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Color Laser Printers: Fast and Affordable!

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Performance And Cost Per Page

PerformanceColor LaserJet 2600nColor LaserJet 3600Magicolor 5430DLLexmark C522n
Average speed with office documents6.2 ppm15 ppm14.2 ppm6.4 ppm
Printing Excel graph, one page00:2100:1300:1700:17
Printing 300-dpi Illustrator document00:2500:1600:2200:55
Printing 300-dpi Photoshop image00:2400:1900:2101:04

Don't believe the speeds claimed in manufacturers' specifications. Even though some models can come close to them, actual measurements are always slower. Sometimes they are much slower, as in the case of the C522n, which claims to be among the fastest.

Cost Per Page

Cost per pageColor LaserJet 2600nColor LaserJet 3600Magicolor 5430DLLexmark C522n
Cost of black page, 5% coverage$0.04$0.01$0.01$0.03
Cost of color page, 20% coverage$0.17$0.08$0.08$0.13
Cost of 10,000 pages (70% black, 30% color)$755.79$344.09$354.60$575.93

The cost spreads show that the initial purchase cost of the printer ultimately has little impact once you get past a few thousand pages; the more expensive models are amortized and so become more economical. You should choose your printer based on your estimated printing volume.

Conclusion

While the purchase prices of one-pass color laser printers may vary greatly, you should be careful not to use purchase price as your only criterion in choosing a printer. The Lexmark C522n has a lot going for it ergonomically, but its performance is too disappointing. The Konica Minolta Magicolor 5 430DL is a very complete printer, but its bulk limits its possible applications. The HP Color LaserJet 2 600n is mostly for people who don't need to print a lot, given its very high cost per page. The Color LaserJet 3600 represents the best compromise between ergonomics, quality, speed, and cost per page; it's a shame that its network version costs so much.

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6 Comments Comment from the forums
  • gorbehnare 12 August 2008 09:37
    This is a good comparison. I found this information very much more useful.
    Reply
  • wahaha 28 August 2009 09:30
    You're also forgetting one thing, LOWER DPI.

    You do NOT need to print random obtuse documents at 300DPI. That's a waste of ink/toner, and speed. Is it even worth it to save half of 1 cent though? Who knows.

    And I bet they base the speed claims of these lasers off of 150 DPI settings. You only use 300+ DPI for business appropriate letter head.
    Reply
  • alfredjr18 12 January 2010 07:44
    Yup. Nice Post. Try to see this one too

    Best Cost Per Page HP Color Laser Printers

    Reply
  • 07 January 2011 09:24
    Inkjets will dry up if not used for months: TRUE. Lasers are the best choice if you rarely print stuff.

    Inkjets try to waste as much ink as possible: TRUE. They love to spray a LOT of ink when running very frequent cleaning cycles.

    All printer companies try to rip you off: TRUE. Chipping should be illegal from the environmental perspective. I've seen HP printers expire an entire set of 90% full color toner cartridges because they were too old, printers that refuse to print using a refilled cartridge. Some OEMs for medium-heavy duty printers require that you give them the used cartridges to get preferred pricing. That's to keep used cartridges from getting to re-manufacturers.

    Printing photos at home is a waste of money: True. They cost like a dollar for 4x6, and if you botch one, it's now $2. Photo lab is under $0.25, they pay for their mistakes, and the print is much more durable and fade / water resistant.

    For most economical, trouble free printing for a home user, get an old HP 4/5. Built like a tank, tones of re-manufactured cartridges available (if you ever need one)
    Reply
  • 03 April 2011 05:47
    Do you own a laser or inkjet?
    Reply
  • 28 December 2011 19:09
    Its time to end the stereotype of THIS article, cause its BS.

    1) Inkjets have alternative ink, that cuts down printing costs to less than that of lasers. Example: 1L color from Inktec - over 10k pages at 5% - cost 20$. ONE liter. UV resistance included.
    2) It is possible to buy as little as 20ml of ink if you dont print often
    3) Inkjet head can be rinsed with distilled hot water and vacuumed for 10 years period, if you don´t print.
    4) Inkjets do produce better quality photo. 4800x4800 vs 600x600, go try it out. The only paper where they are on parity is normal 80g which makes no difference.
    5) Printing costs: The only laser capable of at least 1200x1200 is lexmark 5xx series, with supplies costing 300$, drum 200$, drying element 250$. All this comes to page costs, somehow everyone forgets that and calculates only toner cost, which is WRONG.
    6) Inkjet consumes only 50W at printing, where lasers are up to 2KW. But thats not a major factor.

    So inkjets weight less, cost less, running costs are less, prints better. What is real problem with inkjets?
    1) You have to use alternative ink, but not just some, but special for your model. Forget about original ink - it costs more than parfume.
    2) It can get messy - if you set wrong settings - because printer dries and stores excessive ink INSIDE of itself, it can pretty much mess everything. You will need lots of paper and/or Q-tips to clean.
    3) Remember 15 minute max on air time for printing heads and catridges. A head which is dried up ins near impossible to recover if it uses pigment ink.
    4) Hardly a photo is water resistant. Due to nature of ink, its impossible. It will not dissolve from water drops, but merging a photo in water - and you can forget it. There are printers which are better here - the sublimation printers. But they are ONLY good for photo and printing costs are high, but thats labor quality.
    5) Unlike laser, you will sometimes need to clean your inkjet. It is a very messy process, and remember never to use alcohol cause it can dry ink up an you can forget the printing head.

    All in one, inkjets are ideal for less than 1000 prints in a month, or in situation where photo printing is needed, but not on large scale. Starting from 1000 prints pro year you should get CISS system on your inkjet, but still laser will be a bit more efficient, because of raw printing speed (1pass laser) and outage times(cleaning head etc).

    Overall inkjet costs way way less with alternative ink, alone the cost of supplies for laser (toner set+drum+fixer) can overweight cost of laser printer itself by factor 200%. This is why you find empty laser printers on sale at ebay for 20$.
    Reply