A nice printer

Author's Rating:

Pros: Good print quality; color, duplexing and networking for under $500

Cons: Print driver installation has some issues

The Bottom Line: 
A lot of functionality for $500, and good print quality.

Author's Review
I have been looking to get a color laserjet for at least a few years. My criteria are that it has to have automatic 2-sided printing, and be networkable, for $600 or less. In early July, I discovered HP had finally introduced something that met my criteria a few months ago, and I ordered it from their HP HomeShopping site, with free shipping, for $499 plus tax ($531 total). A few days later, I saw it on sale for $449 at the local computer store.
Reading the reviews for the HP 2600, I was a bit concerned, given comments about print quality, noise, etc. None of these have proven to be problems. My only gripe about the printer is the driver installation. The Mac Driver Installation asks you if you want to delete some other files - something that sounds risky. I did a full backup before going back and clicking "yes" to delete the files - I haven't seen problems yet - but I'll revise this review if I do. Also, see the excellent review dated July 6th for additional details on this. In the future, it may not be necessary to install the HP software, since the driver for the HP2605 will certainly be included in the OS 10.5 install, and perhaps even some of the 10.4 updates. But for now, the only options if you don't install the software is for "generic postscript printer", which may not include the duplex options. Speaking of duplex printing, this is somewhat hidden on the mac: pull down from the "copies and pages" tab on the print window to "layout" - it's at the bottom of the layout page.
The Windows installation also left something to be desired. It was incredibly slow, taking more than 10 minutes. I would encourage users to just do the minimum install: the HPToolbox software adds another icon to your bar at the bottom right, and as far as I can tell, its only functionality is to remind you to order more toner and supplies from the HP online store.
On the plus side, the installation was otherwise fairly easy. It didn't let me complete it normally on my work laptop because I couldn't turn off the firewall, but then after completion, it asked if I wanted to look for the printer on the network, found it, and added it to my printer list. There was no need to fool around with DHCP options, or any of that other "geek stuff".
I was hoping it might be easier on my wife's computer, since I selected the "minimum install", but even that took over 10 minutes - 2-3 minutes would normally be reasonable. Installation was even more difficult on her computer since it was unable to find the printer on the network (laptop firewall issues, I would assume). I had to print out the report as instructed, get the IP address, and enter that into the setup screen where instructed, then it worked fine.
One other minor gripe - if you have this in a room that doubles as a bedroom, noise may be an issue. It periodically turns on to move the drums. When it does this, it makes enough noise that it has woken me up in the middle of the night. I now keep it off at night so this won't happen again.
The print quality is great, with the letters tack sharp, the colors reasonably good, and the dot pattern in photos small enough that you can't easily see it without holding the print very close.
All in all, I'm quite pleased with my purchase