The HP Color LaserJet Pro 4201dw ($569) is a fast single-function color laser printer that’s a significant step up from the $340 HP Color LaserJet Pro 3201dw. Compared with the 3201dw, the 4201dw has faster print speeds, a larger paper capacity, and an increased monthly volume rating. It also has significantly lower toner costs than the 3201dw. Best of all, this model was able to produce some of the best quality prints that we’ve seen with a color laser printer.
While the 4201dw’s toner costs are significantly improved over the 3201dw, its color toner costs don’t fare as well when compared with some other models. That makes it harder to recommend if you tend to print a lot of color pages. In addition, this model’s four-line LCD is no match for the larger color touch screens on some competing models, including the Editors' Choice-winning Brother HL-L3295CDW. Despite these limitations, the 4201dw could still be a good pick, depending on how you plan to use the printer. If you don’t print a lot of pages in color and you don’t tend to rely on the printer’s onboard display, those issues might be just minor annoyances. In that case, you would be better able to benefit from this model’s superior print quality and fast print speeds.
Design: Workhorse-Level Specs
Measuring 11.3 by 16.6 by 16.8 inches (HWD), the HP Color LaserJet Pro 4201dw is relatively compact for a single-function color laser printer. It’s not quite as compact as the HP Color LaserJet Pro 3201dw, which measures 10 by 15.4 by 16.5 inches. However, it’s considerably shorter than the Ricoh C125 P and the Canon Color imageClass LBP674Cdw. The C125 P is 13.1 inches high, while the LBP674Cdw is 15 inches high. If you’re thinking about placing your printer onto a vertically confined shelf, the 4201dw or 3201dw might be the best fit for that space.
You'll also notice a significant difference in the relative weights within this category of printers. The 4201dw weighs in at 36 pounds, which is about average these days. That’s considerably more than the 30.4 pounds for the 3201dw, but is very close to the 35.5 pounds for the Canon LBP674Cdw and the 36.8 pounds for the Brother HL-L3295CDW. The outlier in this group is the Ricoh C125 P, which tips the scales at a whopping 55.1 pounds.
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Where the 3201dw's limited paper capacities reflect its lower price, the higher-priced 4201dw doesn’t have to compromise in that department. The 4201dw has a standard 250-sheet paper input tray, along with a generous 50-sheet multipurpose input tray. You can also add on another 550 sheets with the optional HP Color LaserJet 550 Sheet Paper Tray ($229).
For comparison, all the previously mentioned printers have a standard 250-sheet paper input tray. The 3201dw adds only a single-sheet override tray with no optional tray available. The Brother HL-L3295CDW adds a 30-sheet multipurpose tray with an optional 250-sheet tray. The Ricoh C125 P adds a single-sheet override tray with an optional 500-sheet tray, and the Canon LBP674Cdw adds a 50-sheet multipurpose tray with an optional 550-sheet tray.
The 4201dw’s 150-sheet output bin is also on the leading edge for its paper capacity. It matches the 150-sheet output bin on the Brother HL-L3295CDW. It surpasses the 75-sheet output capacity on the Canon LBP674Cdw and the 125-sheet output capacity on the Ricoh C125 P. And it’s a substantial improvement over the 100-sheet output bin on the 3201dw.
The recommended 4,000-page monthly volume rating for the 4201dw indicates that it's able to take on a fairly substantial workload. That matches both the Brother HL-L3295CDW and Canon LBP674Cdw. It also beats both the 2,500-page recommendation for the 3201dw and the 1,500-page recommendation for the Ricoh C125 P. The 4201dw has a maximum monthly duty cycle rating of 50,000 pages, which also matches the Brother HL-L3295CDW. The 3201dw is rated for 40,000 pages, while the Ricoh C125 P is rated for 30,000 pages. Canon no longer releases maximum monthly duty cycle ratings for its printers.
Setup and Software: Quick and Easy Installation
I encountered no issues during the setup process for the 4201dw. The toner cartridges were already installed, so it was mostly a matter of turning on the printer, entering some basic information, and choosing an Ethernet, a Wi-Fi, or a USB connection. If you go the USB route, the software installation is quick and easy, using the download link included in the provided Setup Guide. The functionality will be barebones, though, compared with some similarly priced models. Apart from the print drivers, you’ll have only a shortcut icon that’s configured to download and install the HP Print and Scan Doctor program. That’s a diagnostic utility that could be useful if you run into printer-related issues, such as a sudden loss of a wired or wireless connection.
