Colour Laser Opinion - LexmarkC530dn/C530dn/HP2605dn/Brother HL-4040CN

[X10]

Hello all,
I was hoping to get users opinions on the following Colour Laser printers as I need to replace my HP1100 and wanted to get a colour option.

The ones I've narrowed it down to are:
Lexmark C530dn
Lexmark C532dn
HP 2605dn
Brother HL-4040CN

I don't want to spend more than about £200-250(max). The Lexmark's have £100 and £150 cashback on them at the moment so thought they would be worth looking into.
I've used a HP 2605dn at work and think it's okay, I've heard the Lexmark's aren't as good on image quality, but running costs are better.

I don't intend to do much 'photo' printing, the odd colour printing now and then. I don't print very much, I can't say how much but I doubt I've gone through more than 1000 sheets in the last year. Of course I'll probably do more now that I have the opportunity, but ultimately I want to keep the costs to a minimum in the long term (Electricity, toner, drum).

What are people's thoughts, any help greatly appreciated!

X10

[peterb]

I was going to say that Kyocera are reputed to have the lowest overall cost of ownership, but the initial outlay would be outside your budget.

You need to get some sample printouts of text and graphics images. Some of the online stores (such as printerbase) might be willing to send you some - and then look very carefully at things like drum and toner life and costs, and balance that against the quality requirement.

As a very rough rule of thumb, the lower the initial cost, the higher the cost of the consumables.

[Kumagoro]

A niffty site for checking computer stuff is www.computerprices.co.uk its much better than kelkoo etc.

Lexmark C530dn

HP 2605dn

Brother HL-4040CN

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Possibly not up to the spec you are after but for the cheap skates out there who want a
colour laser with scanner and which is also small, there is the samsung CLX-2160 for £128
The network version is £164.

CLX-2160N
CLX-2160

Staples CLX-2160N with free fax machine thing £177 inc VAT.

I have no idea how the prints come out but there is nothing else like it I have seen.

[GoNz0]

epson c1100?

im bias, part of my job involves fixing them and HP, HP are ****e for service and after a 3 hour call to india you have a slim chance in us showing up with the right part, epson we show up with a flight kit with near on every part. if we cant fix it we order a graded unit on next day.

HP they send another random part and it goes on and on like that until its fixed

[Giraffe]

Don't know if this is still so, but Lexmark have (or used to have) very high running costs.
Might be worth looking in to total cost of ownership (TCO), as a few more quidlets up front could save you money if you are going to do much printing.

[Saracen]

I was going to say that Kyocera are reputed to have the lowest overall cost of ownership, but the initial outlay would be outside your budget.
....

Yes, but you need to be a bit careful to evaluate needs. Kyocera certainly used to use long-life ceramic imaging, and at the least, there was some anecdotal evidence that image quality degraded as the ceramics approached EOL. I don't have personal experience of that but, if true, and you want to keep print quality consistent, you may end up replacing machines well before the rated life and, if you do, the the average cost per page (including capital cost and the user-replaceable parts) would potentially shoot up quite a lot. Of course, that may just be what other manufacturers would like us to believe to counter Kyocera's running cost claims.

I'm not current on it, but traditionally, I've gone for HP for lasers and never yet had problems. Photo printers, on the other hand, well, Epson for me. And I wouldn't use a laser for photo output if I was actually trying to print a photo, rather than just having a photo in a business document.

I didn't make that last bit very clear. If I'm printing a brochure that has a photo, fine, use a laser. Nobody expects photographic quality. But if you're printing an image as a photo, for something that will be used as a photo would (like hanging on a wall), no laser I've ever seen cuts the mustard and, given current technology, I doubt they ever will.

[X10]

I was going to say that Kyocera are reputed to have the lowest overall cost of ownership, but the initial outlay would be outside your budget.

I've had a look at a group test (where I actually got my printer options from) and they said the Kyocera got top marks for running costs but failed on image quality:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/labs/156351/k...-fsc5015n.html

Saracen - Thanks for the extra information too!

