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Recommend me a network capable laser printer
- Thread starter O2Flow
- Start date
I've been eye-balling the HP Laser Jet 1320 at Costco, I think or something very similar. And then for network you might be able to try out a netgear print server adaptor.
Black and White Printers
Color Laser Printers
Black and White Printers
Color Laser Printers
What kind of customer? Home office user? A business with 200 employees sharing those two printers?
How much printing will they do? What kind of printing will they do?
Things to consider:
How much do the toner cartridges cost, and how many pages is the toner cart rated for? The lower end printers have expensive toner carts that don't yield many printed pages. For example, the LaserJet 1020 seems like a steal at $150.00, but it uses $70 carts that are rated for 2000 pages. On the other hand, the LaserJet 2420 cost $550 but can use $200 carts rated at 12,000 pages. Printing 12,000 pages on the 1020 would cost $420.00 in toner vs $200 in toner on the 2420.
Look at the duty cycle. A printer rated for 75,000 pages/month is going to last a lot longer than one rated for 5,000 pages/month. I own a LaserJet 4Plus that is rated at 10,000 to 50,000 pages per month. It was made in 1995, and it's still going strong after TWENTY years. I bought it used on EBay three years ago for $100.00, and then added the PostScript interpreter, 32MB of RAM, and an internal JetDirect network card.
Look at the speed of the processor in the printer, and the amount of RAM that comes with the printer. Complex graphics, and especially PostScript prints, work better (i.e. print faster) with printers that have more RAM and faster processors, especially at the higher resolutions (600 dpi, 1200dpi). The "8.5 seconds to print first page" are usually for simple text only prints.
How much printing will they do? What kind of printing will they do?
Things to consider:
How much do the toner cartridges cost, and how many pages is the toner cart rated for? The lower end printers have expensive toner carts that don't yield many printed pages. For example, the LaserJet 1020 seems like a steal at $150.00, but it uses $70 carts that are rated for 2000 pages. On the other hand, the LaserJet 2420 cost $550 but can use $200 carts rated at 12,000 pages. Printing 12,000 pages on the 1020 would cost $420.00 in toner vs $200 in toner on the 2420.
Look at the duty cycle. A printer rated for 75,000 pages/month is going to last a lot longer than one rated for 5,000 pages/month. I own a LaserJet 4Plus that is rated at 10,000 to 50,000 pages per month. It was made in 1995, and it's still going strong after TWENTY years. I bought it used on EBay three years ago for $100.00, and then added the PostScript interpreter, 32MB of RAM, and an internal JetDirect network card.
Look at the speed of the processor in the printer, and the amount of RAM that comes with the printer. Complex graphics, and especially PostScript prints, work better (i.e. print faster) with printers that have more RAM and faster processors, especially at the higher resolutions (600 dpi, 1200dpi). The "8.5 seconds to print first page" are usually for simple text only prints.
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/compare.aspx/colorlaser?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd
I actually have the 5100cn. It is a great laser/color laser that actually cost less to print per sheet than hp, brothers, etc.....
I actually have the 5100cn. It is a great laser/color laser that actually cost less to print per sheet than hp, brothers, etc.....
jjmcwill said:
max res would be 600 x 600, black and white printing only. I need it to be fast, network capable, and a good value per page (toner wise). trying to stay south of $500 if I can help it. Would also like a warranty since the shop is notorious for the tire dust killing components in PCs (optical drives)
We had really good luck with the HP 4050 series. All the other printers in the office started to fall apart after a few years, but the 4050 just kept chugging away. (No idea if the 4250 replacement has the same reputation.)
Anything smaller, and we just burned them up. None of the sub-$500 printers we used on the network lasted very long.
Anything smaller, and we just burned them up. None of the sub-$500 printers we used on the network lasted very long.
Zamboni said:
We've invested in a couple 4250's. They are a bit north of $500, but well worth it in my opinion. They are rated for 200,000 pages per month and rock solid. If you are going to spend the money get something rated for over 50,000 pages a month if you want them to last. My $.02. Happy buying!!!
Half of the 2100s we had developed issues with the manual feed, where the sensor assumed that had paper loaded for manual feed all the time. Since there wasn't really any paper there, it would panic and not print until you clicked the bypass button. If you want it to last, keep the manual feed tray closed as much as possible.canis said: