john_s

iTrader: (1)

We are considering a colour laser printer for our office from the ranges that have appeared around the £300 price range. We'll probably go for one with a network interface.

Just wondered if anyone has anything to say (good or bad) about the different offerings from HP, Xerox, Minolta, etc?

TIA for any input.

John.

IWatkins

John,

Many are Ok for "office" type of output, e.g. colour Excel charts, PowerPoint slides etc. But most are useless for things like colour photos. Even the £9k workgroup printers we have do a poor job at colour photos.

Your best bet is to try before you buy at this end of the market. Just put a disk of your usual stuff together, find somewhere that has it in stock and go and test print your stuff.

What I found (looked to buy one for home) is how variable the output is between similar priced machines. However, I didn't like any of them so (for now) have stuck with a B&W laser and a colour inkjet.

Cheers

Ian

AllanB

Thats not totally true these days. OK it might be if you buy HP all the time. The Xerox 7750 gives very good picture quality and we sell stack of them for proofers. Ok the quality won't match an inkjet but tho cost per page is a fraction.

What will you be ysing the printer for, what ink coverage, how many pages per month, how important is speed, not just pages per minute but time for first page. Plenty of cheap ones out there that are slow, maybe still 4 pass, very weedy processors and very slow for the first page.

Xerox is the way to go with PowerPC processors, lots of RAM, true Adobe Postscript 3 and very good colour accuracy and image quality but quality costs.

If you want the best of both worlds Xerox do a wax based printer that gives better image quality, is very fast but costs more to run. Can't remember the model number off my head but it replaced the 840N.

Mickle

You need a magicolor 5430 DL

20 ppm A4 in full colour and monochrome
First page out: 14 seconds in colour and monochrome
Warm-up time 35 seconds in colour and monochrome
2400 dpi

£669

http://www.konicaminoltaprinters.co....5430/index.htm

john_s

iTrader: (1)

It's mainly going to be for "office" output - colour from word and excel, with a bit of DTP type stuff thrown in. We occasionally print photos, but not often. The bulk of our printing is mono and currently done with an 8(ish) year old HP laserjet (6P i think).

We are looking for something with a bit more durable and professional look than the inkjet we currently use for colour output.

Might do as Ian suggested, and have a look for somewhere that will let me do some test printing.

Thanks,

John.

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Dam right about Xerox being pricey. We use to have touchscreen colour laser jobby that had its own 'fiery' NT server. I think it retailed @ about £50K and that was 5 years ago

AllanB

John just remember a good inkjet will possibly give better results than a good colour laser but the laser is faster with a lower cost of ownership but a higher initial purchase price.


AllanB