Test color laser: HP Color Laserjet CP1215 and CP1515n

von Ulrich Junker

HP plays along in the same league now as Samsung does, launching two low-budget color laser printers, CP1215 and CP1515n. And at the same time testing the customers´pain tolerance in regard to cost of print. Quality of print excels in this performance category, however.

Erschienen am 29. Oktober 2008 bei Druckerchannel.de, 10 Seite(n)

https://www.druckerchannel.de/artikel.php?ID=2374

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Flat lasers built by HP

Hewlett-Packard joins the low price market with two Inline -lasers, Color Laserjet CP1215 and Color Laserjet CP1515n. The price ranges from 180 to 250 Euro, in response to Samsung´s cheap and very successful CLP-300 and CLP-310.

HP Color Laserjet CP1215: Very flat.

HP Color Laserjet CP1515n: With network, Postscript, and PCL6.

Both are successors to the Color Laserjet 1600 and 2600N. Main difference is the extremely flat design, with 25 centimeters even lower than Samsung´s "world´s smallest, lightest color laser printer", CLP-300.

Small sizes: Samsung CLP-300 (left), HP Color Laserjet CP1215 (right).

The CP1515n has a single sheet feeder, is network-compatible, comes with Postscript and PCL6, and a status display. All of that is missing in the cheaper CP1215. You will find more details on page 2.

Druckerchannel bottom-line

HP´s color lasers have been big and heavy machines so far. The CP1215 and CP1515n come along flat and comparatively lightweight, less than 26 centimeters high, and weighing 18 kilograms and less.

According to HP the newcomers "produce print-shop quality materials", generate "realistic photo quality with natural skin tones", and "amazing text and graphics". That is, with only a few reservations, absolutely true. No printer in this price segment (150 to 210 Euros) is fit to hold a candle to these printers.

Read more about quality of print starting page 6

At first survey you find an innovative drawer system, which gives you easy access to the toner cartridges. The paper tray below accommodates 150 sheets only, not suitable for powerusers but sufficient for occasional printing.

HP refers to the new products as "affordable color laser printers", that´s true. But cost of print is high. We repeated the test, because we couldn´t believe the first results, but 3,8 Cents per page of text came out again. And the same poor findings when printing in color: 55 Centc are just too much for a print of our test page.

Good value for money on purchase, but expensive in use. If you want manageable cost of print, you should swallow the bitter pill right in the beginning and buy a more expensive printer with lower cost of operation.

All things considered the new printers are a satisfactory value for occasional prints in excellent quality. And if HP does some reconsideration concerning prices of consumables, our assessment might change to excellent.