Should I buy a color laser printer?
 

HP Laserjet 2600n on sale at Best Buy for $300.

Kinda expensive. The Konica Minolta 2400W has been on sale for as low as $100 at several large vendors like Staples.

In general I love my color laser, it is so much nicer to have color prints available, that said; only get one if you NEED to be able to print color, as supplies for these things really is much more.

Depends on how much you plan to use it, as the cheap units really nail you with consumables costs.

That being said, I paid over $2000 for my HP Color LaserJet 4500N a few years back and it's one of my better investments, but then I am a Graphic Designer by hobby. :)

Well, I think I'll be buying it, but my company will be picking up the consumables cost. :)

You really did not need to ask the question then. :D

Still $300 out of my pocket. :p

I bought the printer at Best Buy. I didn't realize until I got to the register that it was open box. I hesistated, and then thought what the hell, I'll save another $20. Well when I got home, I printed the Supplies Status Page because the toner levels looked low and it said that over 1500 pages had been printed!

At first I was going to just go ask for toner, but now I've noticed faint red lines on the edges of the page. Other than that, the output is gorgeous, though. ^ Now I get to pack this behemouth up.

Lesson learned: don't buy open box printers!

I dunno...I'd probably just ask for a new toner cartidge (do they come with the drum in the same assembly on those?). The "starter" cartridges that come with printers are usually quite a bit smaller than what the replacement would be...

Scott, which laser do you have? My old Epson has finally died and I'm trying to decide between a color laser or BW laser + good inkjet. My worry is the cost of toner. 90% of my printing will be documents that are mostly B&W. Is a color laser going to cost substantially more per page than a B&W one?

I have teh HP 2600n... I bought it (and expensed it) after my all in one office jet died...I LOVE it...not sure how I lived with out it.
No more sending stuff to my assistant 5 states away to have printed and then shipped to me when I need 500 color pages.

It also supports bonjour so all my macs saw it instantly, I was able to attach it to my win 2k3 server to support my windows machines and my work machine (always on VPN) attaches via usb.

Provided it uses a seperate black cartridge and a seperate drum/imager, the cost per page should be comparable. My CLJ4500 uses four seperate cartridges (C,Y, M, and K) so when just doing B&W, the blacK one is drained quicker then the others.

The newer 2800 series is nice for those of you wanting to add scanning and faxing capabilities. I'm looking at the 2840 which also adds memory card reader slots.

depends on usage
 

this depends I think more on what you are going to do with it. I have the printer listed above, but would never use it for printing my photos from a 16 mpixel camera. Not even from an older 8.2 mp camera. I don't think that is what they are made for at all. Cannot get the 4800 photoredit as from the inkjet color printers.

Nice to have color sometimes though. I got the above printer for 200$ from Staples during a special and with a discount code.

There is a color phaser printer from Xerox for $600USD

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/def...spx?EDC=793945

This is to ask those of you who have either of the two printers mentioned above (HP LaserJet 2600N or Konica Minolta 2400W) if you have found an inexpensive source of color toner cartridges? At app. $80 retail each (that's the HP cartridges, Konica's are 70 each), that's a lot. Haven't seen them for any less.

Alternatively, but not out of the question, do you 'abandon' the printer, and buy a new one just for the cartridges?

Consumer Reports has a good section on laser v. inkjet, black & white v. color printers. I'm a member, don't know if you will need to log in or not:

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/e...orts/index.htm

One tip from the article is that color laser cannot print on glossy paper, so they aren't good for printing photo quality pictures.