My first laser printer is a color printer.... a saga...

After using ink jet printers for the past many years, I got fed up with the Canon MP700 printer because it would have to be taken back to the shop to clear a paper jam and went looking for a printer that opened up so you can simply remove a paper jam. Future Shop had a HP LJ 2550 L color printer for $379.99 and that was the last day of the special price and they only had two in stock. Have you ever had a no-brainer presented to you so clearly? So off I go home and get two copies of one test page printed by pushing buttons on the printer, another page by pushing another combo of keys and the Windows printer properties test page, which is a duplicate of the last mentioned page with the HP logo replaced by the Windows logo. However, I had to reboot my computer and when that finished, my printer had the three color cartridge lights lit and no more printing. Well, into the electronic documentation and cyan and yellow lights are flashing and that indicates the printer detects them as being non-HP equipment and won't print at all. The magenta light is solid which indicates it is low on toner but would continue printing but for the two flashing lights.

Next morning I call HP warranty support and he advised to hold down the START button while turning on the power to reset to factory settings, take out the toner cartridges and reinstall them one-by-one and if that doesn't work, to take it back to Future Shop. Talking to Future Shop, they cannot exchange just the cartridges, so have to take the whole box back. Well, once I get back home and do all the testing, including reinstalling the software, it still doesn't work, so off to Future Shop.

They still have the one unit on the shelf and I tell them I want to assemble it in the store to be sure it works, as expected and after doing so, no further trouble and back home with my new printer.

The interesting thing in the documentation is they say that a black cartridge should be able to print 5,000 pages, which means for $139.99 I should be able to print three copies of the book at 1,550 pages compared to $100.00 worth of ink jet ink to print ONE copy of the book so far. Heck, that means after ten copies I will have saved enough to pay for the cost of the printer. And with the cheaper cost per page for color printouts, will be able to include more photos than the two that I planned on, leaving the remainder on a companion CD-ROM.

I probably should have bought one years ago but the last time I checked, a HP color LJ was $600.00 and prior to that it was $900.00 about a year ago. My how they have dropped in price.

Cheers, Ray