HP’s lower-priced 3201dw has a non-touch 2.0-inch monochrome LCD. With it, you have to navigate the screen’s menus with the aid of a supplementary navigation wheel and an OK button. You might assume that the 4201dw would improve on that, since it bumps up many of the other features and specifications. That's not the case, however. The upgraded display and control panel are almost a step backward. The 4201dw’s screen is a little larger than the one on the 3201dw. HP describes it as a four-line graphic LCD with an LED backlight. It’s still non-touch, and the navigation wheel and OK button are now integrated into a 360-degree dial controller. I found the dial controller to be somewhat awkward to use. HP may have come to the same conclusion, as a three-step user guide is embedded just below the dial.
For comparison, the Ricoh C125 P is also equipped with a small non-touch LCD. However, the Brother HL-L3295CDW is equipped with a 2.7-inch color touch screen, and the Canon LBP674Cdw is equipped with a 5.0-inch color touch screen. If you rarely use a printer’s control panel, relying almost exclusively on the computer interface, then the 4201dw’s modest display may not be that big a deal.
Using the onboard control panel, you can access the 4201dw’s basic menus that let you alter the internal settings, network configuration, sign-in procedure, and paper sizes. You can also check the remaining toner levels for the four cartridges. The selection of settings is quite modest for a model at this price.
Following the lead of HP’s two recent AIO models, the Color LaserJet Pro MFP 4301fdw and Color LaserJet Pro MFP 3301fdw, the 4201dw offers a broad array of connection options, including USB 2.0, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac (dual-band) Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi Direct. This is the baseline standard we expect now from printers in this class. The Brother HL-L3295CDW, Canon LBP674Cdw, and Ricoh C125 P are similarly well-connected, with the Brother and Ricoh models adding NFC to the mix.
This model also improves on the 3201dw by adding the capability to print directly from a USB thumb drive. The USB port is located to the left of the control panel for easy access. The Brother HL-L3295CDW and Canon LBP674Cdw can also print from a USB thumb drive. The Ricoh C125 P does not support this feature.
The 4201dw’s mobile connectivity options include Apple AirPrint and Mopria. You can use the HP Smart app to print a photo or document from your phone, as well as to print whatever is being actively captured by your phone's camera. You can also use that app to create phone-based shortcuts, which are one-touch scripts meant to streamline repetitive printing tasks.
Testing the HP Color LaserJet Pro 4201dw: Fast Speeds for a Wide Range of Documents
HP rates the 4201dw’s print speed at 35 pages per minute (ppm), which is highly competitive these days for a color laser printer. That’s the same rated speed as the Canon Color imageClass LBP674Cdw, and it’s a step up from the 31ppm rating for the Brother HL-L3295CDW. It’s also considerably faster than the 26ppm rating for both the Ricoh C125 P and HP 3201dw.
To see if the 4201dw could live up to its billing, I benchmarked it over an Ethernet connection with our standard Intel Core i5 desktop PC testbed running Windows 10 Pro. The 4201dw comes out of the box configured to print two-sided (duplex) pages. For this class of printers, we clock both two-sided and one-sided (simplex) performance. When printing our 12-page Microsoft Word text document (excluding the first page), I clocked the HP at 35.5ppm in simplex mode and 27.3 images per minute (ipm, where each image is one side of a two-sided page) in duplex mode. That simplex result was 0.5ppm better than its rated speed.
As expected, the real battle was between the two models with the same high-speed rating. While the Canon tested at a very impressive 35.1ppm, the 4201dw was able to barely edge it out for a slight victory. The 4201dw won by an almost imperceptible 0.4ppm difference. Given the potential margin of error, that’s essentially a tie between these two models. The Brother HL-L3295CDW tested 32.7ppm, which is still fairly competitive with the two front runners. And lagging behind, the Ricoh C125 P came in at a more restrained 26.3ppm. Looking more closely at the numbers, the 4201dw performed very well with the first page and continued its fast pace as the subsequent pages were being printed.
