Home > Consumer Reviews > HP Color LaserJet 3700n Laser Printer

Great improvement over HP's 2500 and 3500 series. Print quality is excellent. Color output is banding free and vibrant, B & W is as good as it gets. Postscript, expandable memory and not being host based are all good things. Macintosh compatibility is excellent in OS X. Printer is very acceptable in terms of noise. Its fast enough for a single user who needs to get quick copy in under a minute. Doing the math, thanks to the high yield toner carts (6000 pgs), cost per page is highly competitive against just about everybody. Very nice build quality! What's not to like? Minor gripes include, USB is only 1.1 and not 2.0. Status display panel should be backlit. Duplex feature can't be added later. Pretty LARGE for a personal class printer.

The Laserjet 3700 is a tragic example of what is wrong with HP nowadays.

The printer itself is fantastic. Fast, clean printing, and looks great.

But the problems are fatal.

1. First and foremost, the printer drivers do not support collating documents. So you must do it manually. Even though HP knows about the issue--it is on their support site--they have not updated the printer driver in over a year and a half. The workdaround--to use the 4600 printer driver--does not work at all.

2. Color bleeds and is inconsistent.

3. Replenishing the toner cost $900. Yes, $900. And now that HP is suing all the alternative sources for toner and using DCMA to force you to buy their products, you can expect to pay $900 each and every time this printer needs more toner. If you own this printer for 5 years, it brings the total cost of ownership to $6,000. And this assumes you only buy new toner once a year. Most people will need more.

So this product perfectly captures why HP is screwed. Great technology, but horrific support and a price gauging business model.

I have bought HP printers my whole life. But after seeing the lack of quality in the drivers and the outrageous lock-in strategy and prices, this one will be my last. I hate to say it, but next time I'm buying a Dell.

Pros:
- Easy to install. Expandable memory.
- Print quality is excellent.
- Fast and quiet for an economy color laser.
- Prints excellent color photos much cheaper than inkjet.

Cons:
- Be ready for size shock, it's big.

Excellent print quality, excellent and amazing colors!

I had to change the fuser after two years, I don't know if this is normal, but the fuser price is very cheap.