HP Laser Jet Enterprise M553 SERIES Review

THE HP LASERJET ENTERPRISE M553 SERIES ARE FAST BUT NOT SO FURIOUS...

If you’ve ever seen any of The Fast And The Furious movie franchise (and let’s face it, who hasn’t?) you’ll know that, when it comes to high performance cars, economy and efficiency are nowhere near as important as being quick out of the blocks and being very, very, very fast. To be honest there was always plenty of action in each movie but not much of a story to back it up.

Fortunately, when it comes to business printing, the HP LaserJet Enterprise M553 series laser printers provide plenty of action and have quite a story to tell as well. They are fast, but not furious. Rather they are best described as fast and efficient.

There are three models in the 553 series; theM553n, the M553dn and the 553x. They all offer the same levels of high performance but each model is configured to suit the user’s particular requirements. They all use the Latest HP JetIntelligence technology to save on energy usage, space utilisation and size as well as printing more pages per cartridge to reduce costs and space required.

According to HP using the latest laser technology, HP JetIntelligence, this printer is smaller, faster, more secure, more productive and more economical than its competitors. The toner cartridges also give a higher page yield than previous cartridges, JetIntelligence uses a new type of toner particle that has a lower melt point so the fuser wire does its work at a lower temperature, requiring less energy.

JETINTELLIGENCE - THE BENEFITS

Let’s have a look at the commonalities first. They are all fast off the start line with a first page out time of 9 seconds from sleep mode and a mere 6 seconds from ready in both colour and black a white. A4 pages are then printed at up to an impressive 38 pages per minute, again in both colour and black and white. So they are fast as well.

They are all designed to handle the workload demanded from workgroups of between 5 and 15 people with a monthly page volume of between 2,000 and 6,000. When in operation all three versions occupy the same footprint; 479mm deep and 458mm wide. So they are smaller than most and minimise desktop usage.

Each of the three versions is designed to match different users’ requirements. The M553n is designed for those who only need single sided printing and only require an Ethernet connection. The M553dn takes it up a notch with automatic duplex printing as standard whilst the M553x takes it even further with Wi-Fi capability for distributed printing. It also offer Near Field Connectivity (NFC) for paring with Smartphones and tablets to further broaden the access from different devices. This feature can be optioned on the M553dn model but not on the M553n.

Let’s see the HP LaserJet Enterprise M553x model in operation.

THE HP LASERJET ENTERPRISE M553x MODEL

Paper Handling

All three versions are capable of handling medium to heavy workloads of printing volumes and requirements. The two lower models come with two paper trays as standard; one with a 100 sheet capacity and the second tray with a 550 sheet capacity. The M553x features a third paper tray with an additional 550 sheet capacity as standard giving a total capacity 1200 sheets. The third tray can be optioned with the other two models.

All paper trays are adjustable to accommodate a variety of paper sizes to allow instant switching for various jobs. The output tray on all three versions has a capacity of 250 sheets.

Now that we’ve got the differences out of the way let’s look at the similarities in greater detail. Key factors to business are efficiency and costs containment. With a combination of high efficiency and low cost printing, the HP LaserJet Enterprise M533 series offers high productivity levels.

Instructions to the printer are entered by way of a 4 line graphical display and a 10 digit keypad for the two lower lev el models and by a colour touchscreen control panel on the M553x model.

Connectivity:

Connectivity is a key requirement in business printing, and all three models excel in this area as all three are a pooled resource for up to 15 users. The main data transfer method is via an Ethernet connection. All these models have an Ethernet 10/100/1000 LAN connection as standard. They all have an additional USB 2.0 port and an easy access USB 2.0 port for printing directly from a flash drive without going through a computer. The two lower end versions can be further optioned with the HP Jetdirect 3000w NFC/Wireless Accessory for printing from mobile devices. The top line HP LaserJet Enterprise M533x gives Integrated HP near-field communication (NFC) and Wi-Fi Direct functionality for printing from mobile devices. This allows users who are off the network to access the printer.

All three give Mobile Printing Solutions through HP e-print Apple AirPrint TM and are Mopria TM -certified. They are accessible from the HP e-print app for Android, IOS and Blackberry for those in the field or out of the office.

All three have a base memory of 1GB which is expandable to 2GB.

OPTIONS LIST

ConnectivityOptional

Security

High connectivity can sometimes give rise to network security concerns as a printer can be used as an access point to the network, putting valuable data at risk from theft or manipulation. Not so with the HP printers, however. They offer the highest level of security in their class as standard.

HP JetAdvantage Security Solutions

So no matter who can access the printer the valuable data stored on the network is shielded from unauthorised access or prying eyes.

Low operating costs

Low operating costs are vital to enhanced productivity and the HP LaserJet Enterprise M533 series give the lowest operating costs in their class. Climbing energy costs are playing an increasing part in effective productivity. The technology behind the HP JetIntelligence toner system gives significant savings in this area. A lower melt point for toner means a lower temperature for the fuser wire and that means lower energy consumption.

When printing these printers use 624W and 33.6W in ready state. The default time from Ready to sleep time is 1 minute, after which the printer uses 3.95W of energy. The energy usage is claimed by HP to be the lowest of any comparable laser printer.

But there are more savings to be made when double sided, or duplex printing, is used. The M533dn and the M533x models give automatic duplex printing. By using both sides of the paper up to 33% of paper costs can be saved.

Printing Economy

In the past duplex printing has been slower than single sided printing. But in a clever piece of technology the HP LaserJet Enterprise M553dn and M553x printers actually print both sides of the sheet in the same time as it takes to print one side.

This innovation means that you can have the cost savings of duplex printing without the additional cost of slower print output.

Low Print Cost Per Page

Operating costs are not just incurred in energy consumption and paper costs but in cartridge costs. All three models use the HP 598A toner cartridge range. The HP 508A Black gives a page yield of up to 6,000 pages. The HP 508A Cyan, Magenta and Yellow cartridges can print up to 5.000 pages before replacement. For even greater economy the printers will also accept the HP 506X toner cartridge range. These High Yield cartridges give a page yield of up to 12,500 pages in black and up to 9,500 pages for the Cyan, Magenta and Yellow.

To maintain and ensure maximum productivity the HP LaserJet Enterprise M553 series are eligible to be a part of the CartridgesDirect AutoMATETM automated Ink Replenishment Program to ensure that the HP LaserJet Enterprise M553 series printer never runs low on toner no matter the workload and maintains its productivity.

The HP LaserJet Enterprise N553 series printers are fast and their productivity, features and low operating costs will make you delighted rather than furious.