HP Color LaserJet 2550L
At a Glance
Canon Bubble Jet i9900 Photo Printer
Very compact model lacks integrated networking and compromises on paper handling. Supports PCL.
The HP Color LaserJet 2550L is so compact, you can hardly believe it's a color laser printer. The clever carousel design squeezes everything into a surprisingly small space.
At $499, this unit looks like a bargain. However, the printer sacrifices some common amenities, such as built-in networking; also, it has only USB and parallel ports.
The 2550L's simple fold-out paper tray holds just 125 sheets, as does the output bin. You can easily boost the capacity by adding a proper 250-sheet drawer, reasonably priced at $150. Alternatively, you can add a 500-sheet drawer for $300, upping paper capacity to 875 sheets.
However, if you plan to do high-volume printing, you likely will want a faster printer. In our tests the 2550L printed text at a leisurely 8.6 ppm and generated color pages at a miserable 1.1 ppm, the slowest of the batch.
Text quality was uninspiring. Most characters looked too heavy and larger letters appeared blotchy. Color images seemed a bit dark overall, but sharp.
Considering its slow speeds and subpar print quality, the only reason to buy the 2550L over the less expensive and network-ready 2600n is lower cost per page.