| Design | | | | Performance |
| With a price tag of £480, the new HP Colour | | | | The 3600n prints black text at a reasonable 13ppm |
| LaserJet 3600n is small, weighs 27kg and has deep | | | | and colour graphics a bit faster, at 13.5ppm. In contrast, |
| handholds, so one person can carry it easily. At 15.7 by | | | | the Lexmark C522n prints text at 14.2ppm and |
| 15.7 by 17.7 inches (HWD), this laser printer can easily | | | | graphics at 12.3ppm. However, if saving money is your |
| fit into a busy home office or individual office in a large | | | | real priority, and you don't print much colour, consider |
| company, should you need this level of speed and | | | | Ricoh Aficio G700, which prints fine text at 12.1ppm but |
| paper capacity. Its simplistic design makes jam-clearing | | | | misses the cut on graphics speed and quality. |
| and maintenance uncomplicated. However, the wall | | | | The 3600n disappoints the user with its print quality. In |
| and hinges don't appear to be too sturdy. It can be | | | | a few tests carried out by popular technology |
| setup in the standard manner applicable to its class of | | | | magazines, the text looked greyish instead of black, |
| printers, and the network installation routine is fully | | | | showed some roughness in large point sizes, and lost |
| automated. | | | | fine strokes. This is also the case with some of the |
| Paper Handling | | | | 4-point output, which looked slightly grey, rather than |
| The HP Colour LaserJet 3600n offers high-speed | | | | black. Colour graphics did not negotiate shading ramps |
| performance, with an engine rated at 17 pages per | | | | smoothly and produced blockish transitions. However, |
| minute (ppm) for both colour and monochrome, fairly | | | | the printer makes the cut with colour accuracy and |
| good graphics quality, even better text, and | | | | detail. Additionally, it prints greyscale photos very well, |
| photographs that are good enough for client | | | | with fine detail and smooth shading. |
| newsletters and the like. HP has also included an | | | | Graphics are easily good enough for internal business |
| Ethernet connection for easy sharing over a network. | | | | use, but not satisfactory for handing out to important |
| However, the main paper tray feels a little unsteady | | | | clients or customers. The most important issue in a |
| and has nothing to stop it when pulled out, so users | | | | number of tests was misregistration, with the colours |
| should be careful not to drop it. The paper-length and | | | | slightly out of alignment. It resulted in a noticeable white |
| paper-width guides are easy to adjust. The printer has | | | | gap between some blocks of colours, around some |
| a 100-sheet auxiliary feed in addition to the enclosed | | | | lines, and around some colour text on a colour |
| 250-sheet tray. You can boost this number to 850 by | | | | background. Thin lines also tended to disappear. |
| adding a 500-sheet feeder for £280. | | | | Additionally, colours tend to shift toward darker shades, |
| Features | | | | losing detail in dark areas and making some colours |
| A two-line backlit LCD screen on the 3600n's top | | | | look muddy. |
| panel displays a complete set of menus, which is easy | | | | On the whole, the 3600n's text output has high enough |
| to navigate with buttons for going through menus, | | | | quality for most purposes. Unless you have an unusual |
| selecting items and going back. | | | | need for small font sizes, it is unlikely that you will print |
| This printer comes with 64MB of memory and | | | | any text that the 3600n can't handle. Lexmark's similar |
| unfortunately you cannot expand that, nor add a | | | | C522 sells for around £100 less and offers equal |
| duplexer, which makes expansion options very limited. | | | | speed and better quality, though Lexmark's cost per |
| If you need the extra memory, then consider HP's | | | | page is slightly higher than HP's and the difference |
| 3600dn, a £670 model with a duplexer and twice | | | | may add up over time. |
| the memory. | | | | |