Best New LASER printer???

[mswilson16]

I have just started work at a new company and they currently use a HP2200 Business Ink jet for ALL Printing. They have had this printer for about 4 years and now I think that it is on its way out. I have just had to replace the Print Heads and the quality is dropping a lot.

I know that Laser printers are a lot more economical so save doing more repairs on the current printer we are thinking of just buying a new laser.

My Office prints around 30-60 pages an hour both colour and B&W. So it doesn't have to be too industrial but does have to last. We can print ALOT at times. We also print quite a few photos.

Can anyone advise me on good laserjets? and if it is worth getting a colour or just B&W???

Thanks in advance

Martin Wilson

 

[bluegroper]

How many thousands of pages per month ?

 

[mswilson16]

9600ish a month.

I am debating getting a B&W laserjet and then getting an inkjet for the colour. We do print quite a few photos and to my knowledge there are not many laser printers that can do them justice.

I have been looking at "Brother HL 1440 - printer - B/W - laser". I have a dealer that is giving me a very good price on it. How good is this printer? Can it stand up to the use I intend on giving it.

I would prefer to get another HP because we already have one laser for a different department.

 

[chadroeder]

We use an hp 5500 here...it's really good with photos (but not as good as a cheap inkjet, imo, but it will print a nice 8x10 picture in about 10 seconds, as opposed to 5 minutes on an inkjet) Prints fast, ethernet connection, etc...only drawback is the price of the toner! 300 bucks x 4 = tons of cash...

 

[Bacardi412]

Depends. If you print, say 75% bw, then I'd suggest getting a HP 4100, 4200 (recommended) ($1000-1200) and then maybe a HP 5100-5650 color ink jet ($100-150).

If you print 50-50 then I'd suggest a HP 4600 laser color ($1800-2200).

If you get a laser color you really need to make sure you use it as much if not more color than bw.

Hope this helps.

Bacardi

 

[desktoprat]

I second Bacardi's suggestion. The 4200 and the 4600 so far have been rock solid. The speed of the 4200 is outstanding. Something on the order of 27 PPM. The 4600 is only a little slower, but hey, its color.

An even better thing as far as I am concerned is the Webjet Admin functions of both printers. Once on the network, you can get an exceptional amount of info just by going to the IP address of the printer. Approximate page counts left before the toner is empty. Same for the maintenance kit.

They can also be configured (using an SMTP server) to email up to 2 different users depending on situations. Out of toner, email the supplies lady. Printer jam, email the tech. Run out of paper, don't email anybody.

Print jobs can be password protected and retrieved once the user actually gets to the printer. I would keep going, but my pager won't quit. : ) Anyway, very much thumbs up on the 4200 and/or 4600

 

[dbMark]

The HP 4100 series is being phased out. About the only model left is the 4100mfp, a multifunction B&W printer with copying, printing and color scanning.

Take a look at HP 4200 series which prints at up to 35 ppm. The 4300 series is faster (45ppm) and has 50% more toner per cartridge but is pricier.

Will the printer be installed directly onto the network, or connected to computers and shared? Getting the network-ready capability will cost $200-$450 extra.

I looked at one popular mail order site and here's what I saw:

$2000 HP 4100mfp
$1000 HP 4200
$1200 HP 4200n (network version) with instant rebate
$1400 HP 4300
$1850 HP 4300n (network version)

After I logged on with the business account I got 3-4% additional savings off the above.

 

[mswilson16]

thanks guys! I went onto the HP site and looked at the compare between the printers. It turns out that the HP 2300 can easily manage what I need.

Has anybody any experience with this printer?

 

[desktoprat]

I like it, not sure if I would use it as a group printer though. Perhaps if the group was really small.....

 

[mswilson16]

the group is around 10 people? Do you think the printer could handle that?

 

[dbMark]

The group is around 10 people? Do you think the printer could handle that?

1. It is much better than your current configuration, a business deskjet. You will be amazed at the improvement. Earlier you said average usage is 30-60 pages an hour. This can spit that many (B&W) pages out in a couple minutes. <joke> and take the rest of the hour off on an extended coffee break. </joke>

2. To get a printer designed for higher usage than the 4300, you'd likely have to get the 9000 model which is quite a bit larger (a cube 2'x2'x2') and is way more than you need. Beside you can get the 4300 with optional high-capacity paper bin, network capability and duplexing. Quite flexible.

3. You don't have to redesign the entire printer/printing processes all at once. Get one new printer, let the users use it and see what else is needed. Besides, management may not want to put all the money into printers alone. They have the entire office to fund, the computers, software, upgrades, network equipment, internet accounts, paper supplies, even pencils. On the one hand they may like to do it all at once, or they may want to do it more gradually. You have to be the judge of that.

4. Rather than get one monster printer, it may be better to have a couple good ones. If you had just one printer that did everything, what would be left when it goes down and needs repair? Therefore, have one color printer either inkjet or laser depending on your needs, and a couple B&W printers and let the old inkjet get dusty in the closet just in case of an emergency. Or you may not even need 2 B&W printers if you are willing to use your color printer as its backup. Lots of configuration choices, all better than the current setup.

 

[desktoprat]

I like DbMark's post. He explains it pretty well.

I don't know if I'd go with the 2300, I would be more inclined to go with the network versions of either the 4200 or 4300. The speed increase alone (35ppm for the 4200) will save you so much time that you can concentrate even more on fixing their desktop issues, such as configuring their webshots correctly.

The maintenance kit replacement will be longer intervals than the 2300 as well. Can't tell you off the top of my head what it is for the 2300, but using the Webjet Admin, I am connected to a 4200 and can see they have approximately 170K pages to go before the next maintenance kit is due.

Go with DbMark's 4th point. Let the black and white handle the black and white and let a cheap inkjet handle the color.

 

[mswilson16]

Thanks guys, this has helped me loads! I can see from everyone's post that they feel that the 4200 is going to be a better choice then the 2300. Unfortunately this printer is an extra 300 dollars... so i think that it will have to be the budget that decides this one.

But as DbMark said it is better to get a few smaller printers than one big one. I think that maybe if I got this one then we could last on it and then later buy a 4200-4300 printer.

Thanks again!