Which Colour Laser

[alphawave]

HI I'm a newbie to this group so sorry if this question has been asked
a million times before but....

I'm in the market for my first colour A4 laser printer, I'm looking at
something costing around the £200 mark.

I don't need to print A4 size photographs but it will be used for
printing business reports containing smaller photographs, pictures and
images for illustrative purposes.

Duty will probably be around 500 pages per month.

I will need to hook this up to the network.

Three that I have noted are the Canon LBP 5200 with a resolution of
9600 dpi x 600 dpi, the Brother HL-2700CN at 2400 X 600 and the OKI
C3200 at 1200dpi x 600 dpi

Could anyone explain to me how the printer resolution works? is the
Canon that much better or is the 9600 in some way an extrapolated
resolution - is the 2400 of the Brother the same or what?

If I were to rate them now based upon what I have read I would probably
go with the OKI then the Brother and finally the Canon. The thing that
worries me most is the resolution and also, how the cost per print
compares and the cost of the consumables.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as would any suggestions of
alternative machines.

Thanks,

Kev

 

[alphawave]

sorry about the triple post google appeared not to be working???

 

[Tony Stanford]

As a matter of interest, are colour laser printers as good for colour
printing as a middle of the range inkjet? I don't require perfect
photos, and have an HP 970, which is good enough for me.

I need a new laser printer, and was thinking of going for colour. Are
they as good, say, as an HP 970?

 

[Paul Walker]

I know of one laser printer listed with a resolution of 9600x600,
and the 9600 actually means 600, but with 16 levels of intensity. In
this case, the 9600 isn't literally true, but the marketing folks may
have felt is was the best way to mention the intensity control. I
don't support this approach - I'm just reporting it as one way to
interpret the DPI numbers.
Both of my laser printers are 1200dpi, so I know that laser
printers can exceed 600dpi. You may have trouble finding out the truth
for particular models.
In the end, you will be looking at the output, not the
specification sheet So, be careful of the DPI ratings - use
them only as general indicators. I recommend getting test prints made
from an image that you provide so you can compare output.

Paul

 

[me]

I know of one laser printer listed with a resolution of 9600x600,
and the 9600 actually means 600, but with 16 levels of intensity.

Is that where they've come up with the number?! In that case mine is
102400

 

[alphawave]

Yep,
I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that test prints are the only way
to decide. Anyone know where I can get a test card that I can get each
prospective supplier to print?


Kev

 

[Arthur Entlich]

The low end color lasers are usually below the quality of a middle
quality inkjet. They are getting better all the time, but the nature of
toner and the papers used don't quite supply photographic color yet.
They are getting darn close, but the color tends to be a bit high
contrast and too bright yet.

Also, color laser printers tend to band large areas of color, like skies.

You can get sample images for many color laser printers either from the
retailers or from the manufacturers fro free for the asking. It's
awfully hard to describe image quality in words.


Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

I'd like to know what company made such an advertising claim, because
that would be a complete misinterpretation of dpi. "Intensity" has
nothing to do with dots per inch, a measure of resolution.

Art

 

[alphawave]

The Canon LBP 5200 claims "Print quality: 9600x600dpi equivalent with
Image Refinement"


Kev