Quality of HP 4600 or 5500 LaserJet Color Printer?

[ArchStanton]

Our business is looking to buy an HP 4600 or 5500 Color LaserJet. We will primarily be printing marketing sheets with pictures of new buildings. The problem is that no one seems to have one of these printers in stock, but before we buy one we need to see one of our files printed on it.

If anyone has one of these printers, what is the quality of photographs printed on these machines. Part of what is troubling us is that we have looked at $12,000 to $16,000 color digital printer/copiers by Canon and Ricoh and the quality of their photographic prints was not very good. If we were willing to go to the $25,000 price range those machines do meet our expectations.

Some salesmen have stated that a color LaserJet is better quality than the $16,000 "multi-function" machines, and some salesmen swear that the LaserJet is lesser quality.

If you know the answer to this, please let me know. Thanks.

 

[Melapa]

The quality and speed of these printers is excellent, but due to the different print process, they cannot be compared to the HP 45xx family of printers.

Unfortunately as I am in the UK I cannot show you a sample of the prints.
If you do get to see prints from the 4600/5500 printer, then make sure that the printer is using the latest firmware upgrade, as earlier versions of firmware caused colour matching problems