Color Laser Printers - an update
 

Should I buy a color laser printer? was a thread about two years ago on color laser printers for home/home office use.

The HP LaserJet 2600N and Konica Minolta 2400W were the favorite models, they sold in the $250 to $300 price range, we learned the OEM cartridges are not always full-capacity versions, and speed, print quality, and networking options were important.

I got the HP model back then, and I noticed it is no longer made. I even saw one for $149 a few weeks ago, and was tempted to buy it just for the cartridges.

What is new and available? In a month or two I'm going to have to replace cartridges for almost twice the cost of buying the same printer new again.

I've had good results from the Brother HL-4040CN. It's available from Costco :p I plugged the printer into the LAN, used their software, and had it all configured and running in just a few minutes.

I bought this because I was rather peeved at HP due to their lack of drivers for slightly older models when used with 64-bit operating systems. I am quite happy with it.

Some color lasers have a single cartridge for all colors, come require you to replace the entire set of color toners at the same time. I want to find one that lets you only replace the one that is empty. Does anyone use one like that?

The Brother model listed above has four cartridges. So do most of the HP ones I've seen.

I'm looking at one of these (and probably from them, I'm UK based) - http://www.printerland.co.uk/acatalo...aser_6125.html
Anyone have any thoughts?

I've had good luck with Xerox color printers in the past. I would, however, avoid the solid-ink ones. While they produce lovely prints, if you don't use them very much they tend to dump quite a bit of ink down the waste tray.

I don't know about the printer itself, but I can recommend printerland, having bought printers and toner cartridges from there before.

Made the order last night and today they called me to confirm and advise delivery tomorrow, so good so far ^^

I'm about to pull the trigger on either a HP 2840 or Brother mfc-9840cdw. Any comments about either of these would be helpful!

We liked our first 2600dn so much, I just bought another one for the front office - arrives tomorrow. $250 from HP with free shipping. None of the newer models seemed particularly compelling.

I'm thinking the same thing after looking at the new models.

Personally, I think you're better off paying for a set of cartridges and keeping the printer you've got. Who needs another giant laser printer in the landfill anyway. The new printers may be cheap, but most come with "starter" cartridges anyway, and you can bet their "full" cartridges will cost just as much per page.

I have this printer. It's the best all-purpose printer I've ever owned. It's fast, it works great on my network, and it's very sharp and clear. It even does a reasonable job on photographs though, of course, my Canon i9100 wide-carriage photo printer is better.

I go my 4040cn for $269 including shipping.

I have the Minolta 2300DL and 2430DL. As compared to the 2400W, the DL versions have ethernet interface and ability to take more memory. Ethernet interface is a prerequisite in my house due to people coming and going. The 2430DL also has direct camera print called PictBridge but I never used it.

The 2400W/2430DL have thin film fuser and are much faster to first page out than 2300DL with the older heated wire type fuser. The thin film fuser is more susceptible to physical damage such as staples on paper being fed thru.

The 2430DL can take a maximum of 512MB SDRAM in one DIMM slot. As it turns out, most PCs use so called double bank DIMM but this printer use single band DIMM. So it took me a while to find a 512MB single bank DIMM or sometimes called high density DIMM.

Both the 2300DL and 2430DL use print controllers from two different vendors and as a result the output look quite different without any color adjustment.

From the older thread, the HP 2600n came with full capacity cartridges. That's why it's a real bargain at a reduced price.