[biscuit]

Hi folks,

I realise these threads pop up here continually, but my problem is a little different to normal. I need to print my PhD thesis in a couple of weeks (hopefully!) and I'm thinking of buying a colour printer specifically for the task. I've looked into professional printing and it's very expensive: £100 for the three copies I need. I may as well buy a printer, right?

I'm thinking of a colour laser printer since the text is so much better on a laser. I've seen the HP 1500L recommended; I can probably pick up for £150 or so. Does any one have another recommendation? The main consideration is good OS X compatibility. Ideally I'd like to use it through my AirPort Express too.

Thanks in advance peeps

biscuit

[Apple Pro Underwear]

we use only HP laserjets at my workplace and epson inkjets for color proofing.

does your thesis have a lot of color in it?

[robby818]

I've been using a Dell 3100cn for the last 3 months. First, it's really big and very heavy (and a little ugly). BUT it has an ethernet port and it was really easy to configure network printing with my power mac. Print quality is really good. Black text looks as good as the print from my HP laser printers. The 3100cn has the "guts" of a Xerox machine. Xerox color lasers get pretty good reviews. It was only ~$300 US and it came with FULL high capacity cartridges. This is my first color laser printer and so far am very, very pleased. It was a really good value and the price was the real reason why I bought it. For the most part the sub $1000 color lasers out today are pretty slow and don't print great graphics so I figure just buy an inexpensive one and in two years time there will be much better and prob less expensive printers available. Hopefully, I may not even have to replace the original cartridges before i replace this printer. good thing bec the 4 color cartridges will prob cost more than the printers.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1725623,00.asp

[biscuit]

Thanks for the recommendation; I'll check it out.

My thesis has quite a lot of colour in, yeah. I tried to make as many of the graphs and figures grayscale, thinking that the professional printers would treat those as B&W and hence it'd be cheaper. I found out this week that anything that isn't pure B&W is treated as colour automatically B&W pages are 8p each, but colour pages are 50p!

Thanks again folks.

biscuit

[skelotar]

take it to a professional print shop

what sense does it make to buy a printer to print out 3 copies of one document?

[Cadaver]

Originally Posted by skelotar

take it to a professional print shop

what sense does it make to buy a printer to print out 3 copies of one document?

Because in the first post he said it would cost him £100 to print his three copies. For an extra 50 quid he could get himself a printer and have it available anytime.

(Did I get the British slang correct? I'm a yankee myself)

[biscuit]

Also, I may need to print it all again if my examiners require corrections/alterations to be made. That's pretty much a certainty actually, so we're looking at £200 for that lot at the print shop.

Having said that, colour lasers seem to be more expensive than I thought. The Dell 3100cn mentioned earlier is £340 in the UK, i.e. $620. The 3000cn is £270, but there's no mention of Mac OS X support and that makes me nervous. There's a HP 1500L on eBay for £155 + £15 postage, although I'd be bidding so it might be more.

Thanks for the guidance once again,

biscuit

[robby818]

Originally Posted by biscuit

Also, I may need to print it all again if my examiners require corrections/alterations to be made. That's pretty much a certainty actually, so we're looking at £200 for that lot at the print shop.

Having said that, colour lasers seem to be more expensive than I thought. The Dell 3100cn mentioned earlier is £340 in the UK, i.e. $620. The 3000cn is £270, but there's no mention of Mac OS X support and that makes me nervous. There's a HP 1500L on eBay for £155 + £15 postage, although I'd be bidding so it might be more.

Thanks for the guidance once again,

biscuit

The 3000cn is not mac compatible so stay away from that one. Also, the 3000 does not come with the full high capacity cartirdges, instead it comes with starter toner cartridges, which makes it not a very good value. I think that if you want the $320 price, you either need dell coupons or need to wait for a sale.

[Apple Pro Underwear]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050621-5022.html

$99 Dell LASER printer.

THATS CHEAP. however you might get what you pay for.

[biscuit]

Alas, it's only B&W. I could print the B&W pages on that and colour on my inkjet, but that's a hassle that I'm trying to avoid. I start a new job in a week and I won't have a lot of time to mess about with it.

Thanks for the suggestion though, it still might be worth it.

biscuit

[mhuie]

I have the Kyocera 2430DL, I got it for $400.

Prints great text as well as color for diagrams, line-art. Not really recommended for photos (but what color laser is?).

It works great with OS X, and it has a built in ethernet port and pictbridge (relatively useless).