HP Color LaserJet Enterprise MFP 5800f review

A workgroup colour MFP bought for cost per page rather than for the price on the box.

The verdict: An Enterprise-class colour multifunction printer running up to 45 pages per minute in black and 43 in colour, sold to businesses whose print volume makes cost per page matter more than the purchase price. Buy it if you print thousands of colour pages a month and need Enterprise fleet management and security. Skip it if you print hundreds, where a Pro-class MFP at a quarter of the price does the same job and the toner economics never catch up. Work out which side of that line you are on with our printer ownership cost calculator.

Best for high-volume colour

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise MFP 5800f Printer

~$3,099

An Enterprise colour multifunction printer that prints, copies, scans and faxes at up to 45ppm black and 43ppm colour, with Original HP Toner included.

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Specifications

Spec	Detail
Functions	Print, copy, scan and fax
Print speed	Up to 45 pages per minute black, 43 colour
Toner included	Original HP Toner, up to 3,500 black or colour pages out of the box
Printing options	Borderless, mobile and wireless
Positioning	High-volume colour document printing for businesses

Specifications above come from HP's published specifications. Treat pricing as approximate, since Amazon pricing moves.

What it does well

Cost per page is the entire argument, and at genuine volume an Enterprise colour laser beats a Pro machine by enough to pay back the difference.
45ppm is fast enough that a queue does not build up behind a long job in a shared office.
Enterprise firmware and fleet management, which is what an IT department needs when the printer is one of forty rather than one of one.
Toner in the box, rated to 3,500 pages, so the machine is productive on day one rather than after a supplies order.
Duty cycles at this class are built for continuous work, which is a durability difference rather than a speed one.

Where it falls short

It only makes financial sense at volume. Below a few thousand pages a month the purchase price never amortises, and a Pro MFP does the same work. This is the single most common and most expensive mistake in this category.
It is large and heavy, needs a dedicated footprint, and is not a machine you move once it is sited.
Enterprise toner cartridges are expensive to buy even though they are cheap per page, so the cash outlay each time is significant and needs budgeting.
Third-party toner in an Enterprise machine is a false economy and a support risk, so the running cost is HP's running cost. Our third-party ink versus OEM comparison covers when the gamble is worth taking and when it is not.
For a small business the practical advantages of Enterprise firmware and fleet management are mostly theoretical, because nobody is managing a fleet.

What owners report

Published owner reports on Enterprise-class HP MFPs are consistent about reliability and consistent about the same complaint: the machines are excellent and the supplies are expensive to buy in one hit, even when the per-page figure is good. Both of those are the same fact viewed from opposite ends of a purchase order.

The other recurring theme is that businesses who bought Enterprise for a small office wish they had bought Pro, and businesses who bought Pro for a busy office wish they had bought Enterprise. Volume is the deciding number, and our printer cost calculator is the way to work out where you sit before you commit.

Who it suits

Offices printing several thousand colour pages a month.
Organisations with IT management who need firmware control and fleet tooling.
Anyone replacing several small printers with one shared machine.

Who should skip it

Home offices and small businesses, who should read our mono versus colour laser comparison first and will usually land on something far cheaper.
Anyone whose colour printing is occasional, where colour toner sits unused and ages in the machine.
Photo printing, which is an inkjet job. A colour laser produces documents, not photographs.

Alternatives worth considering

Right Size for Most

HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M479fdw Wireless Laser Printer

~$799

The Pro-class version of the same idea: print, scan, copy and fax with HP Wolf Pro Security and Wi-Fi Direct, at a quarter of the price. For most small offices this is the machine that should have been bought, and the higher cost per page never adds up to the difference.

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Cheaper Colour MFP

Brother MFC-L8930CDW Business Color Laser All-in-One Printer

~$700

33ppm colour, dual-band wireless, gigabit ethernet, single-pass two-sided scanning at up to 104ipm and an 80-page feeder. Brother's toner tends to cost less than HP's, which is the argument at mid volumes.

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If You Do Not Need Colour

Brother MFC-L5710DW Business Monochrome Laser All-in-One Printer

~$500

Most business printing is black text. A monochrome MFP with an 11,000-page super high-yield cartridge produces the cheapest pages in this entire list, and removes the colour toner you were not going to use.

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Common questions

What is the difference between HP Enterprise and HP Pro printers?

Enterprise machines are built for higher duty cycles, use higher-capacity supplies with a lower cost per page, and run firmware designed for fleet management and centralised security policy. Pro machines cost far less up front and cost more per page. The crossover point is volume, and below a few thousand pages a month the Pro machine wins on total cost.

How much does colour laser printing cost per page?

It depends on the cartridge yield and the price you pay for toner, not on the printer. Divide the cartridge price by its rated yield for each colour and add them together for a full-colour page. Our toner yield estimator does that arithmetic, and the result usually surprises people who compared printers on sticker price alone.

Is 45 pages per minute actually useful?

In a shared office, yes, because speed determines whether somebody's 200-page job blocks everyone else. For a single user it makes almost no difference, since the wait for the first page out matters more than the sustained rate for a three-page document.

Can I use third-party toner in this printer?

You can, and in an Enterprise machine under warranty it is a poor trade. Third-party toner varies more in yield and colour consistency, and a supplies-related fault on an expensive machine is an argument you do not want to have. Our third-party ink versus OEM comparison sets out where the savings are real and where they are not.

Colour laser or inkjet for a busy office?

Colour laser, for document volume, speed and consistency. Inkjet, if you need photo quality or wide-format output. Our inkjet versus laser test page comparison shows what each technology actually does to text edges and colour fills, which is the difference you will see every day.

Keep reading

This review draws on published specifications, manufacturer figures and the consensus of verified owner reviews. We have not tested this product ourselves, and we say so rather than implying otherwise. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.