HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 laser printer review

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 is a powerful and expandable A4 office printer able to serve teams of up to ten coworkers. It ships with a reasonable amount of TerraJet toner and HP’s strongest ever security.

The specification sheet is strong too, with more memory and processor speed than your average print-only device and a top speed of 35ppm (pages per minute). It printed well, even on pretty thick card.

However, there’s no touchscreen on this US$730 (£590) device and I found the user interface frustrating, so read this in-depth review before you buy.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Design and build

HP’s Color LaserJet Enterprise 4000/X400 Series printers and multifunction devices replace the outgoing 400 Series and with their blue livery and crisp design, it’s certainly an aesthetic improvement.

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701dw is the base model in this Letter/A4-size range and it’s also the most compact. It’s reassuringly heavy at 36 pounds, yet small enough to share the desk in my home office without crowding me out. The dw at the end of the model name indicates that the printer I tested can auto-duplex and has Wi-Fi built in, but in other respects, variants on this model are the same, so I’ll dispense with the suffix going forward.

It looks much like the cheaper HP Color LaserJet Pro 4201 and I found the print quality to be comparable. But what the enterprise-level 4701 brings is a higher spec with a faster processor, more memory and security tough enough for big business. It’s more upgradeable because you can add not just one, like the Pro, but two optional paper trays. It also replaces the awkward rotary dial interface with a regular keypad.

The main paper drawer has a standard capacity of 250 sheets, but you can expand this by adding up to two high-capacity 550-sheet paper cassettes which cost around US$370 each. It's the kind of useful future-proofing that you don’t get with cheaper alternatives like the Brother HL-L3230CDW. There’s also a 50-sheet front-loading multi-media tray for envelopes or specialist paper.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Features & specifications

Being an Enterprise model means the HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 has a higher spec than the Pro and a feature set geared toward heavier use. As such, this compact printer has a faster dual-core 1.4GHz processor and four times the RAM at 2GB. That doesn’t make it print any faster as both print engines achieve a rate of 35ppm, but it does enable a higher recommended duty cycle of up to 4,200 pages per month.

It also has stronger Wolf Pro Enterprise security. HP’s new post-quantum cryptography (PQC) protection should shield your printer from attack by quantum computers. It’s also more manageable as part of a fleet. There’s even a USB Host port, which I always find useful for printing without need of a device.

I’m happy to see the quirky rotary dial control of the Pro giving way to a normal push-button keypad for this Enterprise model, although I wouldn’t accuse either interface of being user-friendly.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Setup and operation

In my experience, HP printers are often the easiest to set up thanks to the inclusion of Bluetooth to connect your printer to your smartphone straight out of the box, but that’s not the case here. It took me rather longer to follow the on-printer prompts using the fiddly control panel.

And because of the added security, there is no default administrator password printed discretely on the printer. During setup, users have the option to create an admin password that meets HP‘s security requirements (minimum eight characters, including uppercase, lowercase, number, and special character).

If you skip this step during setup you’ll need to configure the password later through the printer's Embedded Web Server (EWS). It’s the kind of extra legwork you get with an enterprise printer instead of the much simpler home office model.

In daily operation, the HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 is easier to use, thanks to its prompt first page out time and strong software support. The printer’s display is rather small, however, and given the premium price, it’s frustrating that there’s no touchscreen interface, like the one found on the significantly cheaper Xerox C320.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Performance

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 prints quickly and consistently, turning out color and mono pages promptly and without any misprints or paper jams during the test. The FPOT (first page out time) is only 5.7 seconds, thanks to the extra onboard processing power and RAM, and the maximum print speed of 35ppm (or 33ppm if using A4 instead of Letter paper) in simplex mode is accurate.

It’s no faster on paper than competitors such as the Xerox C320, but it turns the paper quickly in duplex mode, making it slightly quicker with two-sided documents.

Black and white prints appear crisp and hard to fault. This is what laser printers do best and the HP delivers very professional-looking text on plain paper. Characters printed at the smallest point size remain crisp and legible under a magnifying glass.

When printing in color, I noticed a drop in contrast that can make photos look less detailed than the original. It’s a subtle complaint and the toner is bright enough to achieve vibrant results that look sharp enough when printing at ‘best’ image quality. The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 can print on a wide range of media, including quite heavy card up to a recommended 200 gm².

I got good results with card of 240gm². Often when you go to select your media type on a laser printer, you’re given four or five choices, but this one offers 33, proving its versatility.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Consumables

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 prints with the company’s still quite new TerraJet toner formulation. This has the advantage of a lower melting point that reduces the energy needed to print by around 27%. The disadvantage is that it’s a tad more expensive than your average toner, but it’s also brighter so I think the energy saving and vibrant results are worth it.

It ships with a reasonable amount of toner in the four setup cartridges (enough for 2,300 black or 2,000 color pages) and high-capacity carts are available that will give you up to 9,000 black pages and 6,900 color. With HP’s black high-yield carts costing around US$252 (£239) the CPP (cost per page) is around 2.8 cents (2.1p) for mono, which is competitive.

Meanwhile, color pages cost around 5.6 cents (4.2p) per page, which is more expensive than rivals such as the Xerox C320. So, if you print at highest volume in color, this may not be the best solution for you.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Maintenance

Routine maintenance is minimal, with the printer monitoring its own long-life components and alerting the user when consumables or worn parts need replacing. And with the imaging drums incorporated into the disposable toner cartridges, you don’t need to clean or replace them. If you do notice deterioration in print quality, you can go to the printer’s Cleaning Page in the support tools menu and run a calibration or cleaning cycle.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701: Final verdict

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 4701 is a neat solution for a small workgroup in a shared office where security and print quality are key considerations, but I wouldn’t recommended it for home office use.

I had some teething problems setting up my unit and the lack of a touchscreen combined with the increased security makes it somewhat user-unfriendly. However, once networked into your office, it will print quickly, securely and cost effectively, in black and white. HP’s more expensive color TerraJet cartridges mean less competitive color printing.

With it’s quantum-resistant security software, powerful processing and optional upgrade accessories, this enterprise printer is well-aimed at the expanding business, especially one that prints predominantly in black and white.

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