Color Laser Printer 5/1

[DCSP John]

Any good suggestions for a general purpose color laser? Mid price, nothing outrageous.
Does not need to be large format, as it will be used only for spitting out color proofs to attach to work orders.
Figured I would ask before starting my own exhaustive search.

Thanks.

John

[balloonguy]

I have a canon mfp 8350 and an hp cm2320. They are both at least 3 years old and going strong. The hp I think is a little more user friendly. In my experience the first time you put a cheap toner in the printer is dead. I burned through 6 in less than 2 years. I stopped using the reloaded toners and it made all the difference in the world.
Matt

[mk162]

I've got a Brother MFC-9325cw, I am very happy with it.  The colors are great, and they get a good yield from the carts.  It's an all in one, which some people might not like, but I needed a new fax machine and I wanted a decent flatbed scanner with a feed.

[ScreenPrinter123]

This site was helpful when we were researching...http://www.printershowcase.com/color-laser-printers.aspx

We have a large format ricoh so can't help you on the smaller stuff but the above will give you a good idea of the cost over the long haul and not just the purchase price.

[DCSP John]

awesome. Thanks for the feedback. Time to go shopping.

John

[blue moon]

for dirt cheap,, check out the HP4600 series. You can get one for few hundred in decent shape. Toner is cheap as the printer has been out for 10+ years. It does take a little to get going (it calibrates when it's woken up), but for that money it's hard to beat. There is an issue with early, early versions. If you are getting one, it has to be a version 2B or higher (or something like it, PM me if you really need the info).

If not the super cheap route, look into off lease high volume office multifunction machines. $15k units sell for $1k and up. They are rated 100k pages for month and last pretty long time. They offer mailboxes, fax, scan, document memory (you can save your forms and print as needed from the printer, no computer needed) and so on. Print color in 30-40 pgs/min with only a few second delay. We tested the Toshiba E Studio and it was really nice, just not worth the $15k price they were asking for it. We'll pick up a used one probably later this year.

pierre

[mk162]

Yeah, the brother isn't that fancy, it's about $350 on sale.

One of the huge ones would be overkill for us, my offset friend bought one, he was tired of renting.