color lasers, anyone?

[Barbara Brundage]

Does anyone here have any experience with color laser printers? After having the local printer waste 3 caseloads of paper yet again (at $12 a ream, wholesale), I am beginning to realize that I need to start doing as much of our printing as I can inhouse.

So I am wondering these days how color lasers compare to the output of something like say, the Epson 2200 for color work. (It would be great to be able to do short runs on covers, our only color work, inhouse).

I'm thinking of something like the Xerox Phaser 2135. Anyone have any comments on how that compares to the HP color laserjets? I'd love a Phaser 7700, but try as I might, I can't justify that one.

[Bert Bigelow]

Barbara,
Your questions are way over my head, but I saw a thread here awhile ago about color laser printers, and it was pretty positive about the quality. You might try a search on the subject.
Bert

[Bert Bigelow]

Unfortunately, it's $6000+.




Ouch.
I'm trying to save up enough for an Epson 2200. Well, I'm not completely sure about that. I have a friend with one, and he said it takes 7 cartridges, at $11 each, and he gets the equivalent of about 30 8x10s out of that. That's about $2.50 a print. I thought my 780 was bad at aout $1 a print. Sigh. These printer manufacturers must be making a LOT of money on ink cartridges. I wonder how laser printers like 7700 compare on a cost-per-print basis.
Bert

[Barbara Brundage]

Well, I was drooling over the 7700 at Macworld last summer (INCREDIBLE printing) and I got a comparison sheet. According to Xerox, the cost per page on the 7700 then was approximately (can't find it right now to tell you exactly) 2 cents an 8-1/2 by 11 B&W page and up to something like 11 cents to print a full color tabloid newsletter, double-sided. If I can find it, I'll post the exact amounts.

I know that for the next printer down from that, which is a bit more economical but doesn't do Pantone and lacks some other features, I could easily make the cost of the printer back in a year, if I could afford the initial hit on profits.

[Leen Koper]

Bert,

Yesterday, here in the Netherlands, the national consumer union advised not to buy Epson printers any more.
Epson printers use chipped ink cartridges and the chip seems to indicate an empty cartridge long before it really is empty.
I too noticed such thing with my Epson 2100 printer. With "empty" cartridges it is no problem in printing at least another 5 more A3 prints (Hmmm, some math....that's about 12x16 inches)
The union claimed even a lot more prints. I know about the same complaints by colleagues using the 7600 and the 10000 printers.

Leen
Epson: "No comment"

[Raymond Robillard]

Leen,

Same is true for HP, as per my own experiences (and those of my friends). My HP 940Cvr will report empty color and b/w cartridges a good 30 pages of text before the real end (for black) and some ten 4 x 6's too soon.

It never happened in the first 18 months I had this printer. It's a new "behavior" since the last 6 months (I print enough to change my cartridges every 6 or 8 weeks). Lately, though, as soon as you start printing with new cartridges, the indicator goes from 100% to 90%, even when printing only one black only page with the new carts (no color). They BOTH reports 90%.

However, the longevity of the carts has not changed. They still last the same number of prints as before.

Ray

[Bert Bigelow]

Leen,

Epson printers use chipped ink cartridges and the chip seems to indicate
an empty cartridge long before it really is empty




I have had the same experience with my Epson Stylus Color 780. Plus, if you don't use it every day, the heads clog up and you have to waste ink doing a head cleaning and nozzle check.
The main reason they put the chip in is to keep people from refilling them. The attitude of all the inkjet printer makers seems to be "screw the consumer, minimize competition, maximize profits." Once you buy the printer, they've got you by the <you know what>!
Bert

[DS Nelson]

Yep, that's why the prices of inkjet printers are so low. The manufacturers can sell them at cost, or even below, because the ink and toner cartridges are where the big profits lie.

Dan

[Barbara Brundage]

Thanks, Dan. Yes, it sounds like a really swell printer--if you have windows. Mac support is slim to none for it, alas.

Also, for what we do, there is no postscript clone that comes anywhere near the output of true postscript for music engraving, which pretty much keeps us out of the reasonably priced market. 8^(

[brent bertram]

Barbara,
As far as color management for the lasers go, I believe mostly you would be able to use Postscript color management. You wouldn't ahve to worry about CMYK - RGB conversions . Let the postscript driver handle that.

:-)

Brent

[Barbara Brundage]

Hi, Brent. Yes, I suppose that is what I would have to do for now, but I wonder about it because I have noticed that in the other forums one of the most common ways to describe sudden mysterious lousy output on a laser is "It looks like suddenly I'm sending in RGB mode."

[Barbara Brundage]

Bert, I found the page with cost comparisons on it. For the 7700, a monochrome business letter is one cent, a single sheet business proposal with color (20% coverage) is 9.2 cents, a color newsletter with 15% coverage is 6.3 cents, a graphic file with 32% coverage is 15.7 cents, and aa tabloid size magazine layout with 72% coverage is 29 cents.

Kind of a difference from inkjets, but you can buy a lot of cartridges for $5000.

[Barbara Brundage]

I've also seen pretty good prices on that one in-stock at office supply stores. It's the only color laser that our Staples always has, for instance. To be honest, I thought the output on the store machine was only okay, but then there's no knowing how much abuse that machine takes all day long, either.

[Leen Koper]

In addition to message #5:
Tonight I heard on the radio, while I was using Elements to enhance my wedding images ;-), that Epson was to take the consumer union to court.

Leen

[Chuck Snyder]

Leen: I can hear their argument now: they set that chip to go off a little
early so no one runs out of ink in the middle of an important A3-sized
print!!

:-)

Chuck

p.s. My HP printer's alarm went off about a week ago, indicating the black
ink cartridge was low. I'm still printing....and the alarm has not gone off
again...very strange and perhaps very telling.

[Pete D]

Barbara,

You may be interested in this as well as anyone that does a lot of printing;
G7 Productivity will buy you empty ink jet cartridges and laser toner
cartridges too. $2.50 for ink jet and $5 for the laser. This is in the
form of either credit towards purchases OR half that amount in cash
payments.

Here is their site if anyone is interested: [url]https://www.g7ps.com/[/url] Look
at bottom of page for recycle link.

I had 20 cartridges that I traded in at office Depot about a month ago for
reams of paper (1 ream for 1 cartridge) and sent another 20 cartridges to
this G7 and am going to take the cash payment of $25. (lunch money:) They
pay the shipping if you go through their site and print a prepaid USPS
label.

Pete

[Barbara Brundage]

Thanks, Pete. On the cartridges for my (monochrome) phaser, I get a discount for sending back the empties, but it's nice to know about for my inkjet.

[Barbara Brundage]

I'd take a look, Bert. As I say, it may just be because the store displays take such a beating, but the test pages I've gotten out of them were very poorly registered and there was not really any blending of colors. It was a blob of red next to a blob of yellow or whatever. And I noticed that the sample page image had no pastels whatsoever on it. I personally think that's usually a bad sign.

The impression I got was that they would be good for tatting up a cover for a business report but not that they were in any sense photo quality printers. Then again, it depends a lot on how much the person who set them up knows about what he/she is doing, too.

[BobHill]

Barbara,

I've used the HP4500 with great results and the price of the new color lasers is very very attractive. You might want to take a look at those.

Bob

[Barbara Brundage]

the HP4500 with great results and the price of the new color lasers is
very very attractive.




Yes, they are very tempting from a price standpoint, Bob, and I agree that they do text very well and photos quite well, but unfortunately PCL and HP language don't do Finale well at all. I can always tell when I see a book of music that was engraved by someone who used an HP, alas.

(Sorry to be so long in replying but I've been out of town.)