Color Laser or Normal Printer?

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note235

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My mom prints a lot of business cards/tags and such for our small business and she goes through printers very fast---i was wondering if buying a cheap color laser such as the dell 2130cn or samsung 315 would be a good deal?
thanks
 
I bought one of these about a year and half ago: http://www.amazon.com/Brother-MFC-9...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1246837834&sr=1-1

Very powerful device. Probaly not what price range you're in as this is really a small business multi-function device. I mention it just to remind you to look at the price on the consumables of whatever unit you buy. The cost is VERY considerable for color laser. A full set of standard cartrigages for the 9840CDW is like $250, not cheap. Not to mention other parts like the drum. Just make sure you know the costs upfront.
 
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Laser does end up being cheaper on average per print than inkjet when you compare the media costs, maintenance costs, etc. over the life of the printer.

If she's going through printers (not printer ink) that quickly, DON'T CHEAP OUT. Spend a little more out the door for a Business or small office printer that can handle the load you're putting on it. If she's had to replace printers that often, it sounds like she's printing way more than the duty cycle specs for the printer. Plus with a laser printer the toner doesn't dry out like ink so you won't have to worry about the print heads getting clogged.
 
I have the Samsung CLP-315. The print quality is fine, but the color print speed might be an issue for her. It's a multi-pass printer and a lot slower than a monochrome laser, even cheap consumer ones. It's rated at 4ppm color, but the first page takes a while. For unique pages you basically get 2ppm after it is warmed up (the warm up cycle is not too long). At $100 a pop it might be worth it depending on the usage.
 
thanks you guys
yeah about 6 printers in around 2-3 years
i have the others in my room for other purposes
 
The_Mage18 said:
Laser does end up being cheaper on average per print than inkjet when you compare the media costs, maintenance costs, etc. over the life of the printer.

If she's going through printers (not printer ink) that quickly, DON'T CHEAP OUT. Spend a little more out the door for a Business or small office printer that can handle the load you're putting on it. If she's had to replace printers that often, it sounds like she's printing way more than the duty cycle specs for the printer. Plus with a laser printer the toner doesn't dry out like ink so you won't have to worry about the print heads getting clogged.
Click to expand...

Every printer is rated by duty cycle, usually in pages/month, so match that with how many pages you need to print. Laser definitely end up being cheaper in the long run, even with more expensive toner.

Chris
 
Well, the HP OfficeJet printers with 920XL/940XL/88XL cartridges look like an interesting option as well, they claim a lower cost-per-page than about every laser printers under $600.
 
the 315 looks good, but if shes doing a lot of colour printing, at 4ppm it may drive her nuts. the 610 doesnt look that bad (amazon link) and if shes printing enough to kill a few printers a year, it may be worth the added iinvestment.
 
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I have a dell 3000 color as well as an HP 4500 color. the newer dell prints much faster than my hp but the hp has much better color print quality and the hp can print on gloss paper while the dell can't. the toner won't fuse to the gloss. my hp toner is almost $500 for the 4 carts.
 
Check the capacity of the toner cartridges. It gets very, very expensive if you have to keep replacing color toner cartridges at 50+ a pop, if they only last 1000 pages.
 
the 610 doesnt look that bad
Click to expand...
If you buy the 5000 pages cartridges, all the 4 carts costs $500, which means $0.10 per page. ($0.15 for the 2500 pages cartridges) Not exactly cheap for a laser printer.
 
Well I hate Multifunction devices.

I bought a OKIDATA c5500n from someone on Graig's List list a few years ago. I knew the model was being discontinued, but said ahh to hell with it.

The cost was $200.00 it was new and came with the duplexer (2 sided printing) think at the time the printer was about $500.00 and for some reason they are still selling for about the same cost.
Still cant figure out why???

After I went thru the sample toner carts that came with it, and I had to buy new ones. I bought the double capacity ones 5000 page ones.
On the sample toners ones there is no sensor, so when it runs out its basically useless.

But on the replacement toner carts, when empty you can go ahead and refill them with bulk dry color toner inks. The sensor resets when it finds toner in them.

I have run this thing really hard for the first 2-3 years, never gave me any problems at all. Finally changed the drum earlier this year cost me about 65 bucks
refilled toners so far about 3x. think 5 is max times I can do this, when will have to buy new double capacity cartridges again.

I would d say the cost is about:
black - 2.3 cents a page
color -12 cents per page.

Speed
B&W text - 16-17 pages per minute
B&W graphics - 18 pages per minute
Color text - 11 pages per minute
Color graphics - about 13 pages per minute
 
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Something to consider, I've had color laser before, and it was nice that I didn't have to change ink cartridges or anything like that for quite a long time, EXCEPT....color quality on a laser printer just doesn't compare to inkjets. If a high quality print is an important factor, I'm going to have to suggest (sadly, I know) an inkjet. Though I must say I haven't owned a color laser in about 6 years and I'm sure the technology has improved since then.
 
hmm both then?
but occassionally use inkjet
any cheap one will do?
 
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We got a Brother HL-4040CDN about two months ago from Newegg and the thing has been top notch; lightyears better than that poor Photosmart 7550 we've been using as our family printer. So far only 500 pages have been printed on this thing but toner levels haven't moved a bit. I love the Duplexing feature though if you want to save some money there's a similar model out there (no 'D' in the model number).

They usually go for $359 at Newegg but I've seen them at places like Staples and OfficeMax for $100 less. Don't buy any that have been recertified, reconditioned, etc. on Newegg as they tend to omit the toner cartridges.
 
staples, during the summer, always has paper for cheap... or free... so paper costs are low

not sure how often you print in color for business card, but i'd recommend inkjet, because it's better quality...
 
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