As with previous models, you won't get fired for buying the new HP Color LaserJet CP3505x. OK, it's not as cheap as some, but it's affordable nonetheless and faster than others in the same price bracket thanks to a single-pass A4 engine that can print in colour at the same speed (up to 21ppm) as black and white.

It's also got all the bells and whistles you'd expect on a workgroup laser, including a duplexer and comprehensive networking support, making it a good choice for small companies or the more demanding home user.

Actual performance will, of course, vary depending on what's being printed. However, the CP3505x doesn't disappoint, churning out pages at an impressive rate in our tests, with the first page appearing in under 12 seconds, regardless of the document type.

We were also impressed with the quality of the output, whether business documents or more complex graphics and photographs. Even on plain paper, colour reproduction was better than most other general purpose lasers and, although there are lots of driver settings to tinker with, we got good results simply by taking the defaults.

In terms of size it's not the smallest colour laser you can buy, but the footprint is modest and paper handling well catered for, as befits a printer rated for up to 65,000 pages per month. Two A4 paper drawers come as standard, one holding up to 250 sheets and the other 500, with the usual fold-out manual feeder to handle labels and other awkward materials.

On the downside the manual feeder can only take 10 envelopes at a time and there are no other input or finishing options. You do, however, get a duplexer for double-sided printing, and easy-to-change consumables - simply open the door at the front to slide in the four cartridges. Each of these is good for up to 6,000 pages, with replacements on sale at around £78 + VAT for black and £101 + VAT for each of the three colours (cyan, yellow and magenta).

The electronics are well specified too, starting with a 450MHz Motorola ColdFire V5x processor plus 384MB of memory, which can be expanded up to 1GB using industry-standard DIMMs. As well as a USB interface, an integrated JetDirect Ethernet print server is also included, enabling the HP laser to be shared on a variety of networks, with both PCL and PostScript emulations plus support for the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) and direct PDF printing. Windows drivers are included in the box while Apple Mac and Linux software can be downloaded free of charge if required.

We had no problems at all configuring and using the CP3505x, enjoyed using it and were sad to see it go. A small but surprisingly clear LCD display is provided for local operation with a Web-based interface for remote setup and management. The printer can also be managed using an SNMP console such as HP's Web JetAdmin product, available separately.

One last word of advice. If you're interested in the CP3505x it pays to shop around. When first released it had a list price of nearly £800 + VAT, but we found it for a lot less than that. Not least on the HP site, where at the time of our review it was available for just £499 + VAT with, for those with more modest budgets, other CP3505 models on offer from just £199 + VAT.

The CP3505x stands out against other colour lasers in its class, thanks mainly to a 21ppm laser engine, capable of printing in colour at the same speed as monochrome. Print quality is excellent too, even on plain paper, plus you get two paper trays, a duplexer and comprehensive networking support all as standard. A hard act to beat, but shop around for the best price.