Spec me...... a printer!

andrewdodd13

andrewdodd13

andrewdodd13

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Amsterdam
Afternoon folks,

My dad runs a small architecture business on the side of his day job, and he's constantly moaning about the printer he uses, or more concisely, the amount of ink it goes through. It's an HP Photosmart C5280 All-in-One that I got him for £60 eons ago, and it does tend to chug through cartridges.

What we really need is something which can churn out page after page (maybe 1000+ sheets per cycle). The problem I'm having specing one myself is that he also needs colour, and it needs to be cost-effective to buy it in the long run.

Budget considerations... well. Basically he goes through 8 HP 350XL black and 6 HP 351 colour cartridges a year, costing around £250. The colour cartridges get ~150 sheets, and the black ~500 sheets. If we aim for a break-even point of 3 years time, that's going to need to cost less than £750 for 12000 black and 2700 colour sheets.

(There's probably cheaper ways for him to get the ink as it stands, so if there's no alternative I'll probably just get him more of the XL carts.)

Also, it would also be nice if it could scan, but we could always keep the C5280 as a scanner.

Cheers!
 
What kind of colour? Photo realistic printing or just reasonable colour proofs?

May be worth invetsing in a colour laser printer or for an inkjet one of the kodak ones which advertise as the cheapest for ink, just some thoughts? Need to know a bit more about its intended use?
 
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Photorealism isn't that important, just colour prints - highlights on diagrams, etc.

I've seen the Kodak one you mention before (at least, I looked at the EasyShare 5300 a while ago) and while they do seem to have decent ink use, the reviews stated they were dog slow. Not great for dad, can be printing off up to 30 copies of stuff at a time.
 
+1 for a colour laser printer. Especially in a business environment. Saying that, even at home a laser printer is much better if it's used regularly. I'd only recommend an inkjet to someone who was printing once in a blue moon, the main reason being as the OP has said, they chew through ink.

As for what type, I'd recommend Samsung printers. I mentioned in a similar thread the other day, I went and got a mono Samsung since I print a lot of documents and it has been great. Awesome quality printing and fast as well. I did have a Samsung photo printer a few years back (SPP2020) that was awesome, but I lost it during a move.
 
Colour lasers are expensive to run. What percentage of colour to black only prints is used? It may be worth getting 2 printers, I run 2, a Samsung CLP-315, which does not yet have compatible cartridges available, so a full set costs £125.
I also run an HP Laserjet 1320. Has 2 trays, duplex. Got it for £80 with only 3200 pages in its life! Just checking, and I have printed 900 sheets and the cart is still 68% full. New toner is only about £20 as well.

The colour laser only gets used when colour is essential.
 
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