Color Laser Printer

grapeman · Sep 21, 2008

For those of you considering upgrading their printer to a color laser for labels I just noticed an ad for Staples for this week. $249.98 - Save $250 that's half off, not bad. That should make anyone a nice cheap color laser to put on your desktop.

Waldo · Sep 21, 2008

If you can afford the toner cartridges for it

I have the 2605dn...I love the printer until I have to replace the cartridges. About the price of a new printer for the set. I am looking for someone who can refill my emptys for me. I now have about 6 sets.Edited by: Waldo

Wade E · Sep 21, 2008

Yea Waldo i noticed that and was the main reason I didnt get a laser. Cant afford to be spending money like that until these kids are out of collge or I hit the lotto. Or move out of this expensive state.

Joanie · Sep 21, 2008

I saw that ad too and got all excited! I looked at reviews and it didn't fare very well. I went to Amazon to read reviews there and they had the same printer for $194! I just looked again now and it's up to $237.99! Talk about inflation!!! Yeowser!

jobe05 · Sep 21, 2008

I had this exact same printer in my "old" office. I bought it over a year ago and have never gone through any of the colored cartridges but because we printed mostly black, we went through a cartridge every few months. The black, 60,000 print cartridge was about $269......... The color as I recall was a little cheaper but you got fewer prints...... maybe 20,000 (I forgot). But I use to do all my labels on it and never ran through a color cartridge.......... I also think I paid around $750 a year ago for this same printer!

I think my new business needs a printer like this now!

Dean · Sep 21, 2008

The main problem with this HP printer, is that it requires the HP Genuine chip on all the toner carts, so you have to buy HP and not 3rd party. That can get expensive. I'd also look at the new Brother color printers. They've come a long way with regards to quality, and a lot of thier units have both network and duplex options, which cuts down on paper, and allows connectivity to all your computers.

Frank&Rita · Sep 21, 2008

I bought a HP 2600n on Ebay for 250 delivered to my door with full cartriges I also saw on ebay someone sells instructions to get all the ink out of the toners as the factory presets says they are empty before they are.

grapeman · Sep 21, 2008

This is certainly not a top of the line printer and yes there are downsides to it, but for $250 you can get all set up for a color laser printer. You will print probably 30-50,000 pages before you run out of color toner. When you run out of toner, buy another cheap printer not the replacement cartridges. The life of the toners is about the same as 30-50 ink cartridges at $30 or more each, which is considerably more than the cost of the new color printer. Always look at cost per page for the life of the printer, not just the initial cost.

Wade E · Sep 21, 2008

I did not know they last that long but my wife needs a fax machine also. Maybe next year Ill look into a laser printer as the only label that I had George do came out better then any of mine ever have.

swillologist · Sep 21, 2008

I know this sounds kinda dumb. But if you buy the laser printerand your old printer works just fine. Why not just use the laser mostly just for printing your labels and use the old one for printing most everything else? Then you wouldn't use up the cartridges in the laser as fast.

grapeman · Sep 21, 2008

That's not a dumb question at all. I keep a regular laser printer for printing most documents and such and use my color laser for labels and booklets I want to look better. I also can print pictures with it. For the really big color prints, I use my HP Designjet 800 to print up to 48 inches wide by ~100 feet long in color. Try one that size if you want to eat up money fast in ink and photo quality paper!

Wade E · Sep 21, 2008

Appleman, thats what we use at work to print out full scale drawings for framing curved wall and also templates of treads for the stairs although it seems that it has to be calibrated quite a bit and we waste a lot of paper with that thing. When is set to print at 64th accuracy it takes for ever to print also but man when its accurate it sure saves a lot of time.

grapeman · Sep 22, 2008

Wade it is probably the software that needs to be calibrated- maybe AutoCad? I have never had mine get out of calibration for the house plans. I use Chief Architect. When I worked for a steeel company, our plotter and AutoCad were always getting out of calibration- especially when it made copies.