Color or black laser printer recomendation needed

[Richard Staples]

Inexpensive but reliable color or black laser printer recommendation
needed for small business with maximum 50 to 100 copies maximum needed
per print job. Mostly will be used for business letters and inventory
printouts but occasionally color brochures will be printed with up to
50 copies needed. Small footprint is preferred, but low cost and
reliability are a must. It must also be able to print from an old dos
based music inventory program. Suggestions please.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

The tough part may be the DOS program.

There are several color laser printers in the under $200 range these
days. They will "get you" with the toner refills, however. Printer
manufacturers have to make money somewhere, and at $200 retail for a
color laser, they aren't making much, if anything, that way. So, they
charge $100-120 per cartridge plus other consumables, and the original
toner cartridges in many cases are only partially full.

Samsung, HP, Brother and Konica-Minolta, and even Xerox sell these low
end color printers. Watch closely issues like amount of internal memory
installed. If the memory type of standard, or proprietary, how often
consumables like transfer belts need replacement and what they cost
(keep in mind for a color image the transfer belt usually needs four
cycles) and lastly and importantly look at the yield of the cartridges
they provide and what replacement will cost.

For example, HP recently had two models on sale here (Western Canada).
They looked physically identical from the outside, but their model
numbers were different. One was selling for about $250 CAN after
rebate, the other under $300. The cheaper one, as I recall, was slower,
had a lower duty cycle, was lacking networking, and used toner
cartridges that were about half full. The slightly more costly one had
full standard toner cartridges (that alone was worth over $200 in
toner), a networking card, and was built more ruggedly internally.

Art