HP Color LaserJet Pro M255dw

Color laserToner

Colour laser output does one thing no inkjet does: it comes out bone dry, permanent, and identical on the thousandth page as on the first. For anyone printing forms, labels, charts or anything that goes in a binder and gets handled, that is worth real money. Twenty-two pages a minute in both black and colour, automatic duplex, a 250-sheet cassette, Ethernet and a 2.7-inch touchscreen make it a proper workgroup printer in a home-sized box. The catch is the toner. Four cartridges, and HP's 206X high-yield set is rated 3,150 black and 2,450 colour pages — good yields, but colour toner still costs far more per page than tank ink. A four-colour page lands over twenty cents, which the Brother HL-L3280CDW beside it beats on both black and colour.

Approx. price: ~$379
Cost per mono page: 4.1¢
Cost per colour page: 21¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$756
Print speed, mono: 22 ISO ppm

Best for

Someone who already owns a scanner and wants colour laser output on its own: print-only, 22 ISO ppm, and not sold under HP+.

marks an estimate. Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. Purchase price plus ink or toner over the pages shown, assuming four mono pages for every colour page. Price is an approximate snapshot from our last catalogue update.

What it costs to own

Black consumable: HP 206X high-yield black toner · 3,150 ISO pages · ~$129.89
Colour consumable: HP 206X high-yield colour toners · 2,450 ISO pages · ~$139.89 each
Cost per mono page: 4.1¢
Cost per colour page: 21¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$756
Cost to own, 200 pages/month for 3 years: ~$923 (7,200 pages)

Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. How this is worked out

Cost to own · 5,000 pages

HP Color LaserJet Pro M255dw~$756
~$379 printer + ~$377 supplies
Xerox C235 (discontinued)~$876
~$399 printer + ~$477 supplies
Brother HL-L3280CDW~$666
~$344 printer + ~$322 supplies

purchase priceink or toner. An estimate: purchase price plus 5,000 pages at each printer’s computed cost per page, assuming 4 mono pages for every colour page. Printers whose consumable price we could not source are left out.

Specifications

Manufacturer-published figures. Cost lines are computed from the consumable figures above and are estimates.

Approx. price: ~$379
Cost per mono page: 4.1¢
Cost per colour page: 21¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$756
Cost to own, 3 years: ~$923
Technology: Laser
Ink system: Toner
Inks: 4
Black consumable: HP 206X high-yield black toner · 3,150 pages
Colour consumable: HP 206X high-yield colour toners · 2,450 pages
Third-party ink lock: No
Ink subscription: None offered
Print speed, mono: 22 ISO ppm
Print speed, colour: 22 ISO ppm
First page out: 10.3 s
Functions: Print
Two-sided printing: Auto
Document feeder: None
Paper capacity: 250 sheets
Max paper size: Legal
Borderless photo: No
Resolution: 600 × 600 dpi
Connectivity: Wi-Fi · Ethernet
Mobile printing: AirPrint · Mopria
Display: 2.7" colour touchscreen
Dimensions: 16.2 × 18.4 × 9.2 in
Weight: 35.7 lb
Released: 2019

Features

22 ppm in both black and colour
Automatic two-sided printing
250-sheet cassette
Wired Ethernet and a 2.7-inch colour touchscreen
Toner output is dry, permanent and smudge-proof

Auto duplex No ink lock Ethernet

In its favour

Colour output at the same 22 ppm as black, which inkjets rarely manage
Toner is dry and permanent the moment it leaves the printer
250-sheet cassette and automatic duplex as standard
Not an HP+ model, so there is no lifetime supplies commitment
Colour touchscreen for walk-up use

Against it

A full set of 206X toners costs more than the printer does
A four-toner colour page costs over twenty cents, against about a cent on the colour tank printers here
Nearly 36 lb and 18 inches deep
Print only, with no scanner
600 dpi output is document-grade; photos look like photocopies

What owners say

Distilled from owner discussions and long-term published reviews

A colour laser for a home office, and unusually for HP it comes without HP+ attached — so third-party toner remains an option and the printer does not need to phone home. That alone puts it in a different category from HP's inkjets in owner discussion.

What it does well is produce colour that survives being handled: dry, permanent, identical on the thousandth page. Colour is also where it costs: on HP's 206X cartridges a page using all four toners works out around twenty-one cents — a little more than the Brother HL-L3280CDW's nineteen, and about twenty times a colour tank printer's page.

What owners like

Not an HP+ model, so there is no lifetime Original-HP-supplies commitment
Colour at the same 22 ppm as black, which inkjets in this price range cannot match
Owners printing forms and charts value output that is dry and permanent the instant it lands
250-sheet cassette and automatic duplex as standard
A colour touchscreen for walk-up use

Common complaints

About twenty-one cents for a page using all four toners, against about a cent on a colour tank printer
Nearly 36 lb and 18 inches deep
Print only, with no scanner
600 dpi output means photographs look photocopied

Questions that keep coming up

Is this an HP+ printer?

No. The M255dw is sold outside HP+, so there is no lifetime commitment to Original HP supplies and no requirement to keep it connected to the internet. For buyers who like HP's hardware but not its terms, that makes the colour LaserJet line a different proposition from the OfficeJet and DeskJet 'e' models.

What does a page cost on it?

HP rates the 206X cartridges at 3,150 black and 2,450 colour pages. At $129.89 for the black and $139.89 for each colour, that is about 4.1 cents a black page and about 21 cents for a page using all four toners — a little more than Brother's entry colour lasers and far more than a colour tank printer.

Can it print photos?

It can put a photograph on paper, and it will look like a good photocopy. At 600 dpi with four toners there is no fine tonal gradation, and toner sits on the surface rather than soaking in. For charts, logos, forms and coloured headings it is excellent. For photographs, any six-ink tank printer here is in a different league.

Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. Owner notes are a summary of what people who own the machine report, not a test result — there is no lab behind this site.