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The HP Color LaserJet 2550L printer is a low cost laser printer that is able to produce a large number of color prints using LaserJet 2550L toners. This printer began production in 2004. It is no longer available for purchase new.

The machine is somewhat boxy and is two-tone gray. It is easy to move due to its lightweight and compact size. The size was made possible through the use of a carousel arrangement of the HP printer toner.

The greatest advantage to this printer is its low cost. Even when it was being sold new from HP, it was one of the least expensive laser printers for its time. Adjustments to prints will need to be made through the software, as there is no control on the printer itself.

This particular printer did bring about some complaints. First, the lack of a paper tray and second the cost and number of consumables that the machine required.

Without the optional paper tray, paper must be fed through a slot located behind a front panel on the machine. This panel must be kept open to keep paper loaded. Some purchasers felt that this exposed the inner workings of the printer to too much dust. In addition, consumers often find it difficult to locate the optional paper tray.

The HP Color LaserJet 2550L printer has a separate drum that must be replaced on a regular basis. Once consumer has reported replacing the drum three times in fifteen months. The cost of the drum is about one third of the cost of the printer new.

While it is to be expected that toner cartridges would need to be regularly replaces, these cartridges indicate their use by means of a counter. The cartridges had a certain number of pages that they were expected to print and with each print the counter clicked down. Even when the user chose black only prints, the color toner counters continued to click down. This meant that the cartridges were often over half full when the machine insisted that they be replaced to continue printing. There are rumors of a replacement chip that allows the remaining toner to be used in the machine.

Prints that are produced seem to be mediocre and the speed is quite slow by today's standards. Even black prints are only produced at 12.1 ppm. Color prints slow the machine down even further to 3.1 ppm. Color of the prints is also often off and must be adjusted to get true to life color. Black prints however are excellent.