With our business applications suite (which consists of six files that represent a cross-section of typical business documents), the 4201dw proved very strong, though not quite as leading-edge with documents that include graphics. It was able to print the entire suite in 86 seconds, which works out to about 17ppm. While impressive, the 4201dw wasn’t able to keep pace with the Canon LBP674Cdw. The Canon breezed through the entire suite in just 70 seconds. And both of those printers were well ahead of the other two: The Brother HL-L3295CDW took a more leisurely 111 seconds, while the Ricoh C125 P came in at a sluggish 171 seconds.
Of course, no laser-class printer can match a dedicated photo printer for quality prints, but I did time the 4201dw at printing our 4-by-6-inch test snapshots. It averaged about 7 seconds per image, which is fast for a color laser. The Canon LBP674Cdw averaged about 6 seconds per image, which suggests that model might be very fast when printing photo-related documents.
The output print quality of the 4201dw closely matched that of its AIO cousin, the HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP 4301fdw. In testing, it produced near-typesetter-quality text that would be more than suitable for most business documents, which would be the case for almost any laser-class printer. I could read its typical business fonts down to a very small 4-point size. I saw no stray marks or extraneous lines. Printed charts had a pleasing amount of saturation and contrast. Everything looked clean and professional.
The 4201dw produced some of the best photographic prints that I’ve seen from a color laser printer. Skin tones looked natural, which isn’t always true with color laser printers. As with any laser printer, you can't print borderless photo pages as you can with an inkjet, though the 4201dw’s photo quality should be more than adequate for casual business documents such as newsletters, brochures, and real-estate flyers.
Running Costs: Competitive for Monochrome, Less So for Color
Toner costs can make or break the overall value of a laser printer, and that’s especially true if you print a large number of pages over the life of the printer. Assuming that you’re willing to pay more up front for the 4201dw’s high-yield replacement cartridges, you can expect to pay around 2.5 cents for a typical monochrome page and around 15.2 cents for a typical color page. That’s quite competitive for monochrome but somewhat high for color output.
For comparison, the Brother HL-L3295CDW will cost you around 2.5 cents for a monochrome page and around 12.9 cents for a color page. The Canon LBP674Cdw will cost you about 2.4 cents for a monochrome page and 14.7 cents for a color page, while the C125 P will cost you about 3.8 cents for monochrome and 18.2 cents for color. The lower-priced 3201dw comes in at around 3.1 cents for a black-and-white page and 17.0 cents for a color page. Among this group of printers, the C125 P is the only one that doesn’t have an option for buying high-yield toner cartridges.
If you print mostly in color, the 4201dw’s 15.2-cent color-page cost versus the Brother HL-L3295CDW’s 12.9-cent color-page cost could be a deciding factor in favor of the L3295CDW. If you print mostly in black-and-white, though, the similar monochrome-page costs for the 4201dw, Brother HL-L3295CDW, and Canon LBP674Cdw could help to even out the playing field when comparing those models.
Verdict: A High-Quality Color Laser for Busy Small Offices
The HP Color LaserJet Pro 4201dw has a lot to offer. It has excellent print speeds, superior print quality, and plenty of connection options. With its ample paper capacity, 4,000-page monthly volume rating, and optional paper-input tray, this model is well-equipped for a moderately heavy workload. It’s also a worthy step up from the 3201dw, in part because its per-page toner costs (both monochrome and color) are much more competitive.
On the downside, its color per-page toner costs are not very competitive compared with similar models outside its immediate HP family. You’ll have to pay an extra 2.3 cents for each color page compared with the Brother HL-L3295CDW, which is our Editors' Choice pick for budget color laser printers. The other knock against the 4201dw is its mediocre LCD and 360-degree dial controller. They’re no match for the 2.7-inch and 5.0-inch color touch screens found on the Brother HL-L3295CDW and Canon LBP674Cdw, respectively.
That doesn’t mean that the 4201dw couldn’t find a place in your workspace. If you print mostly in monochrome, the higher color print costs would be less of an issue. And if you rarely need to consult the onboard control panel, that may not be a factor for you at all. In those cases, the superior print quality, fast print speeds, and broad connectivity could make the 4201dw a worthy pick.
HP’s Color LaserJet Pro 4201dw is a fast color laser printer with top-notch print quality that's well-equipped for moderately heavy workloads, though its toner costs are a bit high.
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About David English
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