Looking for a new Color laser printer

[Markfw]

My biggest concern is 8x10 full color cost per page.

Any suggestions ? I could only find the HP 3600. or CP202N, the replacement @ $464

 

[JackMDS]

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-...-Printer/dp/B000HCMTKU

http://www.amazon.com/Xerox-Ph...ref=dp_cp_ob_e_title_2

It always seems a matter of balancr there are low cost per page printers.
But the initial cost is over $500, and a renewal of set of cartridges can be over $400.

So if you print around the clock 8x10 color it worth while to pay initial high price.

Otherwise it is a matter of computing your personal brake even point.

 

[Markfw]

Well, the HP cartridges are 4000 and 6000 pages and rage from $75 (compatable) to $125 (genuine) and the Xerox is 2000 pages, and the same prices. Looking at the Samsung...$50 each, and 1000 pages, HP still is winning I think.

So far everything I have checked, says that HP is the best, but I am hoping that somebody here has a better solution. My Tektronix Phaser 850 (I have 2) are both in need of ink, and repair. Time to change...

And thanks for the feedback. Initial cost is not an issue, I spent $1200 on my Phaser 850. I want long term cost, cost per photo. However, I would like to stay closer to the $500 price point or less if acceptable price per page.

 

[JackMDS]

May be this can help. I usually do not follow their advice but it is a good source of basic info.

http://www.pcworld.com/article...or_laser_printers.html

 

[Markfw]

Thats great !

 

[Markfw]

That Dell, looks OK, but by the time you get the network hookup, its $700, and the cost is twice on the toner, and twice the capacity, so its equal in that respect to the HP.

 

[Madwand1]

FYI, the Brother HL-4040CDN also does duplexing, and is around $200.

Consumables:

Color "4,000 pages" : $88
Black "5,000 pages": $63

- current prices from Newegg.

 

[imported_wired247]

Can I ask what's the deal with 8x10 printing? Is that for printing digital photos? And if so, how's the quality compared to professional printing?

 

[Markfw]

Yes, I like big Photos. The quality is not quite what professional printing is, but its fine for me, and my friends with 3 megapixel or better. Most of the printers can only do 1200 ddi, but that's pretty good in 8x10.

 

[imported_wired247]

That's awesome... 8x10 photos are very stunning. My girlfriend and I got some 8x10's printed out from our trip to Italy and Ireland... IIRC we used Walgreens online picture printing (pickup in store) and it was very cheap, and good quality... not to mention done in about 1 hr.

Good luck with your printer shopping, that sounds great.

 

[JackMDS]

In my case, after 20 years of printing most of my prime photographic work on 8x10, I had it with the 8x10 (I used to print 8x10 color in my own Home Lab before it became common in computer printers).

Next step would be getting the Brother 11x17 http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16828113329

Paper goes for about $1 a page + Ink it would be just under $2. (8 x 10 cost me now a little less that 50 cents).

So the plan is reduce the volume and get onto 11x17.

The real problem will bee the frames, for 11 x17 I need 16 x 20, and those are expensive.

 

[Markfw]

Has to be a bad link, thats an inkjet printer, not even 11x17

 

[GLeeM]

About 3 years ago I bought a Samsung. I didn't realize that most of the parts would only last for so many pages before it would quit and make me change them out. The parts would have cost more than a new printer :roll:

So I went shopping for a new one, there were not many at the store that could duplex. So I looked at inkjet. There was a new HP Officejet L7680 All-in-One that advertised cheaper than laser costs. I can get large cartridges to make it even more convenient.

I haven't had it long enough to tell if it is cheaper or not, but so far I like it. (except for the driver on the disk, I have to find an update, it causes spoolsv.exe to use up tons of ram when printing pictures.)

 

[imported_wired247]

Samsung really irks me as a consumer. I've met a couple (husband and wife) who are both FORMER samsung engineers, they told me they would never buy samsung electronics due to how many corners are cut and the lack of good QC on so many of their products. Everything is just a rush to get it out the door.

Not to mention all the samsung electronics I've had that quit on me...

for printers, it's really hard for me to stray away from HP.

 

[JackMDS]

Big parts of it has to be some thing of a Psychological issue that we as Enthusiasts have with Hardware.

I got few years ago HP BusinessJet 1200, it is a great printer, fast, duplex, great output, when the ink is gone you have to buy new ink (which is expensive) it also has chips embedded that force you to change at a certain point the printer heads too, otherwise the printer would Not work.

All in all, within less a year it could cost almost twice the price of the printer to refresh it to work again (and it is Not $50 it is hundreds of $).

Took me long time to decide what to do and I ended up ditching the printer.

So it does not matter HP, Samsung, etc. They all take us for a Ride because we are suckers for technology.

 

[RebateMonger]

I'm hardly an expert in color laserjets.

I use a big Dell 5100CN that I purchased a couple of years ago. It's been completely reliable, is super-fast, and makes good prints. It was $1000, but I calculated the cost per page for the next few years and its HUGE toner capacity made it cheaper over the long run versus the cheaper (and smaller-cartridged) color laser printers. It even came with fully-filled toner cartridges, versus "samplers" for many printers. Not to mention the super-speed and duplex printing, and lots of other built-in features.

I only did cost calculations for factory-build toner cartridges. I don't even know if anybody refills Dell toner carts. I imagine that you can get refilled HPs.

The other thing about laser printers is, of course, that most are not really made to do "photo-quality" color prints. They lack the brilliance of (yuck) inkjet printers (but at least they don't fade away in a couple of years). I recommend that folks wanting true "photo-quality" color prints have a photo-finishing shop make the prints. But you likely are already aware of that issue. And there may well be "photo-quality" color laser printers. But probably not in the under-$1000 (under-$10,000???) category.

I also had to leave HP printers out of my original decision, since I felt very screwed-over by the many HP printers I bought in the 1990-2000 timeframe. The old LJ2 printers were workhorses. But HP couldn't build a reliable paperfeed mechanism for years after that. I refuse to buy HP printers anymore because of this, and the fact that they abandoned all of their Windows 98-era printer/scanner/fax customers when XP came out.

I've got one client with a QMS-Minolta printer. It was HORRIBLY slow, there seemed to be no known fix for that, and they dumped it. I've got another client with an older HP printer, which seems to work for them.

Again, my experience-base with color laser printers is pretty limited. I can say that my Dell works for me, but your requirements could be quite different than mine.

 

[biostud]

Ive just bough the canon lbp-5050n and is very satisfied with it. The color output are very good IMHO, a bit like posters. You could laso look into the HP 1515n which uses the same printing mechanism.

check out these reviews:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/...P1515n-Colour-Laser/p1

http://www.trustedreviews.com/...BP5050-Colour-Laser/p1