Moving a colour laser printer (was Which colour laser printer <300?) [Archive]

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tawsi

01-01-2006, 23:27

I've been asked by family to find a suitable colour laser printer costing less than 300 (ideally closer to 200). It will be mostly used for black and white with the odd colour diagram or photo. The main reason is to do away with the need for inkjets that always seem to break down.

Ideally I'd like it to come with a full set of toner and be quite cheap to refill.

I've heard stories about some toner cartridges being fitted with chips so that they stop after the set number of pages even if there is plenty of toner left. Is this true?

Currently looking at the Epson C1100 and HP CL2600n since I could pick them up from pc world.

Fawlty

02-01-2006, 15:36

I use the Samsung CLP500 which is a great printer... never misses a beat and prints duplex as well.

Toner carts come with about 1500 pages worth of black and 1000 pages of colour toners at 5% coverage... For general use this works dine.

Refills are relatively simple (I did mine just recently) cost about £100 for toner... as opposed to £320+ for genuine carts. This should see me thru 5000 colour/7000 b&w

However it is sadly not the current model.. the current model is CLP510

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=85085

This one can also be refilled but has chips ... apparently these chips can be reset/replaced

I used this company and it seems they do kits for CLP510

http://www.refilltoner.com/MachineProductsNS.asp?id=SA510&manu=Samsung&mach=CLP%2D510+%2F+510N

the kit for the 500 was very simple despite fact I had to cut a hole in the cart to get toner in.

and that printer is about 240 exc vat

tawsi

03-01-2006, 00:36

It was the chip stories that put me off the Samsung. Plus a lot of reviews don't like the text quality which will be the printers main job.

How well do refills of colour toner cartridges work.

I noticed the Dell 3100cn currently works out to be one of the cheapest to run since they provide a full set of toners rather than the 1/2 full ones. Plus the toners seem to be quite a bit cheaper. My main issues are

1) Its a Dell and the forums are currently almost 900 posts into a second thread in the suppliers forum about Dell TVs
2) Will Dell continue to provide toners for this printer long term.
3) How much memory do I need to put in it to get it to be able to print full page images (for the rare event that is ever needed).

It seems odd I can't find a website that works out the total cost of colour lasers since it took me 2 minutes to knock together a spreadsheet to do it for me. Hoping someone can point me to one.

Anyone know how long Dell (or Walsh Western) take to deliver a laser printer?

Kryten

03-01-2006, 08:19

Do a search on here for any of those models and there are threads on it.

Personally I'm going for the Dell (Please use our affiliate link!) (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://tracker.tradedoubler.com/click?p=702&a=60823&g=19472) as if comes with full carts and replacements are quite cheap.

As for long-term support, I think you should be ok for quite a while, and I'm sure soon enough there will be 3rd party ones available.

As for memory, just go to Crucial Memory (UK) (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-582776-10401721) and get the biggest it can take, it still will be cheap!

Fawlty

03-01-2006, 10:59

Firstly the refills worked out fine for me... easy job really and not messy and print quality is indistinguishable from the prints produced using offical carts.

I weighed up a few colour lasers and whilst reviews said text quality was not as good as some... it had duplex which was the winner for me... The Dell charges an extra 233 for duplex functionality...

And as suspected the text quality thing is marginal... it is as close as dammit in quality to my old Epson EPL5800 which was crisp enough for me.

And whilst toner carts are cheaper for Dell watch out as they are much lower capacity... The Black carts are good value at 30 quid for 4000 pages. But the colours are 46 quid each and only do 2000 pages which is pretty poor... so 150 quid all told for 2000 pages (at 5% coverage remember) which 7.5p per colour page... even using official carts the Samsung will do 5000 pages for 210 quids worth of carts which is 4.2p per page.

As ever consumables are the killer with colour lasers... and to be honest I wouldn't be using a colour laser for lots of photo printing as photo printing is still cheaper and better quality via inkjet... especially considering that the page allowances are for 5% coverage whereas a photo is 100% coverage...

I use my printer for work use and printing a programme for my drama group etc etc... so mostly brochure style work etc...

for colour photographs from digicam I use an Epson R300

tawsi

03-01-2006, 15:52

Dell do 4000 page colour carts for a tenner more than the 2000 ones.

Edit: Any idea what the network cable you can remove to save 12 quid is? Is it just a normal Cat5 cable?

Kryten

03-01-2006, 16:32

Dell do 4000 page colour carts for a tenner more than the 2000 ones.

Edit: Any idea what the network cable you can remove to save 12 quid is? Is it just a normal Cat5 cable?
Yep, just normal Cat5 cable :nuts:

You are using our affiliate link (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://tracker.tradedoubler.com/click?p=702&a=60823&g=19472) I presume ;)

lticket

03-01-2006, 20:42

Might sound stupid but I would recommend getting an old one (though somewhat dependant on your requirements).

I bagged myself a HP Colour Laser 5M about 3years ago with about 4 of each CMYK toner for about £200 (and a sack full of fuser/transfer kits/belts etc). I keep an eye out on eBay and pick up the odd bits for pennies... Think I got 5 of each CMYK for something like £1 each!! The way I see it this should last my forever! It's certainly the most economic option out there!

tawsi

03-01-2006, 21:26

Yep, just normal Cat5 cable :nuts:

You are using our affiliate link (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://tracker.tradedoubler.com/click?p=702&a=60823&g=19472) I presume ;)

Assuming the link in your previous post was affiliated then yes :).

tawsi

06-01-2006, 11:51

Kryten

06-01-2006, 12:11

It just arrived in a box the size of a fridge :eek:

Ideally I'd like to set it up and test it before its moved to my family. Are there any issues with installing the Toner carts if its going to be taking a car trip at the weekend?

Not really, I would possibly take the carts out for transport but if its boxed again it should be fine. Please post back your review though :)

FishRockPR

06-01-2006, 13:06

Kryten

06-01-2006, 13:16

Im guessing these beasts have just one memory slot right? an extra 256 should be fine for a single user right? I will be able to send it a nice big A4 photoshop file ok with 320 megs? is it more of a network thing than a USB thing as I dont mind connecting it via USB to my main pooter.

not sure about how 'workgroup' style printers use ram to be honest!

guess you guys are happy with these?

"Proper" laser printers tend to need the whole page in RAM before printing and this means less resources used on the PC (although not an issue now with fast PC's but in the past Windows Printing System printers used to bring your PC to its knees if you sent them a big page).

256 should be fine for almost all prints you can think of. To be honest 64MB will be fine unless you are sending lots of big pictures at it. 256 will let it store many pages at once not requiring it to wait for the computer to send the next page after the first is printed (hence faster multi-page printouts).

At least I think that's how it works!

tawsi

06-01-2006, 14:56

Not really, I would possibly take the carts out for transport but if its boxed again it should be fine. Please post back your review though :)

So far i'm impressed. Not printed off any big documents yet but it seems to be quite quick off the mark to print the 3 page document I tested. The photo I tried came out much better than I expected based on most comments I've seen about colour lasers.

Mr. Wilby

25-01-2006, 10:23

Just a bump on this. Wondering how you're getting on Tawsi?

Am thinking about getting the same model, but am slightly put off by the fact that its now pretty old (~1.5 years?) ... but don't think things have moved on that much so its probably a moot point.

Would welcome any feedback on what you've made of it + any probs (particularly with the driver software?)