good printer?

[parklifeclothes]

About that time again when I need to look at getting a decent printer. To be used mainly for actinic printouts, envelopes, labels and the odd colour flyer, I thought I would capture any ideas anyone has got.
Budget not overly a problem but want something that will do the job and last.

Also interested in knowing if buying manufacturers original cartridges is really the best way to go as we are current spending a fortune on ink.

[NormanRouxel]

No particular hardware recommendations as they have to be related to how much you print and what the mix between mono and colour is.

However consider getting two printers - a mono laser for the day to day jobs - and an ink-jet for the occasional where you really need colour (or just keep the one you have which will now have a much lower duty cycle).

Colour lasers are another possibility - I use a networked Samsung CLP300n colour laser (£180). This sits on the LAN so is accessible to any computer. I'm a low volume printer so this suits me fine. USB only version £130. Not good for doing envelopes however as there's no single sheet input.

[leehack]

Id suggest a laser printer for B&W too, my thing never seems to run out, great tools. Large business printers are now affordable to the small business, so follow their lead IMO.

[Jan]

We just got a colour laserjet 2600 (it cost less than £200) - it's a good printer, the consumables are expensive though so we also have a epson photoprinter for printing CDs and internal documents.

Regards,

[completerookie]

I'm running a series of epson R200* inkjet printers, I think the range is now the r300 or r400 series.
they cost me under £80.00 each fast great printout but the nice thing is that on ebay (hornsea inkjet supplies), there is an ink supplier that supplies 28 cartridges (colours and b&w) for just £18.00
I had a problem with one set of cartridges, phoned him up, and they were swapped out the next day - great service
at the price of the ink, I don't care how many pictures of "green grass" the kids produce.
the inks are NOT epsoms, but who cares, they have given me no problems for the last 18 months or so.
when its quality, then it a nice kyocera colour laser is used, fast but also cheap.
I also tend to watch ebay and the likes looking for genuine refills for the laser and buy them up at the right price to get a "supply in-house" just in case.

[Stereo Steve]

If you are doing low volume b+w the small samsung lasers are excellent and the toner can be refilled for about £10 so very cheap to run.

If it's volume, we just got an HP 4250 for about £600 inc which can print about 200 pages in minutes and is very cost effective.

[Jan]

Be a little wary of samsungs, they are nice cheap lasers but particularly when used with cheap refill toner the ink will smudge on the paper.

Regards,

[parklifeclothes]

Wow, a good load of idea's, edging towards a hp 1022 b&w laser and keeping my current epson for colour projects. Anybody, any concerns?

[acompton]

I was running with an old (and reliable) Laserjet 4 and an Espon inkjet for colour work. When things got busy over Christmas, the Laserjet proved annoyingly slow, and the Espon kept running out of cartridges, so I invested in a colour laser. I looked around and the HP has a slow output rate. The Dell 3010 did better in reviews, so I plumped for one of those.

Alan Compton
www.greenknightgames.co.uk
Great board games and cards games you won't find in the High Street

[fleetwood]

For higher volume (we do around 30,000 pages pa) KYOCERAs are some of the cheapest to run - their cartridges generally print about 50% more than most others for the same cost.
The printers themselves are a bit more expensive, but if you are a mid to high range user, you will soon find the printer cost becomes fairly irrelevant, as the ink carts are by far the greatest expense.
They also give you a fully filled ink cart (good for 7,500 pages) with the new machine, which helps offset the higher cost, whereas most manufacturers snidely give you a half filled (or less) cart with the machine.

As Jan has said above - beware of cheap ink replacements - fine for home use on inkjets, but not always as dependable as the correctly branded versions (which are a rip-off, but do the job). Clones and refills often smudge, and leak (here I'm taking generally, not specifically about any one brand)!

A tip for buying - check out morecomputers (can't remember if its .co.uk or com) - we just ordered a replacement from them - keen price and delivered next day.

[pnagames]

as everybody said it is all down to the volume.

from my experiences i had a B&W brother laser printer before.

real workhorse. recommend to a few friends and they never complained

any color stuff should be done on a small inkjet (if you are doing small quantity)

[george]

(we do around 30,000 pages pa)

Goat Point for knowing your yearly print run.

[Duncan Rounding]

Goat Point for knowing your yearly print run.

Absolutely - you need to get out more Martin.

[fleetwood]

Would you like to know the average ink yield per page?