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goMac · Dec 7, 2006, 08:53 PM

I just saw a killer deal online for a color laser printer. I may not get to it in time, but for future reference, what is everyone here's opinions on color laser printers? It's an HP 4550 for $250, but if it ran out of toner it looks like it would be around ~$300 to buy more toner.

Just wondered what people's opinions where on the maintenance costs.

olePigeon · Dec 7, 2006, 10:05 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

I just saw a killer deal online for a color laser printer. I may not get to it in time, but for future reference, what is everyone here's opinions on color laser printers? It's an HP 4550 for $250, but if it ran out of toner it looks like it would be around ~$300 to buy more toner.

Just wondered what people's opinions where on the maintenance costs.

For home use, I would think that Color Lasers are probably about the same. The 4550 is only 600 dpi, though. It also takes a full 5 minutes to warm up. We have a couple of them at my office.

Still cool, though. If you're printing to normal paper, laser is the way to go. Smudge free. I like it a lot better than inkjet. Awesome for transparencies, too.

Eug Wanker · Dec 7, 2006, 11:12 PM

High quality inkjets are great too. The problem is that the cheap inkjets mostly aren't so good.

P.S. Check out the Peripherals forum.

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Awesome for transparencies, too.

I guess so, but do people here still use transparencies? I don't think I've used one in 3 years.

goMac · Dec 8, 2006, 01:24 AM

Originally Posted by olePigeon

The 4550 is only 600 dpi, though. It also takes a full 5 minutes to warm up. We have a couple of them at my office.

Yeah, we have a few of them at work too. What caught my eye was the printer came with a JetDirect card, and it's a Postscript.

Side rant, I can't believe in this day and age people can ship printers with no Postscript or Postscript emulation. It annoys me how HP can build expensive huge inkjets, put no option on for built in ethernet Ethernet, and then not add postscript so that when we put the laserprinter on an HP Print Server box, everyone needs new drivers<end rant>

The size of the printer is the biggest issue to me, which is why I'll probably pass (that, and the warm up time). That said, after working with HP printers at work, I'm more keen to go for the older HP laserjets and not the new ones.

CharlesS · Dec 8, 2006, 05:36 AM

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Awesome for transparencies, too.

Um, wouldn't a laser printer melt the plastic that makes up a transparency sheet? They do generate a lot of heat...

Eug Wanker · Dec 8, 2006, 07:37 AM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Um, wouldn't a laser printer melt the plastic that makes up a transparency sheet? They do generate a lot of heat...

There are transparencies specifically built for printers. They do not melt.

Of course, if you work in an office with people who don't know this... instant doorstop when they use regular transparencies.

OreoCookie · Dec 8, 2006, 07:47 AM

Inkjets have much better quality when you print transparencies. My department has bought an inkjet just for that this week (HP OfficeJet K550). Unfortunately this printer doesn't speak Postscript as well, so we need to keep an old Desktop (a PowerMac G4 400) on active duty just for that.

I also agree with the notion that a professional printer must have Postscript. Unfortunately, our new HP LaserJet (4250) crashes a lot and rather randomly, its PS interpreter seems to be the culprit -- something my 300 Euro-Kyocera laser printer doesn't do

Love Calm Quiet · Dec 8, 2006, 07:58 AM

I'm lusting after the newish (2006) HP color lasers (forgetting model #) ~$900. They have much larger cartridges (that don't cost much more than smaller).
If you can spring for better (more expensive) model, remember that if you're at all a heavy user the CARTRIDGE costs are what will eat you. ...so that in the end you might have spent LESS and gotten a faster/better machine.
Read the fine print on cartridge length-of-life and cost.

OreoCookie · Dec 8, 2006, 08:12 AM

I would rather suggest Oki. My recent experience with HP suggests that their built quality isn't what it once was -- that sadly includes laser printers.

macroy · Dec 8, 2006, 09:11 AM

If you're getting a business class printer for home use - the toner life should be okay. Unless you actually print alot. I had a LaserJet 5SiMX for 4 years and never even needed to change toner cartridges. And my current printer, a Phaser I've had for 3 years, still has 56% black and the colors are still above 97%. Needless to say, I've probably printed less than 100 pages in color.

So it will really depend on how much you print.

The only thing about business printers... they suck up a lot of juice, and if you have the powersaver on... its a good 3 minutes for it to warm up. Not a long time in general, but when you're printing something.... having to wait 3 minutes is a pain sometimes.

CMYKid · 09:36 AM

Second that. I have an OKI c9600hdn that is simply AMAZING, both in build quality and capability.
The print quality of an LED printer is definitely noticeable when compared to laser.

I fed a sheet of luan through it even.

Its under warranty. ;-)

scottiB · Dec 8, 2006, 09:26 AM

I have a 4550L (only a paper tray--like a Personal LaserWriter LS/NT/NTR) that I plug into an AirPort Express. After nearly two years of use, I'm still quite happy with it. Consumables ARE expensive (but not nearly as much as the inkjet that this one replaced). My wife prints a lot of comps, and I've had two drum changes and each color swapped 3-4 times. The high capacity cartridges are worth the extra cost.

For us, it's worth it, but print grayscale if color is not required to save drum wear.

We'll probably spring for a tabloid laser in 2007, and keep the 2550 for A6/A7 envelope printing.

