Color Laser Printer Recommendations...

[niccador]

This is a topic that's come up before, and yes, I took a peek through some of the existing topics, but what little I could find is about a year or more out of date, so...

Basically, I print a boatload of full color dvd casewraps, booklets, and labels.

For the past few years I've used good old inkjet printers, starting with some random HP Deskjet, then fell in love with a Canon i560, and when it's print head died after barely a year (I told you I printed a lot), I upgraded to a Pixma iP6600D and later added a Pixma iP5000 to it (since the print resolutions were identical, and the BCI-6 carts were cheaper).

When I print my materials, I've always used the highest quality settings available, and been extremely pleased with the results....but not so pleased with the ink consumption.

[NOTE: Please do not recommend 3rd-party compatible inks. Been there, done that, had some bad experiences. Quality is of the utmost concern to me, so I'm forced to stick with OEMs.)

The old i560 used to give me about 250 pages out of a cartridge...these higher res Pixma models only give me about 125-ish. But I put up with it, because the print quality is beautiful. I find it hard to imagine anything that can print better (that I can afford...lol).

Anyway, back to the ink...
On average, I probably print about 800 pages per month. That's about $300 per month in ink alone. That's just plain sick.
A BCI-6 cartridge has a rated yield of about 280 pages @ 5% coverage, so my practical estimates are giving me about 44% of the rated yield...

So I started eyeballing color laserjet printers...

The right printer, with the right high-yield toners could conceivably provide me with twice the amount of prints (or more) for the same price that I'm paying for inkjet carts...if my math holds true.

An example would be the Samsung CLP-510 I've been looking at... It's high-yield toners are rated for 5000 pages @ 5%... 44% of which would be about 2200 pages for $400 worth of toner....

So, if the math is correct, the choice seems pretty obvious. Laser is the way to go...

BUT...

As I mentioned above, quality is very important to me...
I've tried to go around to local stores, hunting for print samples from various printers... Sadly, it seems that most retail stores think that Hewlett-Packard is the only company capable of producing a color laser printer for the home office...
One such HP Laserjet 2600 with a res of 600x600 (as ALL HP color lasers seem to be locked at), prints a pretty picture....but it's not quite as good as it could be. Plus, I guess demo sheets aren't exactly indicative of practical use...

The CLP-510 is 1200x1200...one might assume it would naturally look better, but this isn't always the case...

Is there anyone who can recommend a $200-400 color laser printer, and vouch for it's print quality?

Good god, I've rambled on... Sorry for the mess....lol

[videobread]

Some advice: I recharge my own black laser printer carts for about $4 a pop. Been doing it for years. You can also recharge color laser carts. The process requires knowledge, a vacume like they use on zerox machines and simple hand tools. Basically you take the used cart replace the photo electric drum (one time only) and them do some cleaning, resurfacing as instructed and add new toner. It's like buying a recharged laser printer cart, but you do it yourself.
I would recommend that you go to www.scc-inc.com then call and talk with the sales people and see what printer's are best for recharging. What ones are being recharged by most of their customers, etc. Their imaging division is where you would get the oem color toner and the photo electric drums and other parts need to recharge the carts for your model printer. The vacume that most people use costs about $200. Only simple hand tools are required at nominal cost.

[tug_hill2]

""One such HP Laserjet 2600 with a res of 600x600 (as ALL HP color lasers seem to be locked at), prints a pretty picture....but it's not quite as good as it could be. Plus, I guess demo sheets aren't exactly indicative of practical use...

The CLP-510 is 1200x1200...one might assume it would naturally look better, but this isn't always the case...

Is there anyone who can recommend a $200-400 color laser printer, and vouch for it's print quality?""

Hello niccadore, As far as I'm concerned the stores are correct about the HP Colot Laserjet printers. I've had my model 4500 for over 8 years and am extremely happy with it. Your price range is a bit narrow, you will only get OLD technology with a $200 to 400 dollar range. Their 3800 model has all of the latest technology including the improved HP photo or image REt Technology which enhances your prints.

You can't go wrong with an HP Color Laserjet printer.

Tug_Hill2