Recommend a Laser All-in-one.

[Poppa_Meth]

Our all-in-one at work is finally dying after 6 years of heavy use. Not bad for a home class inkjet. I'm looking into a laser all-in-one for replacement. It would be nice to have a color printer but now absolutely necessary. I'm also looking for one that has built in networking. It would be nice to have something with uncluttered software as well. My one major gripe with HP is all the junk software they want to put on your system.

[INFRATOM]

For professional use ALL in one printer is not a good option because you are hooked to the driver and as OS change you are at the mercy of HP. A workhorse like HP4050 never dies and it is a network printer too. This was just an example. Multi functions for all the other functions are slow and in my opinion it is a head ache. For color laser if you want nice picture get the one with wax the picture looks better. Since you used multi function for 6 years my suggestions may not appeal much but most of our clients with print problem had multi function. HP even for old print drivers that everyone knows they would never release updates the packaged all the drivers to have the profiling (spyware) software in the cloak of checking for updates. Use Sysinternals autorun to disable all the extra services and delete them or expand the driver and just install the driver "only" alone through device manager.
There is Brother laser they sell them cheap, one of my client is a doctor when they go on sale they buy a few and when the toner runs out they just throw it out.

[JohnnyMalaria]

I have a Brother MFC-8860DN that is great. It's printed more than 35,000 pages (at 30ppm). It is a scanner, a copier and a fax, too.

It is hooked up to my LAN so all the computers can use it. When scanning, I can be at the machine and choose which computer to scan to - it will create PDFs if needed.

Toner lasts about 15,000 pages and costs about $100 - less than a penny a sheet.

It's also pretty rugged. Last time I looked at the latest crop, they seemed quite flimsy.

Brother's software is unintrusive and does pretty much what you need it to.

[ahhaa]

couple basic consumer Qs for your consideration:

toner systems range wildly in complexity and user base. will you prob'ly be using factory or refilled carts?

are you talking wireless networking? bluetooth or what?

do you actually use the OCR function? scan color slides?
{the frequently included software is getting more monopolized by Nuance (Dragon); it may not stay very free for long }

are you interested in linux or Mac OSs? check out that driver situation.

oh yeah; the cheapest good B&W laser out there is prob'ly the Samsung 2510 at around $50; if you happen to still need a LPT parallel cable for something, its got one in addition to the USB 2.

[rallynavvie]

I upgraded to a Xerox DocuColor 252. It does damn near everything. Cost is a bit much for even medium businesses though

[lordsmurf]

HP color lasers have awful quality. This is well-known in the printing world. You'd want to stick to more respected color laser makers, such as Konica-Minolta and Xerox.

All-in-one is a bad idea. Those machines are too disposable. Get a good scanner, a good printer, etc. If space is an issue, then unplug the scanner, etc when not in use, stick it in a closet. Even I only use a flatbed a few times a month.

[orsetto]

The color laser based "all-in-ones" are not a good investment: their price points are ridiculous and you end up with a low-grade scanner/fax glued to a barely-passable printer at a cost higher than buying good separates. The only time you ever see a "bargain" is when HP starts dumping model-year leftovers at clearance prices thru office supply chains. HP is among the worst at the "all-in-one" color laser category: avoid them.

At current prices, in a depressed economy, there are some outright steals available in separates. The best color laser buy is the Brother 4070DN which has been on the market for years unchanged- because it works. Three years ago it cost $1000, I've seen it on sale all this past year for $349-399. That price includes networking and a PostScript graphics emulator, helpful if you use complex graphics. The high-capacity toner is reasonably priced and the printer accepts USB sticks and camera flash cards on its front panel for quick, direct printing. There are dozens of decent scanners around for under $100. If you're tight on space, Canon has an assortment of tiny USB-powered scanners about the size of a spiral notebook. And most stores are practically giving away good fax machines.

An important factor to consider is your usage pattern. If you don't do a LOT of color printing, you could buy a fairly good all-in-one inkjet like the HP 7500 or 7600 series ($200 or less). Supplement it with an excellent low-end B/W laser like the Samsung mentioned above, and you're good to go. Some caveats: the HP multifunctions 7500/7600 are not the greatest in the world but they're the best of a bad breed. The scanner/fax portion is very good, the printer uses economical large ink tanks. Other inkjet all-in-ones, from HP, Epson and Canon, are prone to clogs, wasted ink and flaky "chip" malfunctions on the ink containers. Stay away. The Xerox Phaser thermal-wax color printers are attractively priced and very good, but definitely not for the small office or home user. They use a lot of electricity to keep the wax continually melted, and the wax stinks in a small room or house without ventilation. These printers are for high-volume graphics offices, where their speed, image quality and low consumables cost are a boon. But this backfires with low volume offices, because the melted wax eventually evaporates if not used and ends up VERY costly to replace. Avoid most super-low-priced color lasers like the $149 Samsungs: they'll blow out your circuit breakers and they fall apart after one ream of paper (Samsung makes great B/W printers, strangely).

[joytimeday]

This week there is a printer sale from staple, you can have a look there, some of their prices are qutie nice. HP LaserJet M1522nf Flatbed All-in-One is qutie nice choice if you want to get a laser AIO.

[rallynavvie]

Actually my Doc252 is an all-in-one. It prints wonderfully, scans up to 11x17" at 600dpi with excellent clarity, and can fax things from it. Since it has a document feeder it can scan a stack of pages. It even staples and can make booklets. It's about as "all-in-one" as you can get.

[Poppa_Meth]

Thanks for all the input. We got the current machine working again fine, for the moment. It's a cheap HP 6110 that's been going great for 6 years. I don't think it'll last too much longer though. It's fax functionality we've been having issues with. It still prints and scans pretty well. I may be able to just leave it hooked to one PC and look into a monochrome laser fax/copier. I like having an all in one for these sorts of things. It's easier for the other employees to use. I'm the only one even remotely computer literate in the place. I do understand quality concerns though. Nothing is made all that well these days.

I'll probably be using factory refills. The only source around here is Staples. I'd have to order anything else.

I would like network functionality. Wireless is easiest but I have no problem running cat5 to the router. I know hardwired would be much more dependable.

I'm not too worried about OCR. We have a full version of NitroPDF on one PC and Acrobat on another, both of which have their own OCR if I need it.

All our PCs currently run Windows XP. There is too much software we have that will not run on Mac or Linux.