At 62 pages per minute, the HP LaserJet Enterprise 600 Printer M603N ($1,499 direct) has the fastest rated speed of any printer we?ve reviewed. And its 275,000-page maximum monthly duty cycle, as well as substantial standard and optional paper capacity, pegs it for workgroups that print massive amounts of material. In our testing, it proved its mettle, printing out our test suite in a near-record pace.
The M603N is very similar to the Editors? Choice HP LaserJet Enterprise 600 Printer M601DN ($899 direct, 4 stars)?a little faster, with a slightly higher duty cycle, and password-protected printing, but lacking an automatic duplexer and selling at a higher price.
The M603N measures 15.7 by 16.3 by 20 inches (HWD) and weighs 58 pounds. The front panel has a 4-line monochrome LCD and some basic control buttons: Home, Help, Stop, and Back, plus a 2-way rocker control with center button. To the right is a numeric keypad for entering PIN numbers for password-protected printing; below the panel is a port for a USB thumb drive.
The M603N has a standard 600-sheet paper capacity, between a 500-sheet main tray and a 100-sheet multipurpose feeder. Additional paper-handling options are available to bring the paper capacity to a maximum of 3,600 sheets. Options include a 1,500-sheet input tray ($499 direct), a 500-sheet input tray ($299), a 400-sheet custom media cassette ($229 direct), a 75-sheet envelope feeder ($249), a 500-sheet stacker ($149), a 500-sheet stapler/stacker ($249), and a 500-sheet mailbox ($399).
As the base model of HP?s M603 printers, the M603N lacks an automatic duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper. A duplexer is added with the M603DN ($1,749 direct), while the M603xh ($2,399 direct) adds an additional 500-sheet paper tray plus an encrypted hard drive along with the auto-duplexer.
The M603N provides USB and Ethernet (including Gigabit), with optional WiFi. I tested it over an Ethernet connection with its driver installed on a PC running Windows Vista.
Printing Speed
I timed the M603N on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing), at an effective 14.3 pages per minute (ppm), about what we?d expect from its 62-page per minute rated speed that?s based on printing text documents without graphics or photos?our test suite includes text pages, graphics pages, and pages with mixed content. That?s just short of the fastest speed for a printer we?ve tested, and a tad faster than the LaserJet M601DN?s tested speed (13.4 ppm). The OKI B730DN ($1,299 direct, 4 stars) tested at 12 ppm, while the Editors? Choice Lexmark T650N ($700 street, 4 stars) lagged them at 10 ppm.?
Output Quality
The M603DN?s output quality is fine for typical business needs. Its text was slightly below par for a laser, but still good enough for anything short of demanding desktop publishing applications that require very small fonts. Graphics were of average quality, good enough for internal business use. Its inability to differentiate between some similar shades of gray would make me hesitate to hand them to important clients, however. Photo quality was also average, good enough to print out recognizable images from files or Web pages, which is about all you can expect from a mono laser.?
The M603N has a low cost per page, at 1.2 cents. That?s a half cent less per page than the M601DN and the Lexmark T650N.
The HP LaserJet Enterprise 600 Printer M603N lives up to its promise as a fast monochrome laser for workgroups with prodigious printing needs. It has sizzling speed, good standard and optional paper capacity, and output quality suitable for standard business needs. It?s substantially faster than the OKI B730DN and the Editors? Choice Lexmark T650N, and it edges the LaserJet M601DN in speed. It also has a higher monthly duty cycle than the T650N and M601DN, making it suitable for businesses with even higher-volume printing.
Although it has slightly lower running costs than both the M601DN and T650N, the M603N has a substantially higher sticker price, $600 higher than the M603N and $800 higher than the T650N. Businesses with truly massive printing volume and the need for speed may want to spring for the M603N.
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