Colour Laserjet? Printer Recommendations.....Help?

[Adam]

I'm fed up with replacing expensive ink cartridges, and wondered if now is the time to take the plunge on a colour laser printer.

It will not, ever, be used for photos as I prefer to send these off for printing, its purely for "home-business" type use, mostly black, but occasionally items in colour.

Printing speed is not of significance. I've already got a flatbed scanner which is fairly convenient for photocopying type stuff (it has a button on the front and you get a copy on the printer), but would consider one of these "all-in-one" jobbies.

Anyone have any suggestions for brand/media/sales websites?

My limit is around £300, but would prefer it to be around £200.

The PC is WinXp, on a wireless router and the printer would be positioned close by.

Edit, what I dislike is being stung for repalcement cartridge costs, so really would rather pay more up front, and then have cheaper consumables...

Thanks,

Adam

 

[andyw]

Can't comment from personal experience, but PC Pro A-lists the Brother HL-4040CN as the best personal colour laser. RRP £335 , www.printerland.co.uk has it at £285.

Here's the review:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/labs/156345/brot ... =hl+4040cn

They identify its low running costs as edging it to first place over the previous incumbent the lexmark c530dn for £240 (which has a duplex unit).

 

[Mike.C]

Adam I don't know much about laserjets but I have seen the price of the toner refills and they seem to be anything from £80 to £120 depending on the model. So I presume they must last aa hell of a lot longer then the cartridges is that right?

Cheers

Mike

 

[Rich]

Thats how they make their money Mike, selling the printer cheaply and then you have to buy THEIR refills at a premium.
Rich.

 

[ike]

Adam,

Colour toner cartridges are not cheap either. £40 + for each, and don't forget the drum. Cost per sheet won't be a lot less than inkjet. I chose a Canon inkjet with separate cartridges. They can be got for less than £2.00 each for some types (e.g. BCI-3x)

 

[gidon]

Hi Adam
I have a Samsung CLP-510N colour laser printer - it's good - has duplex unit built in (really worth it in my opinion) and network port, plus it's very quick in black and white which is what I use it for most of all. But it's massive and I almost had a heart attack when I looked to replace the colour toner! Luckily work pay for it.
But as I said I use it for black and white mainly and having the colour option is very handy.
It is pretty slow to start printing as well which can be annoying if you just want to print a couple of sheets off.
By the way I bought an wireless bridge for it so I can print to it wirelessly from any computer which is neat. Think I bought it from printerland.co.uk or a similiar sounding site ...
Cheers
Gidon

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Adam

I have the HP 2600 which cost about 250 and includes a network port. The 1600 is <200 but it doesn't have the network connection.

The HP has, iirc, four or five cartridges and the ones supplied with the printer, as with all manufacturers, are only about a third full.

It's the cartridges where they make their money.

BTW the quality of the HP is excellent.

Cheers,
Neil

 

[paulm]

Adam,

Have you checked out the following for their compatibles (ie not original manufacturers cartridges) ?

http://www.superinks.co.uk/index.html

I've used them a lot for compatible cartridges for our epson stylus photo inkjet and the results are great and the prices a fraction of the proper epson ones, especially if you buy one of the bulk packages.

May work out cheaper than a laserjet....?

Cheers, Paul.

 

[Slim]

Makro are currently selling the Samsung CLP300 colour laser printer for £99 + VAT. They say it is the smallest colour laser in the world. A black toner refill is £34.99 + VAT.

 

[Adam]

Adam,

Have you checked out the following for their compatibles (ie not original manufacturers cartridges) ?

http://www.superinks.co.uk/index.html

I've used them a lot for compatible cartridges for our epson stylus photo inkjet and the results are great and the prices a fraction of the proper epson ones, especially if you buy one of the bulk packages.

May work out cheaper than a laserjet....?

Cheers, Paul.

I have used unbranded refills but twice the printer has complained and I've been lumbered with unusable cartridges.

Adam

 

[Scrums]

I took the leap a few months ago, and bought a Samsung CLP300 - including a pack of replacement toners - £170 I think.
Brilliant ! ....v.quick printing, outstanding quality, small footprint etc,etc, just what it says on the tin. Still not into the new pack of toners.

Drawbacks - Prints labels OK, doesn't like card( anything over 120 gsm) totally hates photo paper - anything dark 'glues' itself onto the rollers and rips the paper apart.

Beware - the 'out of the box' package comes with only about 70% filled toners.

Chris.

 

[Malc]

Hi
We bought a colour OKI C5750dn laser for printing leaflets a couple of years ago. It now resides in our loft. The problem we found was that on full coverage on a sheet the no of pages the toners printed was very low. It made the leaflets very expensive to do. Also to replace all the toners was as much as buying the printer again. At some point you have to replace the print drum and fuser unit.

We now use an Epson printer and fill it with compatible cartridges that are a third of the price of originals. You invalidate your printer warranty by doing this but only two refill sets and you have saved the cost of the printer.

We do keep one printer with original inks for photographs.

 

[RogerS]

We have a Konica Minolta 2450DL colour laser printer. Having consolidated two households means that we also have a B&W laser HP that we tend to use for normal printing and reserving the Minolta for colour prints.

The BIG bonus though is that when we bought it, it came as a double act with a copier that sits above printer and can copy (using the printer) in both colour and B&W. £50 notes come out a treat although the paper is bit thick.

 

[Adam]

Thanks for all the inputs, I'm watching the thread carefully before I will go and further my research.

Adam

 

[White House Workshop]

Worth checking prices VERY carefully. A friends of ours found some Canon coour laser printers on sale for less than the cost of the replacement cartridges. He bought 4, and sends them to recycle when the toner runs out (about 9 months it seems).

 

[andrewm]

Worth checking prices VERY carefully. A friends of ours found some Canon coour laser printers on sale for less than the cost of the replacement cartridges. He bought 4, and sends them to recycle when the toner runs out (about 9 months it seems).

Do they ship colour lasers with full toner cartridges? I know that with inkjet the cartridges shipped with the printer are often only 'starter' cartridges and do not contain as much ink as a new one. So, at least with inkjet, doing that would no be cost effective.

Andrew

 

[Anonymous]

I have used HP colour laserjets for ages, 20 pages per minute B/W and fast for colour.

Cartridges are expensive, but typically last me for over 2 years of use in my office at work

 

[Chris Knight]

It says nothing about laser printers but I have sworn never to buy another HP printer - even though I have a satisfactory but rather old HP laserjet (B&W) as it is.

The reason is that the last HP printer I bought (actually an all in one, inkjet, network capable thingy) was unbelievably self important in the way it chuntered about all the time and the software that got loaded on my computer was about 600MB's worth - most of which seemed to want to live in memory, consuming a large slice of CPU time as well. I got so fed up with it I tossed it out after a couple of months. I am now living happily with a Canon all-in-one.