Good laser color printer?

Samsung's CLP-315W is incredibly compact, quite cheap, and has Wi-Fi printing.

Mind you, it's nigh on IMPOSSIBLE to set up. I only got it printing once over an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network and never over USB, and that was only a test.

...check out the brother 8 and 9 series networkable printers...I'd have gotten one if they didn't weigh too much to ship via USPS - new egg put brother on sale prices frequently.

The best part is most of them use separate drums and toner cartridges so they are much cheaper long term than other brands...I use a 7840W BTW and it worked so well I bought one for a small office as well (the 7840 is only B&W though)...

You might want to take a look at the Brother HL-4040CN for a basic color printer. (N = network BTW). Expendables aren't bad cost wise. Certainly better than HP. 😀

You can find a refurbished one for $232, and new for $385 or so. (I didn't spend much time on searching, so you may be able to find even better pricing). 😉

Check out OKI's LED printers. In principle, there is more that can go wrong in a laser mechanism.

cube said:

Check out OKI's LED printers. In principle, there is more that can go wrong in a laser mechanism.

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They've always been a little harder to find. (At least the models I wanted in the past). So I stuck with HP, until they chipped the supplies. 🙄 Costs were already getting a little nutz, and adding a fixed lifespan, used or not, was the proverbial "last straw" for me. 😉 😛

There are many online stores in USA that carry them, including Okidata's own.

A quick comparison at OKI's site highlights the C6050dn.

cube said:

Check out OKI's LED printers. In principle, there is more that can go wrong in a laser mechanism.

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We have C5600s in several offices at work, including mine, and they've been a real headache. Something always going wrong with them and they EAT toner. I swear I would have chucked ours out the window by now if it wasn't too big to fit through the window. I liked OKI back in the day, but am less than impressed with this model of LED printer.

I bought the non-wireless version of the Samsung (CLP-315, no W) for my parents over the holidays. No problems setting it up and my non-techie mother hasn't had any problems. Yet.

perkins said:

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The HP one that I was looking at (1200-something) isn't compatible, or so people claimed in the Amazon reviews. I don't need anything super fancy, just something good enough for term papers and good color documents.

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1200 what? lira? yen? pesos? continentals? You can get a Xerox Phaser 8560/dn, a genuine PostScript 3 Bonjour-compatible networked duplex printer for $900 US. This model is as fast as the dickens and built like an anvil like HP printers used to be before HP printers sucked. I own two of this model's older siblings--a Phaser 8400dp and a Phaser 8550dp. I could not recommend the Xerox Phaser 8560/dn more enthusiastically.

If you have $1200 US to burn, then you might consider the Phaser 8560/dt for $1400 US. It has twice the RAM and an additional paper tray.

I've been using an Oki Data c3200n for more than four years. The original toner cartridges are still 50% full. 😀

I'm a big fan of Okis as well and love the glossy look to the printing that they produce. I originally had a C5250n (if I remember right😉) but sold it and upgraded to a C5500 a couple of years ago from Staples where they often run specials on them that are good deals! No regrets on sticking with them for me!

I picked up a Samsung CLX-3175FN when I got fed up that yet another inkjet died on me. This is an all-in-one (scanner, copier, fax, printer) but it's small and quite inexpensive. It's quick, quiet, and can be networked (wired only). When I saw it on sale for $300 with an additional $100 off via rebate, it was a no brainer.

B&W prints are very, very nice. Color prints are alright, but, while printing things such as charts and graphics are fine, it's not very good for printing photos. The color can use some tuning, unfortunately, I don't see any options to do so in Mac OS X. I had read reviews and one reviewer had this to say:

"I went through most of my 100 pages printing test photos to correct the color. For my unit, I had to turn down the magenta to -5 (maximum setting) in the system tray control, then I also had to turn it down in the windows printing manual color setting to Cyan-red=31, brightness=74, saturation=26."

When time permits, I may attempt to set up the printer in my virtual machine and see if the above adjustments improve photo printing.

Scans and copies (both color and B&W) work seem to work very well in my limited testing. The automatic document feeder for the scanner/copier is a nice touch. Scanning does not work through the network for computers running Mac OS X, but the unit does have the ability to scan to USB flash drives so it's not too much of an problem, at least for me.

In my opinion, the only truly weak aspect of the unit is the fact that it only has one paper tray. So, if, for example, you need to print an envelope, you will have to remove the paper in the paper tray, insert an envelope, and put back the paper when done. For me, it's not a problem since I never print on anything but letter sized paper, but you may...

Good luck with your search.

MisterMe said:

1200 what? lira? yen? pesos? continentals? You can get a Xerox Phaser 8560/dn, a genuine PostScript 3 Bonjour-compatible networked duplex printer for $900 US. This model is as fast as the dickens and built like an anvil like HP printers used to be before HP printers sucked. I own two of this model's older siblings--a Phaser 8400dp and a Phaser 8550dp. I could not recommend the Xerox Phaser 8560/dn more enthusiastically.

If you have $1200 US to burn, then you might consider the Phaser 8560/dt for $1400 US. It has twice the RAM and an additional paper tray.

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I've been eying these lately. I owned one about decade ago before Xerox bought Tektronix. I liked the printer, but recall that it went through quite a bit of the solid ink during warm up. The waste tray was never empty. How's the ink usage now?