Color laser printers- any recommendations

[Neilk]

Hi,

My boss went on some web site to solicit bids for a color laser printer and now I am being bombarded by salespeople telling me that their printer and service is the best.

Does anybody have any recommendations on which color laser printer to get. We only need it to print a couple hundred single page tri-fold brochures a month and our budget is about $1-2k.

Any purchasing tips would also be appreciated.

Thanks,
Neil

[id10t]

HP. We use a 4500N here at work in our lab, does a good job.

Between toner costs, etc. would you maybe be better just having a local print center do the mass production?

[RickM]

I use a color laser here for small presentations. Presently I'm having very good luck with the OKI C7350 (Networkable 10/100). Unfortunately I can't say the same for Lexmark.....let's see.....4 replacements in 2.5 years. They were nothing but trouble.

[RickM]

Here's a Dell 3100CN for $349:
http://www.slickdeals.net/#p5827

40% off w/ free ship. The coupon is expires after 1000 redemptions or Wed 3/9 11pm CT.

[arcsine]

I liked the Tektronics Phaser line. Don't know what Xerox has done to them since buying them.

[RallyJon]

I recently did a pre-purchase comparison of color lasers for similar purposes but more volume. I ultimately chose a Xerox Phaser 7750 which has been excellent. Xerox may have some lower volume models for better prices.

One thing--the consumables estimates on the various manufacturer web sites are very low. If you're printing brochures, your coverage will be closer to 50-80%, so you'll use a lot more toner than the usual "business graphics" estimate of 5-10% coverage. Keep that in mind when budgeting.

[lendaddy]

I have a Phazer sitting on my floor that we "Loved" too, that is until it needed a new printhead. No prob I thought as I happily called for service....... I forget how much, but it wasn't much more to get a new printer . I will NOT buy another and I can't bring myself to toss it in the ****can either after we dropped all that cake on it.

[Neilk]

Rick,

Tnanks for the lead. At $356 with tax and next day delivery, we couldn't go wrong with the Dell. It's so cheap that if my boss isn't happy with it, I won't hear about it for ages.

I am sure that there are much better printers around, but that one is good enough for us for the time being.

Thanks everyone for your other tips. Horror stories about printheads etc make me feel better about getting a nearly disposable laser printer.

[RickM]

Glad to help Neil.....I keep an eye on Slickdeals nearly daily as they have some unbelievable deals come up often. Let us know how the Dell performs.

[Saintly]

Xerox are top printers.. they just keep working.
We have 8 Xerox printers and two of them are colour.
the Phazer is a good, fast work horse of a printer and our DCC400 DocumentCenter is a copier, scanner, fax and digital printer and gives great results. Just remember to add as much memory as you can afford as colour eats it up. Also add a harddisk if you can, makes a lot of difference if it's a big print job.

[84porsche]

I work for a Ricoh dealer here in CA. And for the volume you are looking at, look at the CL3000. I know it will print for you but folding, you would need some additional options or bigger machines to do the folding unless this will be done by hand. The supplies are not necessarily cheap either. If you buy a machine, get a service contract. In the long run, if something breaks you will be better off and you may be able to get supplies included in the deal and pay per copy made.

[Saintly]

Depending on the ammount of colour on a page, a service contract (including consumables) can save you a lot of money.. you also seem to get a much better deal with a photocopier contract (DocumentCenter) than a printer (Phazer).
Another way to save money (atleast with our contract) is that Xerox charge the same for an A4 colour page (normal paper size) as for an A3 colour page (twice the size), so if you where printing 4 A4 pages double sided (8 sides total) to bind together it would be half the cost to print 2 A3 pages double sided (4 sides total) with 2 booklet pages per side and then fold it in half. The printer driver has booklet creation built into it so you print the pages normaly and it works out what order to print it in.
Can save a lot on a big print job.

[RickM]

Anyone know who makes the Dell printer?

[MysticLlama]

Another way to get a Phaser printer is with a contract through Xerox. We've done this twice now, the first one just hit 3 years and we own it, the second we just started a few months ago.

You get the printer for free, you just have to have a page commitment and buy the supplies from them. It covers everything warranty wise for 3 years onsite as well, so it works out if you print enough.

I think our commitment is around 1200 pages a month, each contract can be a bit different.

You can check it out at Free Color Printer

Yes, it's real, despite the name, damn ipod guys.