The Way We See It
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 |
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| Excellent |
| Good |
| Average |
| Poor |
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| Setup |
7.9 |
| Print Quality |
8.2 |
| Speed |
9.0 |
| Paper Handling |
8.3 |
| Supplies |
7.0 |
| Service/Reliabilty |
7.0 |
| TOTAL |
47.4 |
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The transfer belt in the HP4700n is fully exposed increasing the chance for inadvertent damage by the
user and the elements.
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The new HP4700n is much
larger than competitive models
like this Xerox 6350DP |
In Short: The new Color LaserJet 4700n is the replacement of the 4650 series from Hewlett Packard. The 4700n model is an improvement over the 4650 version in several ways. The newer 4700n has improved speed, better paper handling, and better color quality in general as compared to the 4650 series. Like it’s predecessor, the new 4700n is very large and requires more space than other printers in this class due to the vertical configuration of the in-line imaging/toner units. Most people are surprised by the size when they see the 4700n in our showroom. You would have a hard time believing that it is just a letter/legal size printer since it dwarfs even some tabloid color laser printers. Set-up was relatively easy once the printer is unpacked and plugged into your system or network. The driver installation was straight forward. The 4700n, rated at 31 ppm, ranked high in most of our speed tests though it had one of the slowest warm-up times, (for actual test-print times from our lab go to the Printer Comparison page). Output quality is good overall and the text was especially sharp. At 600dpi the HP 4700n prints smooth solid colors and color text. This quality is more than adequate for most office applications like spreadsheets and presentations. The 600 dpi limitation does show up, however, when printing hi-resolution graphics or any document with small details. HP’s Resolution Enhancement technology, (ImageRet), smoothes out low-res images and text but photos and hi-res images look washed out and dull as compared with other color lasers. Part of that may be caused by the flat look of the printed output generally produced by this engine even on glossy paper. Paper handling is good and the HP 4700n can even handle cover stock up to 80lb. from the MP tray. All configurations include PostScript3 emulation, at least 160MB, IEEE 1284-C, USB 2.0, and Ethernet 10/100BaseTX. The 4700dn has 288MB and also includes auto-duplexing. The 4700dtn adds two additional 500-sheet paper feeders increasing the input paper capacity to 1600-sheets. The fully loaded 4700ph+ is basically a 4700dtn with 544MB, an internal hard disk drive, a 750-sheet stacker/stapler, and two more 500-sheet feeders for a maximum input capacity of 2600 sheets. The supplies for this engine are similar to the 4650 in that the toner is also an imaging unit, (OPC). Printing monochrome to this printer will use all four imaging units but only the black toner. This results in a very high cost per page for black and white printing since you are forced to replace the color cartridges even if you never print color. To avoid this you must put the printer in it’s ‘mostly black’ mode.
The Bottom Line: The Hewlett Packard 4700n series is a big fast color laser printer. The 4700n is adequate for most office applications but may not be the best choice for hi-resolution graphics or applications where detail and color accuracy are important. The printer works well with most all networks and is easy to set-up. Just like it’s predecessor, the 4700n seems too big overall as compared to other competitive models. We also don’t like the placement of the transfer unit which is fully exposed whenever you replace toner. The biggest negative factor may be operating cost. Due to the way the consumables are configured and used by the printer, the 4700n can be one of the most expensive to use especially in black and white.
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