These days, if you’re looking to buy a color printer you’ve got almost a zillion choices. If you want it to be a GOOD printer, that limits your options somewhat. But if you want the BEST, there are very few to choose from. The HP Color LaserJet 2605dn printer, with Q6000A cartridges, might be one of them.

BEST, in this case, takes into account function and utility, durability, price and overall quality. This printer is fast and accurate and it’s also moderately priced. Although the price is not high, it has most all the functions that the high-priced units incorporate. All of HP’s printers are built to the highest standards of quality and the smaller ones benefit from the same advancements in technology that the most expensive ones incorporate. This is good for you if you’re in the market for a machine to use in your small to medium office or in your home.

Here are some of the particulars. This unit will take nearly any type of paper. You can use bond, plain, letterhead, pre-printed or pre-punched. It will make transparencies, photos or brochures. You can use rough, recycled paper, envelopes, card-stock and labels. You can also use several different sizes of paper.

You can put as many as 250 sheets into the paper tray and there’s an optional second tray available. When you’re printing in black you will get 12 copies per minute. In color, the rate is 10 copies per minute and the first copy appears in 20 seconds from initial start-up. This means you can be done with a job before some of the other printers are just getting ready to begin.

This printer will automatically print a two-sided document. There is an internal memory of 64 MB and this can be expanded to 320 MB. The connection is through a hi-speed USB port and you can share the printer with everyone in the office by way of the built-in Fast Ethernet server. Everyone can have access through their own computer. It uses very little energy and is ENERGY STAR qualified.

The 16-character, two line LED display makes it simple to set up and use the printer. The guesswork of maintaining supplies is over because the machine warns you when something needs to be replaced. It has four ink cartridges and they are all accessible through one single door. Maintenance on this machine is very easy.

The color reproduction is brilliant and vivid. This makes it easy to include realistic photos and images in your business documents. HP Smart printing technology enables the printer to communicate with the ink cartridges and adjustments in print quality are made automatically.