High Quality and High Performace Printer?

[Brett_Tabke]

I'm looking for a printer that can handle both high volume and print in high quality color as well for under a target budget of $1500usd.

I've been thinking of a color laser, but as far as I can tell, those under a $1000, are just marginally better than the best Ink Jet printers - if at all.

any recommendations?

perks:
- two sided printing.
- para, network, and usb connections.

[TheDave]

While I can't recommend a specific printer, I can recommend a Laser over an Ink-Jet, especially if you are going to be doing a high volume of prints. Inks in the ink jets just run out far too quickly, and they end up costing more than the printer itself after a while. If you must go with an inkjet, I have an Epson which has seperate containers for each colour of ink - probably the best bet if you are going to get an ink jet.

[ogletree]

I have learned from experience that for a company to sell a printer cheap they get you with consumables. Be very carefull when just looking at price. Those consumables can kill you if you print a lot. Find out everything that can go out and how often and how much it costs to replace. Also with color laser you will need a printer with a lot of memory. Some of them try to sell you their real expensive memory when you can just use off the shelf cheap memory.

[Jon_King]

I bought one of those under $1000 color lasers about 6 months ago... a Minolta 2300. I run it daily 'against' a top of the line HP ink jet and the Minolta really cranks out the pages per min but the quality is not quite as good as the HP ink jet. But still pretty darn good.

The way look at it the laser is speed and the inkjet is for top quality.

Note: With the consumables my laser pages run about .09 cents ea. and with recycled cartidges (so far not available for the Minolta)in my HP ink jet about .035 ea. per page.

One more thing I like about the Minolta, it's network ready. Assign an IP a boom everybodys connected. Not bad for a low end laser. I should also add, we do quite a bit of high coverage printing (60 - 70% of the sheet) which uses much ink/toner and affects the consumable yield.

[amznVibe]

This review just appeared today (their date is screwy - october 14th?) looks interesting, though slightly higher than your budget: [pcmag.com...]

[ogletree]

Have you had to replace the drum, fuser, or waste toner cartrage. Those parts are real expensive. It just depends on how much you do. I have a friend that has one he just stop using it because those parts were so expensive. He has an HP color laser now and it is much cheaper per copy. Stay away from printers that need a drum it will set you back over time. You need to look at the cost in the long run for a printer. The printer companies are very sneaky.

[DaveN]

HP's business inkjet 2600 printer are really nice, the only down side is the consumables they a split into 4 inks and 4 heads, at present the Compatible Boys look to be struggling with this but I have heard on the grapevine that a compat will be available soon.

link to HP 2600 [h10010.www1.hp.com]

DaveN

PS I have one it's nice

[bakedjake]

Well, since we all know they like to give you the stick when it comes to consumables, might as well get the printer for free:

[freecolorprinters.com...]

This is a Xerox official thing. Check it out - I know a few people who've done it and really like it. The basic catch is that you have to buy supplies from them and commit to a monthly page count. But if you're printing regularly, it's not a problem.

[PatrickDeese]

FWIW, there was a thread in Slashdot about 3 - 4 months ago about color prints, and just about everyone complained that turning a Xerox Color laser printer off and on caused it to purge a huge amount of the wax-based ink.

added: ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/03/04/09/0249245.shtml

[bunltd]

We've got a Xerox Phaser 860, it's nice. Plug it in to the router and you're good to go. We got it when black ink sticks were free - so we only have to purchase the color ones. (not the free printer thing) Yes, you have to periodically do the maintenance kit thing, but their duty cycle is not short unless you plan on printing a gazillion pages. Cost per page is cheap.

What I love: I can print front/back, 1,2,4,6,9, or 16 pages up. I use front/back 2 pages up to cram long docs onto fewer pages, don't do this if you have trouble with small print! We also save some jobs to the printer, these can be re-printed from the printer control panel.

LisaB