Colour Laser Suggestions

[TechSupp]

What suggestions do we have for a good reliable colour laser printer that when printing photographs we will not have to wait ages for the prints to appear. We were looking at a price of around £2-300. Have a HP2500 now but its starting to show its age and it takes ages to print said photographs.

Throughput is not great but as a primary school the more we can get out of each toner the better.

[Geoff]

Lease a colour photocopier. Cheaper, faster, better, etc. Especially if you get a 'toner inclusive' deal.

[TechSupp]

Yes we do that one of my schools but in this school the repro room where it would go is no where near the central ICT suite where we want the printer to be, so although its more costly to run we need it as a separate printer

[Geoff]

Ah ok, HP Colour LaserJet 2605dn perhaps then?

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...avigationKey=0

There's a cashback deal on them currently too.

[vikpaw]

i have a solution.

we use a toner / ink supplier that deals in remanufactured / refilled products. they also do originals at damn good prices.

they frequently have bulk buy deals and often or not there is a supplier willing to give away a printer or other such goodies.

i recently ordered a brother photo printer (inkjet), £125 and it included 5 full sets of rebranded cartridges.

they have a deal at the moment that for 3 full sets of toner you can get a HP Color Laserjet 2600.

the cost is £449 ex.VAT It is costly, but think of the fact that you have 3 full sets of toner, thats Black, CY&M * 3 each. £37.50 per toner and you get the printer thrown in for free.

the small print is that next day delivery will cost you £7 and they'll probably try and sting you for a usb lead, but it's worth it.

IJT (Inkjets and Toners) 01458 271359 - insist on speaking to Anita even though you don't have an account and tell her Vik from Rushden Community College (NN10 6AG) gave you the details and you might get a little extra discount if you're lucky

oh, and if you're worried about using rebrands, they have excellent customer service and a £1 million indemnity policy to cover any damage to your equipment caused by using non-HP toners.

[dhicks]

Our HP 2600n doesn't seem to want to work with Windows Vista. This is the printer we have in our sixth form centre, and a couple of the sixth formers have brought in their new Vista laptops which they want to hook up to the printer. I've tried connecting the printer via a network printer share (hosted on a Windows XP machine) and directly creating a TCP/IP printer port on the laptop itself, but it still won't install (the driver causes some kind of error on install, causing the Windows print spooler service to shut down).

A bit of Googling brings up several blog posts and so on about not being able to get this machine to work with Windows Vista. Anyone managed to get it working okay? Does the 2605dn work okay with Vista, or is the problem with the whole 26xx range?

--
David Hicks

[vikpaw]

Originally Posted by Geoff

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...avigationKey=0

There's a cashback deal on them currently too.

That's a pretty fine deal also, but hasn't the cashback deal run out?
Also, to qualify you have to buy a full set of original toners, which bumps the price up.

[TechSupp]

Some good suggestions there, though we try to keep to originals. HP is looking good at the moment. Anyone use anything else. Seen a Xerox on Misco's site at 199.99 which looks quite fast and consumables look reasonable. Anyone had any dealing with Xerox colour printers?

[nicholab]

Hi on the toner front we are using Xerox toner in are Brother and HP printers. Best one of all is the x11 £110 HP Xerox £80.

[FN-GM]

How do you find what model of Xerox toners will work in HP printers please?

Z

[nicholab]

Well they normally have a Xerox number but the they also have the HP number on. So if I ask the supplier for a Xerox x11 I get the right cartridge for a the printer.

This might help
http://www.xerox.com/go/xrx/portal/S...Its_Compatible

[TechSupp]

Sorry to bring this back to the top again but need some definate choices on makes models, so far the:

HP Colour LaserJet 2605dn (googling it, reports of being noisy and a bit slow)

XEROX PHASER 6180DN (Just found a report saying this is slow!!)

Any others, Minolta etc. that are not being reported as slow or do I just have to accept that printing photos etc will be slow unless I could pay the earth.

Main requirements are speed with photos, quiet, not costing the earth...not wanting much I know :-)

[torledo]

Originally Posted by TechSupp

Sorry to bring this back to the top again but need some definate choices on makes models, so far the:

HP Colour LaserJet 2605dn (googling it, reports of being noisy and a bit slow)

XEROX PHASER 6180DN (Just found a report saying this is slow!!)

Any others, Minolta etc. that are not being reported as slow or do I just have to accept that printing photos etc will be slow unless I could pay the earth.

Main requirements are speed with photos, quiet, not costing the earth...not wanting much I know :-)

Try the oki C5600 network colour laser printer. I think it'll set you back in the £300-£350 region. Very similar to the older C5300N which are great for reasonably fast full colour printing. They're not that loud either - a hell of a lot less noiser than our Kyocera FS-C5030N which we got for half price.

You can also purchase a duplex unit for the oki at about £100 that slots easily into the back for double-sided.

These use a toner and drum combination. Drums need replacing infrequently, not sure what printing you'll get from the colour toners but original inks cost around £65. You get a lot for your money with oki, whereas a comparable hp colour laser printer in the £300-350 bracket can't match price/performance wise. Plus you'll get all the information you need and can configure it to go from the LCD display on the front.

[torledo]

If the best people can come up with is that dog of a printer, the HP 2605dn at £300+!!!!! then you'll take my advice and go with the oki.

BTW the £65 I was going by what we pay for the C5300's. Looking on PCWB the C5600 inks and drums are half that price, plus the C5600dn is less than £450 so cheaping than buying the base model plus the duplexer.

[dhicks]

I've seen claims that the Xerox Phaser line of solid-ink printers is (a bit) cheaper / more environmentally friendly to run than standard laser printers. We have one in our prep school, and it produces lovely looking prints (the melted wax material that it uses to print produces a nice glossy finish). It can seem a little slower than laser printers, but I've got a feeling this might be more a perception thing - there's no clunking and whirring as it prints, just a few flashing lights then a buzzing sound as the paper shoots out of the top. I see that it's now possible to get hold of compatible ink blocks rather than having to pay for Xerox ones (I don't know how reliable these are).

--
David Hicks