceptable. I'm pleased to say the HP CP2025dn is much, much better. I doubt you'll get better color reproduction with any other color laser printer.

It has two paper trays, which means you can stick envelopes in the multi-purpose tray and ordinary paper in the built-in tray, and you won't need to change back and forth as I did with printers with just a single tray. There have been some rumors to the effect that early copies of this printer had problems feeding from tray #2 when there was anything in the multi-purpose tray, but I had no such difficulty.

Setup was rather easier than my previous network printer. I didn't have to set up a fixed IP address and re-direct a fake USB port to that address; the installation program found the printer without difficulty.

It's fairly compact, unlike many color lasers. Amazon gives the box dimensions, but the printer itself is actually 15.5" wide x 18" deep x 12.5" tall. You'll need a little in back for the cables and up top for the paper output, but it fits easily in my somewhat small under-desk printer stand.

The toner cartridges are in a fairly simple tray system, and you can access all four of them (cyan, yellow, magenta, and black) at once. When the time comes, replacing any of them will be trivial.

Automatic double-sided printing is pretty nice. You have to select it in "printer properties" before OKing a print job, but the option is easy to find once open the properties dialog. I printed my tax returns for my records this way, and cut the amount of space they take in my file folder in half.

I did a fair amount of research before deciding on this as a replacement for the Xerox 6110n, and ruled out some cheaper color lasers on issues of reliability and print quality. Since my HP 4L is still running without trouble after 17 years, I have high expectations for the reliability of this printer.

- Gus

Efficiency Downgrade

To understand my complaint, you need to understand the system we use at our small firm:

Every letter we send out requires two hard copies for our file. We send out the letter on high-quality paper, and use generic white paper for the copies.

Although this printer allows you to insert two types of paper (one in the main tray, and another in the accessory tray), there is a significant delay when going from one to the other (it prints on the copy paper, then searches for more in the accessory tray for several seconds before finally resorting to the main tray). This has seriously hurt our efficiency.

I would not recommend this printer for companies that are reliant on a similar system. You will spend more money to get less work done per hour.

This would likely be satisfactory for a business that does not print so often (we send out dozens of letters a day), but be advised that this printer is also exceptionally loud.