Colour Laser Printers, any good at photos??

mike1210

mike1210

mike1210

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Joined
20 Jan 2006
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313
Bit of a predicament here

I have someone who wants a printer for printing notes/documents and photos, they want ace quality on A4. I'll put my hands up here and say whilist I've set up several printers, I've never printed off photos on a colour laser. Photos may be the priority here but they will also be printing a lot of notes.

My understanding here is that a colour laser won't be able to match the likes of a HP photosmart printer for printing photos on HP's own glossy paper, but may be better and cheaper in for long run for prining vast amounts of documents/notes. Or am I talking rubbish

Am I right here in saying for these 2 things either one would be a compromise,

* laser is quicker and better for notes but worse for photos
* inkjet would be be great for photos but slower and more costly for notes

also anyone care to fire off some recommendations

so far i have:

for photos:

HP Photosmart D7360 for photos

Colour Lasers

Dell 3010cn - colour laser
Lexmark C534dn (dont think this supports glossy paper)

cost not a a major issue but maybe less than £500 as a guide
 
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we print off build instructions on a colour laser,
(....lots of photos)
OK, it's on normal photocopier paper,
but the quality isn't anything to look at.

The Xerox wax printer we had was pretty bright though,
maybe something to consider if you want top quality

I think inkjets are better at photo stuff,
maybe due to the slight ink bleed effect
and the larger number of colours on, say, an Epson.

Aren't B&W lasers £100 now, I can't see any reason for spending more,
just to print notes ? :)


email the manufacturers of the printers you are looking at,
and ask for a colour sample on glossy paper

.
 
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I was recently in the market for a colour printer.
I also wanted a printer that I could print off documents and letters on too so I thought the current generation of entry-point colour lasers might be for me.

When looking at the colour quality side by side there is simply no competition.
Inkjets is still where it is with regards colour and photos - the lasers just cannot touch them.
As inkjet quality for documents and letters is more than acceptable this is the route I took.
I'm now the very happy owner of a Canon IPR5200R (wanted the wireless and ether net options) and I'm extremely happy with it.
 
I Have a lase Epson C900,had it for around 3 years and printed loads of photo's and it great,even on standard paper. Toners are around £90 each but last for around 1500 prints,but can get full set of copy toners for around 225 and they will do around 1000 sheets.
 
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I've had a few photo inkjet printers over the years. My current Canon i865 (which I think was replaced with the Pixma 4000???) is excellent. The inks don't dry up like with every Epson. Also, the ink tanks are transparent and just boxes of plastic with ink in. This makes them very cheap (even Canon ones are only £8 per tank and last ages), and when they are empty, you know the printer isn't lying. HP and Lexmark make their money on the inks, so high users get stung the most.

As for b&w lasers, even the cheap ones produce very good prints now. The only issue is the running cost and the speed. The small office HP lasers at work seem to go on for ever. A sec is still running one from when HPs logo was that pinky red colour... I've not seen one be retired yet, but other brands seem to only last a couple of years.
 
I work in a school and we sampled a range of colour laser printers before we went ahead and bought some. They ranged from Epson to Konica Minolta and i have to say, HP perform the best. Im sick of the minoltas breaking down (54xx series and the 23xx series)

Our HP 2600n serves our graphics dept very well. So my vote goes with them.
 
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