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Color laser printer

Doctor Q

Doctor Q

Administrator
Original poster
Staff member
Sep 19, 2002
40,490
9,460
Los Angeles
I've had a succession of inkjet printers, starting way back with the Apple StyleWriter II (which as I remember was manufactured by Canon). My inkjet printers have usually seemed to need repair or replacement within a year, while my ancient (monochrome) HP LaserJet just keeps right on truckin'. And I'm constantly replacing (and paying for) one ink cartridge or another.

My solution: move to a color laser printer.

My requirements are simple: Color. Wired networking. Good photo printing on plain paper; doesn't have to be top notch. I'll make low thoughput demands on it. Medium processing/printing speed is good enough. I want it to work, without needing repairs, for years and years and years. I don't mind paying for quality, but I don't want to pay more than necessary.

Over the years I've had better luck with HP printers than with other brands. Any reason not to go with HP again? Any specific model recommendations?
 
This is a real dilemma, which I have been facing for years without a solution. I have yet to see acceptable photo printing results from a non-Postscript color laser printer, and true Postscript printers tend to be high-end and priced accordingly. Some of the lower-end color laser printers which include Postscript (or an emulation) don't have good Mac support. Last I heard, HP fell into that category (particularly for multifunction printers, which is my need).
 
I found a very intesting Photo inkjet printers vs. color laser printers discussion.

I'm more interested in printing color newsletters that contain text and photos than in printing photo-album quality photos. I still haven't decided what to do about it but I now think that giving color laser printers a fair review means considering Lexmark models, not just HP, and possibly Oki too.
 
I bought a Lexmark C534N color laser a few months ago for less then $200 after rebate a few months ago. It does a very good job with pics compared to my friends HP2600N color laser. The big advantage to the Lexmark is it ships with 6000 capacity carts so I shouldn't have to buy anything for a long time. It also prints very fast at 24PPM. The downside it is quite loud, and the time to first print is quite long (about 50 seconds). I print a lot of one page docs here and there, and an inkjet would actually be faster. If you can get one of these cheap like I did I easily recommend it.
 
Doctor Q said:
...<laser dilemma>...
Click to expand...
I'm sure I can't bring anything useful to the decision process 'Q, but I recently started using an HP laserjet and was horrified to find that regardless of colour the toner cartridges empty at the same rate!?!

So even though they're sold separately at around £40 you end up replace all four at the same time regardless of whether you've been knocking out photos or newsletters:mad:
 
I'm surprised to learn that many people buy a new inkjet printer when their previous inkjet printer runs out of ink. New inkjets sometimes cost less than new ink for the old one! (I hope they end up being recycled, not dumped in landfills.) It certainly shows how silly ink pricing can be.

When shopping for color laser printers, you have the same issue as for inkjets: checking how generous or stingy they are with the supply of ink that comes with the printer.
 
Doctor Q said:
I'm surprised to learn that many people buy a new inkjet printer when their previous inkjet printer runs out of ink. New inkjets sometimes cost less than new ink for the old one! (I hope they end up being recycled, not dumped in landfills.) It certainly shows how silly ink pricing can be.
Click to expand...

Thats what we do...there is definitely a gap in the market for good-quality, fair priced ink...there are plenty of alternatives at the high and low end of the spectrum...
 
I have a samsung CLP-300 color laser and photo printing really isn't worth it...but it does everything else well. I got it for $150, too.
 
from everything i've read hp has taken their "charge alot for ink that runs out too quickly" philosophy from inkjets and unleashed it on the laser printer market. i've read alot of reviews of the hp lasers, and while people seemed satisfied with the results, many complained about running out of toner way faster than they expected.

i ended up getting a xerox, and while i have not used it a whole lot, really like it so far. i find pictures to be totally exceptable on it. although i got it on sale for $250, not the $350 listed on that site.

i tried one of the $500 lexmark printers with built in duplexing. and hopefully it was just the one i got. but it's colors were horrible. it seemed to not handle transition colors very well. orange came out almost red. and cream came out yellow. and printing on transparency was not very solid. it might have just been a color calibration issue. but i didnt feel like taking the time to find out since it had other issues also that seemed more software related.

for instance i'd try to print on photo paper. i would select photo from the comp, and on the printer menu, and still it would spit out the photo paper till it got to normal paper. and trying to use the document feeder spot usually caused the paper to get jammed. so i gave up and returned it.

but this is all on a pc. i havent tried it on the mac yet. so i dunno how the software is for mac.
 
I made up my mind after a lot of research, then a bit of shopping around.

I purchased an HP Coior LaserJet 2605dn. It has built-in networking (USB too), duplex printing, and something important to watch for: it comes with full toner cartridges, not the minimal "starter" toner some printers come with. Those starter versions can produce a high hidden cost.

I'll report more after I play with the printer a bit.
 
I also used to use inkjet printers and I grew tired of needing to replace the cartridges at riduculous costs every few months, and not to mention the paper jams and other stuff that happened to them.

Then I got a laser printer (Brother 2040) and it's honestly been the best purchase I've made. I bought it 1.5 years ago and it's printed out all my uni notes and anything else, with absolutely no problems (it just works). I haven't even needed to change the toner yet, and the printer itself was very cheap.

However it is black only not colour, but it's not a problem for me at all because for the rare times I've needed to print in colour or print photos, I'd go to a printing place just outside uni to do so.
 
Doctor Q said:
I'll report more after I play with the printer a bit.
Click to expand...
My report:

I love this printer. It's been perfect in every way. No paper jams like my inkjet printers had. Consistent color printing, unlike my inkjet printers. Supplies that don't run out once a week, unlike my inkjet printers.

Duplex printing is a real convenience. I don't have to feed the paper in twice as I did on my inkjet printers.

And photos that look fine for my purposes (just not "photo quality").

I'm sold on color laser printers and the HP Coior LaserJet 2605dn in particular.
 
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