X10

[X10]

I had a look at the running costs of a Kyocera 5015CN after peterb's suggestion, the additional running costs after the first 3000 Black and 2000 Colour were better, but I can't imagine using the printer for more than 10,000 pages over the next 5 years. Given the initial cost of the printer (compared to others) it doesn't seem worth it for the amount of printing I expect to do (though I can't see into the future).
Also, reviews of the Kyocera don't seem to put image quality too high overall, which would be a concern for me.

At the moment it looks like the Lexmark C532N is the best contender, with alleged great image quality and it's high capacity toner cartridges for relatively low cost. I was tempted by the DN version for the duplexer, but if it's anywhere near as slow as the HP2605DN then I am happy to print odd pages then even ones manually.

GoNz0 - I'll have a look at the Epson C1100

Anyone got real-life use of the Lexmark C532 series and put in a few words about it?

Thanks,

X10

[peterb]

Try contacting this company

http://www.printerbase.co.uk/acatalo...-printers.html

whi I have found very helpful - as ask them to send some samples - bar charts, photos and some plain text.

(I bought my Kyocera from them - the CN5025 and they were very helpful.)

I note your comments about the Kyocera - for 'business' graphics, highlighted spreadsheets, graphs, we pages, the colour quality is fine, but while photograph printing works, it is only really proof quality (although I doubt that many lasers in that price range will give photo quality).

I have used high end Lexmark and Xerox printers - which give slightly better results with images, but at greater capital cost.

[X10]

When I did my initial research I came up with Printerland.co.uk as the cheapest for the printers I had in mind. I requested some samples and only some of them turned up despite a conversation with one of their Sales Account Managers. A sample for the Lexmark's C530 series, the Brother 4000 series, and the OKI C5000 series. The HP2605 sample didn't turn up which is a shame as I know what that looks like with real-world printing and could compare it as a sample to the rest. Out of those that did arrive the OKI looks the best, and the Lexmark looked pretty poor in comparison, which is a shame as it's the one I had my eye on. The problem is they all came on different paper and with a different image so it's no real comparison at all.

peterb - I'll give PrinterBase.co.uk a try and see what arrives.

X10

[Saracen]

Keep us informed, if you would please, X10. It'll be interesting to see what conclusions you reach, and why.

[X10]

Sure thing, I don't expect any new samples to arrive until Wednesday now.
X10

[DR]

OKI do nice printers - we've a Xerox in the office which seems okay - but personally I'd go for Oki

[X10]

I got my samples from both companies and had a follow-up call. I've got PrinterBase sending me some other printer sample now too.

At the moment I'm edging towards the Lexmark C534N due to 5 reasons:

1) It has a relatively low price & comes with a £150 cashback until September 30th

2) It has the highest supplied toner capacity (6000 pages CMYK)

3) It has the largest capacity toners (8000 pages Black, 7000 pages Colour)

4) Cheap Photo conductor unit

5) Given all the above, good (though not the best I've seen) colour printing

My other option at the moment is the Xerox Phaser 8560 purely for the print quality and finish, but it's almost £100 more expensive, even with the £130 cashback, and the solid ink works out 27% more expensive per page than toner (for colour, it's 18% cheaper on black).

Nick at PrinterBase did recommend a Kyocera printer as well. He said that in the past the Kyocera's had suffered from poor print quality, but that had improved with one of the new ranges. He said it worked out better as far as cost per page was.
I'm waiting on the print sample for that.

I'll keep you all updated.

X10

[Saracen]

I must admit I've always quite liked Lexmark lasers. I was never that impressed with inkjets, but the lasers were pretty decent, and with good paper handling. Mind you, I haven't used them for a few years.

[killersuzuki]

I'd go for which of the recommended ones has the cheapest toner

at work HP give us the printers FREE now as we buy original toner from them

bought 2, got 3 FREE since (freebies come with toner too!)
2 have dies so far and replacements were RMA'd free too!

reason HP toner is expensive for HP2600? or sumfin'.....