laser color printers good solution for home use?

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ellover009

[H]ard|Gawd
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My last printer finally gave out, had an epson cx6600, good printer, but the ink kept plugging up the head and eventually the whole thing went. I've seen that color laser printer have gone down in price and whats making them appealing to me is that I think they are less likely to get the head jammed when the printer sits for a bit, depending on the season I end up using the printer more, and some months it just sits. Only thing that I find difficult to switch over is that they usually don't come with the scanner built, there really isn't much of a consumer geared one yet, but i've seen them go as cheap as $150.
I've also noticed there is a trade off, I noticed bw print cost in laser is quite a bit cheaper than inkjet, but I color prints I think are higher than inkjet, I am not too sure.

So do you recommend laser for my needs?
Is the color print of laser higher than inkjet?
is there even any good color laser printer that works on windows 7 64bit?
Does inkjet ink go bad over time if it's still sealed? Bought some for my cx6600 when compusa went bankrupt dirt cheap but I never got around to use it because my printer died.
 
do you really need to print color? get a cheap BW laser and be done with it.
i've also had some curiosity about color lasers but thinking about it realistically it did not make sense.
 
Only reason I even considered the laser is because the color printer price is very similar to monochrome, only difference is it would catch up to me when I replace the trial cartridges they include with the printer. I don't really print munch in color but it would be nice to have the ability, for when that rare opportunity that you need color shows up, I have a dslr, and I would love to be able to print some of my pictures, providing it was cost effective enough. I guess if I had the color option I would use it a lot to print a bunch of the pictures I take, it all comes down to making it cost effective enough vs a inkjet for the color since I can sometimes shift towards other things for a month or so.
 
I got a Samsung CLP-315 for $150 and it powns, definitely worth it over a cheap inkjet. I've thrown out so many inkjet printers for being shit. And if you get the refill kits for laser, its like $15 for 1000-2000 pages. A new OEM toner cartridge is like $40-ish, but still, $/page is way lower than inkjet.
 
Some of the color lasers are crazy expensive in the long run. The toner cartridges can be pricey. Check that out before you buy a certain model. You can get cheap inkjet refills on ebay for like $7 for 4 cartridges. I would price it out and find what makes the most sense to you.

Also the lower end color lasers to me don't seem to print images (like photos) quite as good as an inkjet but text is way better on a laser.
 
lasers don't do great with photos. they are "acceptable" but nowhere near the quality of the cheapest current crop inkjets.

I've been using color lasers for photo jobs at Golf tournaments for the past 11 years because of the speed of the lasers. one of my yearly events had me printing almost 270 8x10 photos in a few hours and there was no way an inkjet or two would have been able to keep up, and I probably would have been changing ink carts all day long too.

the main benefit of laser is text sharpness.
other benefits are shelf life, you can have the printer idle for months on end and turn it on, print, then turn to back off. An inkjet will need to be cleaned at least 1 time, usually 2-3 times or more, wasting ink while trying to unclog the print head from the ink that has dried up.

the color laser I have is the HP 4500DN. Toner carts for this printer were $125/color and $100 for black, basically $475+ to replace all the carts..
they yield 6000 pages for color and 9000 pages for black, @ 5% coverage.
The company I do the photos for bought this printer in 1999 for $2500. in 2005 I had them replace it with a Dell 3000 series since it was smaller, faster, and is nearly instant on. My 4500 takes about 15 minutes to warm up and calibrate before a page will come out.
The Dell is much easier to carry to a golf event than the almost 100lbs HP.

this old HP works great with Windows 7 64bit, the newer ones should work fine as well.
I don't use it much anymore, I'll either use my HP P1006 mono laser, my brothers Samsung color laser, or the Epson 610 inkjet.

I am considering selling the 4500 for $100, it has quite a bit toner in it as well as 3 brand new spare carts (no spare yellow)

here is a photo print from the 4500 for a softball job I did in 03,
laser_print.jpg


and an inkjet test print
allie2.jpg
 
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Same advice as above if you don't use color a lot : get a BW laser printer for everyday use and keep a color scanner/printer/copier in a corner for when you need color.

Laser printer can be bought for not much $$ these days. I got a wireless brother HL-2270W last week on sale for $80, with a cartridge that will do about 800 pages and an extra large cartridge for $40 that will do 2,600 pages ($120 for 3,300 pages = 3,6 cents per page). It sits in a corner next to a power plug (no need for a data cable, nice), does duplex, is fast, supports mac and windows.
The multifunction color machine is tucked away in the closet for now next to an old laptop that will only ever be used when I need to print color (a few times a year) or make copies.
 
Ok from what I read around I looked at a few printers, brothers has a nice one with a much faster speed than an similar hp laser printer price wise, but the main difference is that the brother might have a cheaper print per page cost but the hp comes with the roller attached to the laser toner cartridge replacement. So what do you guys recommend? I am also looking for something that has a scanner built in to make it a bit more accessible.
 
Same advice as above if you don't use color a lot : get a BW laser printer for everyday use and keep a color scanner/printer/copier in a corner for when you need color.
Click to expand...
My experiance is that inkjets don't like being left unused, they tend to clog up, if you are lucky you can get them going again after wasting a lot of ink. If you are unlucky you need new cartridges or even a whole new printer (for printers that have difficult or expensive to replace printheads).

If you are well organised you can probably avoid this by making sure you send something to the inkjet at least once every couple of weeks even if it doesn't really need to be in colour but if you are less well organised or you go for singificant periods without printing anything at all inkjets are a massive PITA. I've personally decided i'd rather live without owning my own colour printer than deal with the pain of an inkjet.
 
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yeah, I think I am gonna go monochrome laser, question is finding a decently priced one with a scanner built in.
Then there's a few things to look at.

Cost per page.
Roller head life
dpi.
wireless.
Scanner.
 
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I have a HP color laser printer...actually owned it for a few years. Got tired of paying the "premium" for inkjet stuff.... Haven't looked back since.... Last I was shopping around.... it didn't seem like a B&W one was much more than a color one...might as well get it JUST IN CASE you might want to print out in color at some point!
 
I looked at a few things and my friend is trying to convince me to go back to another inkjet, he suggest trying a different brand printer. I saw a nice Canon printer that had scanner and paper feeder, I am getting the impressing that for similar money they offer extra features on laser such as document scan direct to pdf and page feeder. What do you guys think? revert idea to inkjet, what brantd?
 
Found a decent deal on some monochrome laser printer/copier.
which would you get?

brother MFC Series MFC-7340 for $110
or
Canon imageCLASS MF4350d for $130

From what I understand the Canon does duplex and the brother has a higher print dpi.
 
I have a Brother 7340 its a great machine

Brother makes good Printers. Have had 3 myself and have my family all buy them never had any issues.
 
bexamous said:
I got a Samsung CLP-315 for $150 and it powns, definitely worth it over a cheap inkjet. I've thrown out so many inkjet printers for being shit. And if you get the refill kits for laser, its like $15 for 1000-2000 pages. A new OEM toner cartridge is like $40-ish, but still, $/page is way lower than inkjet.
Click to expand...

My CLP-315, which I purchased for $100, lasted me around 2 years. The color ink never ran out and I only had to replace the black once. Of course, we didn't print much but 3 full time students used it. I ended up breaking it by using thicker paper and it jammed. I tried and tried but it never cleared itself of the paper jam. I then purchased a 315W (Wireless) for 150 and now I have backup ink (and some parts)! The wireless is finicky, though. I had to leave only the G band on.
 
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