ETA: When I get home, I'll try to remember to post a lifetime page count for the machine.

olePigeon · Dec 8, 2006, 09:42 AM

Anyone have a Xerox solid ink LED printer? I always wanted to get one of those, but even the original model is still expensive. What's so cool about it is how cheap the ink is, especially off eBay or Ink specialty stores.

Doofy · Dec 8, 2006, 09:45 AM

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Anyone have a Xerox solid ink LED printer?

They the same thing? From looking at the Xerox site I always figured that solid ink and LED were two different things.

Been contemplating purchase of one of those solid ink jobbies. Not got around to it yet.

olePigeon · Dec 8, 2006, 09:59 AM

Originally Posted by Doofy

They the same thing? From looking at the Xerox site I always figured that solid ink and LED were two different things.

Been contemplating purchase of one of those solid ink jobbies. Not got around to it yet.

I have no idea what it is, now, after looking at the diagram. It's a drum printer, that's for sure, but it transfers the image to the drum kinda like a stationary inkjet. It's totally weird.

I see they've also dropped the price on the lowend model to $500. That includes, by the way, ethernet print server AND level 3 PostScript. It also has 1200 dpi and can do 24 ppm in color or B&W. The higher end has 2400 dpi and does 30 ppm.

Pretty impressive.

I also like the fact that you can queue up ink... uh... blocks, and that you can refill at any point without stopping printing (assuming there's enough ink in the reservoir)

awaspaas · Dec 8, 2006, 10:00 AM

Call me ignorant, but is PostScript even necessary these days?

olePigeon · Dec 8, 2006, 10:07 AM

It's $500 because of a $400 rebate good through December 31st.

olePigeon · Dec 8, 2006, 10:10 AM

Originally Posted by awaspaas

Call me ignorant, but is PostScript even necessary these days?

Depends, if you want your document to be the only one that looks like it came out of Microsoft Publisher.

Doofy · Dec 8, 2006, 10:10 AM

Originally Posted by olePigeon

I have no idea what it is, now, after looking at the diagram. It's a drum printer, that's for sure, but it transfers the image to the drum kinda like a stationary inkjet. It's totally weird.

I just read this...
http://www.imaging.org/resources/web.../solid_ink.cfm
...if that's any use to you.

They do look kinda sweet.

goMac · Dec 8, 2006, 10:12 AM

Originally Posted by awaspaas

Call me ignorant, but is PostScript even necessary these days?

To print to a Postscript printer all you need are Postscript drivers, which most major OS's include. Hence my complaint about PostScript.

OreoCookie · Dec 8, 2006, 10:30 AM

Originally Posted by awaspaas

Call me ignorant, but is PostScript even necessary these days?

Yes. You don't need drivers for any OS plus you have a lot less problems printing documents. Even relatively boring scientific documents can be screwed up by faulty print drivers (had a few cases with my inkjet).

Also, it's necessary to have a smart printer when working in large networks.

awaspaas · Dec 8, 2006, 10:31 AM

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Depends, if you want your document to be the only one that looks like it came out of Microsoft Publisher.

Come on, I'm serious here. Does it only help if you're using EPS graphics? How many people that aren't pros use that?

Mac OS X renders PostScript fonts, doesn't it, so it's not that.

I'm just curious in which type of circumstances PostScript makes a difference.

olePigeon · 11:01 AM

Originally Posted by awaspaas

Come on, I'm serious here. Does it only help if you're using EPS graphics? How many people that aren't pros use that?

Mac OS X renders PostScript fonts, doesn't it, so it's not that.

I'm just curious in which type of circumstances PostScript makes a difference.

You're getting half of it, but what you're missing is that PostScript is a universal command language for printers. It doesn't matter tha make, brand, type, or resolution of the printer, nothing matters; if it supports PostScript, you can print to it; from any machine using any OS.

Perhaps just as important, regardless of printer or computer, whatever it is you print will look the same no matter what.

You also only need one printer driver to print to any of those printers. It's the same printer language no matter what you print to. You can print it out in binary or in plain text (which is handy for line printers, reports, etc.)

Edit: Forgot to mention the situations where PostScript makes a difference, and that's in any place where you have a lot of printers, or, you'll be dealing with large and/or complex images. Not to mention that just using a printer with PostScript is so much easier. 99% chance you have the driver already on your computer, since you only need one, unlike PCL where you need an individual driver for each type of printer (and can cause conflicts.)

PDFs, by the way, are an offshoot of PostScript and are a great visual representation of PostScript. No matter who's viewing the PDF or what computer you're viewing it on, it looks the same (when you embed the fonts.)

olePigeon · Dec 8, 2006, 11:04 AM

Just so you know, Quartz is based off of PostScript as well. You couldn't have better integration of computer and printer than you do with Mac OS X.

goMac · Dec 8, 2006, 11:08 AM

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Just so you know, Quartz is based off of PostScript as well. You couldn't have better integration of computer and printer than you do with Mac OS X.

Quartz is based off PDF, but in turn PDF is based off of Postscript.

Eriamjh · Dec 8, 2006, 08:22 PM

I got a Lexmark C500n for $200 after rebates and such. Cheap printer, big, with fairly expensive toner carts.

Ultimately, I got it to work. You can read all about it on the other thread.

In the end, it does work. I hope new drivers will allow me to eliminate the sharing so I can just use it on the LAN with my Intel Macs.