- Joined
- Jun 8, 2000
- Messages
- 3,140
I have had an awkward relationship with a string of inkjet printers at home since I bought my first one in 1996. INK JETS SUCK!!! In my experience they're usually good for about two or three sets of cartridges before trouble sets in. I've tried HP, IBM and Epson. The Epson 860 was the most recent model used and was good for about 18 months. It started giving me grief about a month ago and wouldn't print black and white clearly (like printing checks!). Not long after, my wife's HP also started screwing up. Not being able to pring checks is one thing, I can hand write them if I have to, but she's job hunting and you just can't submit a hand written resume today unless you're still a pimply faced teenager (she's not).
So I started doing research on a cheap networkable printer as I figured it would make more sense to have just one printer that everyone could use. I was sort of tossed up between buying a networked inkjet so we could still print in color, or a monochrome laser so that I could stop screwing with inkjets.
Much to my surprise I found that the price of color laser printers has come WAY down. Both HP and Minolta now offer color lasers for under a grand. I ended up with a Minolta QMS 2300DL. It lists for $799.00 but I got Staples to match a web price and only paid $735.00. Now this is a lot for a personal printer, but I was looking $500.00 for a networkable inkjet or black and white laser, so for only a little more I get color printing and never have to screw with an inkjet again! The cost of consumables is about 1/3 of what an inkjet costs on a per page basis and you don't have to use special (expensive) paper to get photos to look good. The 2300 has a built in 10/100 ethernet interface (as well as USB and parallel for non network applications), 600x2500 dpi maximum resolution and will do 16 pages per minute in clack and white/ 3ppm in color.
This printer rocks! It was easy to set up and yesterday I picked up a 256mb stick of standard PC133 SDRAM memory (only $35.00!) to add to the built-in 32 mb raising it to a max of 288mb of internal memory. This lets the printer handle high rez full color pages up to legal size. The output looks better than both of the printers we have at work and one of them is an HP 2500DN color laser that was $2500.00 just a copuple months ago. There's even an add on duplexer available if you need to print both sides. This thing would be perfect for a knifemaker who wanted to produce nice looking brochures at home for very little money.
The initial investment hurt a bit, but overall I'm a happy camper. If you're a Mac user or heavy duty graphics pro you might not like this model because it doesn't have currently have a Mac driver and doesn't support PostScript printing, but for a windows only small office or home network this seems to do everything I could imagine. If you do need PostScript and Mac support, both can be had by Minolta or HP for around $1200.00 in step up models. The duty cycle is rated at 35,000 pager per month so It should last us a good long time for home use.
Just had to share.
jmx
So I started doing research on a cheap networkable printer as I figured it would make more sense to have just one printer that everyone could use. I was sort of tossed up between buying a networked inkjet so we could still print in color, or a monochrome laser so that I could stop screwing with inkjets.
Much to my surprise I found that the price of color laser printers has come WAY down. Both HP and Minolta now offer color lasers for under a grand. I ended up with a Minolta QMS 2300DL. It lists for $799.00 but I got Staples to match a web price and only paid $735.00. Now this is a lot for a personal printer, but I was looking $500.00 for a networkable inkjet or black and white laser, so for only a little more I get color printing and never have to screw with an inkjet again! The cost of consumables is about 1/3 of what an inkjet costs on a per page basis and you don't have to use special (expensive) paper to get photos to look good. The 2300 has a built in 10/100 ethernet interface (as well as USB and parallel for non network applications), 600x2500 dpi maximum resolution and will do 16 pages per minute in clack and white/ 3ppm in color.
This printer rocks! It was easy to set up and yesterday I picked up a 256mb stick of standard PC133 SDRAM memory (only $35.00!) to add to the built-in 32 mb raising it to a max of 288mb of internal memory. This lets the printer handle high rez full color pages up to legal size. The output looks better than both of the printers we have at work and one of them is an HP 2500DN color laser that was $2500.00 just a copuple months ago. There's even an add on duplexer available if you need to print both sides. This thing would be perfect for a knifemaker who wanted to produce nice looking brochures at home for very little money.
The initial investment hurt a bit, but overall I'm a happy camper. If you're a Mac user or heavy duty graphics pro you might not like this model because it doesn't have currently have a Mac driver and doesn't support PostScript printing, but for a windows only small office or home network this seems to do everything I could imagine. If you do need PostScript and Mac support, both can be had by Minolta or HP for around $1200.00 in step up models. The duty cycle is rated at 35,000 pager per month so It should last us a good long time for home use.
Just had to share.
jmx