Desktop Colour Laser Printers: Best Buys
And the winner is...
Group Test While any of these six printers can turn out a decent business page, with sharp black text and vibrant colour graphics, some definitely have more to offer than others and two stand out.
The Reviews...
- Canon i-Sensys LBP5050
- Dell 1320c
- HP Color LaserJet CP1215
- Lexmark C540N
- OKI C3450N
- Xerox Phaser 6125
Colour Laser Printers - Print Speed Test
Higher points are better
Colour Laser Printers - Print Cost Test
Lower points are better
The Reviews...
- Canon i-Sensys LBP5050
- Dell 1320c
- HP Color LaserJet CP1215
- Lexmark C540N
- OKI C3450N
- Xerox Phaser 6125
Lexmark’s C540N is a capable small workgroup printer at a distinctly home printer price, and is a bargain if you want a device with excellent speed and some expandability. No question, this printer warrants a Reg Hardware Recommended award.
If money is tight, though, the Xerox Phaser 6125 offers reasonable speed, good print quality and some of the lowest running costs seen here. It’s networkable as standard and comes out as £135 very well spent. These factors combined make it the clear winner, and it's Reg Hardware's Editor's Choice Colour Laser Printer. ®
COMMENTS
Data Representation
I'd just like to comment on the wholly inappropriate use of line graphs to represent the data on the speed and cost tests. Such graphs are for representing continuous data where sampling has occurred at particular points and it is assumed that the data follows the line between the points. For example, I should be able to read from the graphs that if there was some magical hybrid printer which is half HP CP1215 and half Lexmark C540N then I should expect 13.1 ppm black text performance and a colour page cost of 17p.
A simple bar chart would have been far more appropriate.
Running Costs
You didn't seem to take power consumption into account when calculating the running costs. Your own figures show the Xerox uses 50W in standby whereas the HP uses a much more svelte 11W. I'd like to see the difference in cost if both machines were left on standby for a day or even a week.
And that's without mentioning the consumption when running - ranging from 253W to 480W. Depending on how much you print, that could really add up.
Running costs
I think a simplistic running cost comparison between laser printers and ink jets under ideal conditions is wide of the mark. To me, the biggest difference, and the huge advantage of colour laser printers, is that the INK DOESN'T DRY OUT.
I have lost count of the number of times I have replaced ink jet cartridges early because I was getting stripey print outs, or the amount of ink I've wasted cleaning the heads. I have even had to throw out an otherwise perfectly good ink jet printer before now because I didn't use it enough and the print heads were fatally clogged up with dried ink (though not before wasting money on yet another complete set of ink cartridges trying to fix it... grr!)
The main thing that persuaded me to buy a laser printer though was how hard the guy in Staples tried to persuade me that an ink jet was better. It's obvious what they make their money from.
OS agnostic printing
After being responsible for buying printers for over ten years, printer drivers, running costs and a good standard of printing have become key purchasing decisions (network and duplex support being mandatory requirements). Being able to print from a diverse set of computers and operating systems reduces support calls and complaints from management. Low running costs keep Accounts from making complaints about the consumables budget, while a good standard of printing (improved printing speed and quality compared to previous printer) and everyone is happy.
I have found that buying a printer which is capable of printing PCL5, PCL6 or Postscript (or a clone) minimised printing issues at is it possible to get a driver for any OS which supports these no matter what their age. Printers that use Host based printing are to be avoided at all costs, and are best left for the home user to waste the time and money on.
Having recently purchased an All in Printer for personal use, it is a mistake I will not making again. The driver software is bloated, too complicated, causes the printer to disappear every month requiring a complete re-install. Why can All in One Printer manufacturers provide a consistant standard interface for all printers to access Scanning and Faxing functions. How difficult would it be to install a standard web server which listens on one port for Scanning control and another for Fax control. They all have to have their "proprietary interface" which changes with every printer model, so they have to keep on developing buggy drivers. Its would be nice if European Commission investigated the printer manufacturers for collusion in failing not to come up with a open and free standard method of accessing these functions; there is no reason to have a continuously changing "proprietary standard" unless it is to exclude the competition..
The web supports pictures, you know...
Thanks for a group test of printers which didn't at any time show a single solitary scan or photograph of the printed output from the printers you tested. The reader is left guessing at how things look from your prose and trusting that your reviewer judgement and priorities for image quality happen to precisely match theirs.
