Color Laser Printer Buying Advice

[IJ Reilly]

I'm considering replacing our warhorse HP LaserJet 5MP with a color laser printer. It doesn't have to be especially fast but we need network capability. I've already looked at the HP 2550 and 3500 and automatically lean towards the HP products due to my positive experiences with them over the years (nearly 30,000 images on the LJ5 without even a hiccup).

Are HP's laser printer products still good, and does anyone have any other suggestions?

 

[ellisongs]

I've been using an HP 2550n for several months on my network and have had 0 issues. The print quality is pretty good also.

 

[CalfCanuck]

I'm using an Okidata C7300 dxn in a mixed Mac/Win environment - saw it picked as a PC WOrld Class Award. FYI, it just got upgraded to a faster processor, so the model is now the C7350.

I got it for $1600 with a rebate last year, complete with the duplex unit, a 10GB internal HD, and the Ethernet card include - I think normal street price is about $2200 for the high end unit.

Pages really fly out of it, and it designed to provide solid B&W prints at prices competitive to non-color printers.

With the duplexer, it does process at about 20 ppm in B&W. (I use it to print limited runs of a full color 160 page book that's currently in production, so I often have runs of 6000 pages at once.)

Regarding color speeds, when using the duplex feature and complete redrawing of every page (i.e. collate feature) it does about 8 ppm at highest color setting, and about 15 ppm at a medium setting. Cost per page runs about 10 cents (buying toner online).

An associate has one in a different location, and he ran a non-laser transparency through by accident. It just melted! So he called tech support, he managed to fish out the plastic shards, and it basically ran with a couple of streaks! Since I didn't want those in it I had him order a new fuser for $120, but the fact that it handled such a screw up with minimal damage really impressed me!

 

[IJ Reilly]

Thanks. Anybody have any experience with Brother printers?

 

[jer446]

i have a minolta 2300 dl and its pretty good.. i use it lightly. (i put in a transperancy, not sure if it was laser or not, but it worked fine

 

[kiskadee]

HP Laserjet 2500

Hey,

We've got an HP Laserjet 2500, i don't know if the Laserjet 2550 has the same "problem" but (almost) every 10 000 printed pages we have to replace the drum. The drum is rather expensive (i think 150 euro). We have the feeling that the cost per page is high, due to the cost of the drum!

Greetings

Karel Maenhout (Belgium)

 

[kretzy]

Hi,

Whatever you do don't get the hp 1500L colour laser...the print quality is fine and its very economical with the toner but the amount of noise it makes is rediculous!

 

[notjustjay]

This is probably not what you need (by the sounds of the posts above) but I bought a Lexmark C510n for my home and it works very nicely. It was cheap too, at only $599 Cdn back in November (got it on sale). Toners do cost, though. Unit is fast, though a bit noisy, and included a USB-Ethernet print server box.

I'm very happy with it, and since the box/printer are Rendezvous enabled, it was literally instant printing with my Powerbook... where it took me hours of driver fiddling to get my Windows XP machine to properly see it.

 

[Eastend]

Our office just bought a Oki Data 5400 series it was just introduced last year. It's network ready and works on a Mac. Prints fast and photos are not too bad especially for a laser printer. It does use a lot of toner, that's a bad point, but we print about 2,000 pages a month in office the black toner lasted only 2 and half months, so for personal use if you do about half that, it might last 6 months. It really is a good personal printer and it's fairly cheap for a laser, should not be purchased for heavy office use, I would go for a more expensive printer for office use. Note: not sure if they sell this printer in the states, but they probably do.

Brian

 

[IJ Reilly]

I like the fact that the Brother (and HP) machines are Rendezvous compatible. I don't know how much difference that really makes, but it sounds cool.

We do about 500 pages a month in our home office, so a heavy duty cycle isn't an issue. My other main concern is noise. Does anyone work in close quarters with one of these machines and find them to be distractingly noisy? Also, some color printers don't seem to have a multipurpose bypass tray, but it's hard to tell by the specifications. I don't think I could live without that.

I'm also beginning to think it makes sense, no matter what else I do, to hang onto the old 5MP for B&W runs. It's so inexpensive to run -- only about $0.02/page for toner.

 

[jimsowden]

At work we have a Phaser 8400dp and it couldn't be greater. Super fast, great quality, good on solid ink, rondezvous networking, never had one problem. At 1700 it's a steal!

 

[IJ Reilly]

Solid ink -- that's a wax transfer process, right?

 

[ellisongs]

At work we have a Phaser 8400dp and it couldn't be greater. Super fast, great quality, good on solid ink, rondezvous networking, never had one problem. At 1700 it's a steal!

I had an old Tektronix phaser printer for a while. The print looked good but unless things have changed you can't print on both sides because the ink will melt on the side you printed first and muk up the rollers. I also don't think the wax printers are good for Archival work.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Scratches off, too. I think I need to go for a laser.

 

[jimsowden]

I have never been able to scratch it off and it certainly does work on both sides flawlessly. I have some few year old pages that look fine, this thing is even nicer because it gives them a glossy look that works perfectly. You should see some prints before you make a decision.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Hmm, I'm not saying you're wrong, but that's not what the MacWorld article says...

http://www.macworld.com/2004/05/reviews/colorlaserprinters/index.php

Comparing print quality is a good idea.

 

[jaw04005]

I used to work for a photographer, and we used a Tektronix printer for take-home proof books. If you print a certain number of B/W and Color prints per month, Xerox will give you a color laser printer as long as you buy ink directly from them (http://www.freecolorprinters.com), and after 2 years the printer is yours. He (my former boss) always thought it was a good deal, but I dunno.

 

[ellisongs]

One thing you need to keep in mind is that the lower priced Magicolor laser printers do not support Mac.

 

[balden]

Okidata C7350 Help

I just purchased and Okidata C7350 Printer using it with my IBook on system OS 10.4

Can anyone help me understand how to adjust the quality output when printing a photo on my postcard that I mail to clients?

 

[Sun Baked]

Looking at the HP toner and printer consumables ...

http://www.hp.com/sbso/product/supplies/compatchart.pdf

 

[sushi]

Thanks. Anybody have any experience with Brother printers?

Only a B&W model (5170DN).

It works great. Is networkable. Easy to install drivers. One CD has them all.

Currently I print to it via:
- Windows XP
- Mac OS X
- Classic under Mac OS X
- Mac OS 9
- Newton 2100 (No drivers needed via Ethernet)

I would imagine their color products work similarly.

Sushi

 

[CalfCanuck]

I just purchased and Okidata C7350 Printer using it with my IBook on system OS 10.4

Can anyone help me understand how to adjust the quality output when printing a photo on my postcard that I mail to clients?

Well, on my Okidata C7300 currently installed on 10.4, the quality settings in the Mac Print Dialog are found in the "Printer Features" window, located via the third pull-down (default "Copies & Pages").

There are lots of things to be explored in all the various "tabs" reached in this third set of controls. It took me a long time to figure out that the "Printer Features" one ITSELF has another 3 screens ("Feature Sets" choices of 1-3). Set 3 has the Toner saver option that is easily found on my Win XP machine's box, while Set 2 has the Color Setting and Color Simulation choices.

Just keep exploring - hopefully you'll find what you need.

 

[remingtonhill]

Hp 2550

The HP 2550L (?) is only $399 US. Sometimes $100 Rebate. You will be very pleased. OSX & XP.