Color VS. Black & White

[wes.faul]

I'm looking at purchasing some printers for bulk printing for a
business and have a general question regarding color laser printers.
When a pages that is to be printed has color on it, does the extra time
come from rendering it, or from actually printing it? Basically, will
the printer speed back up for the monochrome portion and slow back down
for the color?
Also, what kind of reputation do the Tektronix printers have? I'm
looking at the Phaser 740 and 750. How would they be compared
(reliability, print quality, etc...) to HP? What about Lexmark? I
know HP's pretty much the standard for businesses, but are there other
printers that are better that are priced comparably? I'm looking for a
printer (or combination of printers) that can print at least 30 ppm and
be able to handle up to 100,000 pages per month.
Color would be a nice option, but isn't necessary.
Recommendations are welcome.
Thanks,
Wes

 

[gnewsremove1]

See below ...

I'm looking at purchasing some printers for bulk printing for a
business and have a general question regarding color laser printers.
When a pages that is to be printed has color on it, does the extra time
come from rendering it, or from actually printing it? Basically, will
the printer speed back up for the monochrome portion and slow back down
for the color?

You need to specify what you mean by "extra time". Different color
laser printers work in different ways, and some have little (if any)
penalty in speed when printing color. Color printing requires the
creation of a bitmap with more bits, so more information must be
computed. This may be more significant on some printers that have
slower processors. Some color laser printers need four passes to
create an image, some only need one.
Your last question isn't clear - are you asking about the
print/paper speed changing while printing different portions of the
same sheet, or different sheets within a job? I doubt that paper speed
will vary while any given sheet is being printed. Beyond that, I'd
expect it to depend on the manufacturer.
In general, it would be helpful if you provided more context for
the questions.

Also, what kind of reputation do the Tektronix printers have? I'm
looking at the Phaser 740 and 750. How would they be compared
(reliability, print quality, etc...) to HP? What about Lexmark? I
know HP's pretty much the standard for businesses, but are there other
printers that are better that are priced comparably? I'm looking for a
printer (or combination of printers) that can print at least 30 ppm and
be able to handle up to 100,000 pages per month.
Color would be a nice option, but isn't necessary.
Recommendations are welcome.

I've had a Phaser 7750 for about three months. It is rated for
150,000 pages per month, and has a rated speed of 35ppm color or B&W
(it doesn't slow down for color). Thus far, I'm quite pleased with the
printer.

Thanks,
Wes

You're welcome,
Paul

 

[me]

I'm looking at purchasing some printers for bulk printing for a
business and have a general question regarding color laser printers.
When a pages that is to be printed has color on it, does the extra time
come from rendering it, or from actually printing it? Basically, will
the printer speed back up for the monochrome portion and slow back down
for the color?
Also, what kind of reputation do the Tektronix printers have? I'm
looking at the Phaser 740 and 750. How would they be compared
(reliability, print quality, etc...) to HP? What about Lexmark? I
know HP's pretty much the standard for businesses, but are there other
printers that are better that are priced comparably? I'm looking for a
printer (or combination of printers) that can print at least 30 ppm and
be able to handle up to 100,000 pages per month.
Color would be a nice option, but isn't necessary.
Recommendations are welcome.

At this amount of printing (100,000 per month) you should probably look
at Canon's CLC and IRC ranges eg: CLC3220 iRC3220N both of these are
multi-function so can be photocopiers as well as printers. They, like
(I think) the Xerox 7750 are contone rather than halftone printers, so
for each of the colours can be varied in intensity over 256 steps giving
a much wider gamut, whereas the lower range lasers (and inkjets) don't
have this facility and either there is a coloured dot or there isn't so
they use the dithering to try and generate all the different colours
required. I _think_ that both the above printers are single pass, so
when it prints a colour page it lays down all four colours at the same
time, whereas lower grade (and older) printers tended to be four pass -
the paper would go through four times for a colour page, eg ,my machine
CLC950 is something like 7 ppm colour but 28 ppm black only.


Another alternative supplier could be Ricoh with something like their
Aficio CL7100 which is a printer only or Aficio 2232C which is a
photocopier as well.

If you don't need the colour you can obviously get black only version of
similar printers for considerably less money! At the level you are
looking at I suppose you should probably look at cost per copy
maintenance agreements and possibly leasing - depending what the
accountant says. After all a penny a page at 100,000 pages a month soon
adds up. And you can expect to need someone to come along and fiddle
with it fairly regularly.

 

[mike]

I'm looking at purchasing some printers for bulk printing for a
business and have a general question regarding color laser printers. snip
Color would be a nice option, but isn't necessary.
Recommendations are welcome.
Thanks,
Wes

If cost per page matters...and color isn't necessary...why would
you consider color at all? Just more expensive and lower reliability.
mike


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