Okidata C5150N $400 color LED laser - wow.

[Todd H.]

Every small office should have one! I can't quite believe $400 got me
a blazing fast 12ppm, single pass, network ready color laser printer
with 60lbs of hefty ruggedness to it like this....but it did. No more
am I worrying about printing promo material with dark backgrounds and
"how am I gonna pay for all that ink?" Color presentations look sharp
and wonderful on plain paper, and I really like the sharp glossy sheen
that gives everything a zippy and professionally printed look.

My only gripes are: its fan volume drowns out my PC in my home office,
but then I dug into the printer menus and set the power saving mode
from its default of 60min to 5min, and voila, problem solved. Photos
do not look as inkjet printouts (as can be expected). But here it's a
cost per page tradeoff. For one goofy example, there's no way a
Christmas letter would feature an extra page of photos for the year if
I had to pay inkjet costs on every copy to do it, but with this
printer which prints photos decently on plain paper there's no reason
to skimp.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Any idea how much that page of photos is costing you with it?

What is the yield of the cartridges that came with the printer?

How much are replacement toner cartridges? What other consumables are
involved? (drum(s) transfer belts, fuser oil kit, etc??)

While I suspect the inkjet costs more, I am not sure you are getting off
as cheaply as you may believe.

A full page of photos with "dark backgrounds" may be using upwards of
40% or more per color. Keep in mind most references to yield with be at
5% per color.

Art

 

[Todd H.]

Any idea how much that page of photos is costing you with it?

About 12c/per which factors in toner, drum, fuser and transfer belt
replacement intervals.

It is a poor choice for someone primarily interested in printing
photos, however.

If you do color marketing materials with dark backgrounds frequently,
that don't requires 100% photo quality, and want office-level
networking features and large paper capacity, and blazing 12ppm color
speed, and a great looking sharp glossy finish on plain paper, you
might join me in wondering how you lived without one. My inkjet is
sharper than this thing, but there's no way in hell I'd print my black
background marketing materials with it without feeling black ink
cartridges flying out of my wallet.


Best Regards,

 

[jgold]

Hi Todd --

We're looking for a replacement for our dying HP4500 and I came upon
your post. Can you tell me if the Okidata is Mac compatible? And does
it support Postscript printing?

Thanks,

John

 

[Todd H.]

Hi Todd --

We're looking for a replacement for our dying HP4500 and I came upon
your post. Can you tell me if the Okidata is Mac compatible?

The instructions include setup for the Mac. It's also a network
printer, so that's another tack.

And does it support Postscript printing?

Nope. It uses its own language. I imagine you could still easily
print postcript documents though, just not directly.

C5150N has been discontinued in the few short weeks since my post, but
CDW still has em, though they've raised the price by $30
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=653839

Caveat though, if you plan to do really dense printing, it's no
surprise that the 3000 page yield estimate is a pipedream (the
cartridge estimates are based on 5% density). I had to do some things
that were 1/3 dark red/black background, and 2/3 solid black
background. It's likely no surprise I was shoping for black toner
after about 680 copies of those bad boys, and magenta is down under
15% too.

Best Regards,