Looking for the best desktop colour printer. What do you use?

[DCUK6]

Hi all,

 

We have printers in all classrooms and they are all going wrong very quickly. They are all cheapy things that the previous tech brought.

 

I've had a trial the the new HP x series printers and for text its fine but for pictures they arnt great.

 

I've looked into leasing Ricohs SPC250DN but they come out as 2p BW and almost 8p per colour, fine for pictures but pages of text is quite expensive.

 

 

After our meeting last night i asked staff if they would be happy for BW in classrooms and colour in the photocopier but that didnt go down to well. In my last school they didnt have anything in their rooms and that worked.

 

Has anyone got any recommendations on a good small colour desktop printer?

 

Many thanks

[synaesthesia]

Could only recommend the HP X series to be honest; they are absolutely fine for pictures, but if staff want to be printing photos then surely you're barking up the wrong tree (well, more to the point they are!)

The only other choice I can can recommend otherwise, if photos are a must for classes (which seems daft, and I would be fighting that with SLT) then Canon are the only real option. We find moreinks compatibles work wonders with those.

Just avoid Brother and Epson crap like the plagues they are.

We use the HP X451DW's in the offices that need printers, mostly replacing B&W lasers.

[timbo343]

We used to just have BW printers in ICT rooms and slowly phasing these out with Kyocera ECOSYS P6030cdn printers which are part of our managed print service. Just had a look to see how much they are as a printer - Just a quick google search gave £449 Kyocera ECOSYS P6030cdn A4 Colour Laser Printer and the cartridges aren't bad i guess, ive seen worse cartridge costs http://www.cartridgesave.co.uk/toner-cartridges/Kyocera/ECOSYS-P6030cdn.html. What ive found in the past especially with colour printers, you can buy a cheap colour laser / inkjet but then you are paying a fortune for the cartridges.

 

Just looked at the OKI C531dn too OKI C531dn A4 Colour LED Laser Printer.

 

What's your budget?

[SimpleSi]

You can't win with colour printers.

You can have cheap to buy, expensive to run or vice versa.

They will all break (maybe exception of heavy duty HPs which can last a long time)

(And apart from the one printer we all bought in 1963 which still works to this day of course)

 

Corridor networked Photocopiers are the best practial solution in terms of overall uptime/TCO

 

This is based on 15 years working in primary schools

 

Simon

 

PS I let reception classes have a business inkjet as you can't have them going up the corridor for prints

[DCUK6]

I've tried arguing it but got told by governors that they want colour printers in classrooms and they will just save the cash everywhere else. HT was there and didn't say anything. Even said we can have a photocopier in each building with follow me printing if we want.

Just have to save as much as possible which is more like pennies it seems when comparing colour printers.

 

 

Yeah, wouldn't touch Epson printers. We brought one in the last school as it had scan to network. Tried setting it up and there was a bug in their software. Phones them up and gold told that the Epson IT administrator wont let programs to be installed on computers so they are unable to test their own software.

 

Not heard of Kyocera before, will check them out along with Canon.

 

We have been getting HP M451 in the past which seems ok but they are a bit big and they don't like recycled toners.

 

Budget is up to £200 per printer.

[timbo343]

Have you thought about managed print with Papercut? This might be the way forward for your place to get what they want.

 

If the budget is £200 per printer, how many printers have you got to get? Im just thinking about running costs too this will be the biggest expense.

[DCUK6]

Have you thought about managed print with Papercut? This might be the way forward for your place to get what they want.

 

If the budget is £200 per printer, how many printers have you got to get? Im just thinking about running costs too this will be the biggest expense.

 

With the x451 we were looking at replacing all 25 as they were on a lease but now were arnt doing that im thinking of just replacing them as we need to. Currently 5 printers.

 

Did bring up paper cut at our meeting and limiting pupils (staff was a definite know) and they started going into having to set up schedules for print credits depending on what lessons each pupil have as they didn't want to go in when needed to add credits.. Would cost more in time that what you save from misprints and the odd student.

 

Honestly, its a bit mad.

Edited May 22, 2015 by DCUK6

[timbo343]

I would take a look at managed print and see what your options are - obviously you dont have to go down that route. For now you could just start off small then replace devices as and when required.

 

Do you have an idea of how much gets printed from these devices? Is there generally a lot of waste?

[DCUK6]

From the photocopiers there is a lot of waste but classroom printers don't seem to get that much.

 

Roughly between 700-1000 pages per month on the printers.

 

I have been looking into Ricoh's on a MPS as ive been impressed by their service before.

 

2p for BW and 7.8p for colour per page which is the price of 20-30% coverage if we brought our own toners. We would benefit from free callouts and repairs.

 

There was a larger printer which was cheaper but wouldnt fit in the rooms.

 

Waiting on prices from other companies.

[SimpleSi]

You can have cheap to buy, expensive to run or vice versa.

Choose