It's hitting down into affordable territory. Duplex. Color is supposed to be little WoW but OK. It's either that or replace the rollers in my HP 2200D.
At the end of the day it comes down to what you're going to use it for. I like my color laser fine, and I was able to keep costs down by stockpiling discounted cartridges off of Ebay. DD-B, who does most of his work as photographs would find all but the most expensive units unacceptable in terms of quality (and he might take issue with those as well)
Color laser has gotten remarkably better over the last decade. I don't, as you suspected, find it tempting for photo work, but it produces images considerably better than "awful" last I checked. It's great for convention flyers and things, low-end color printing work.
I haven't owned one because I own color inkjets (chosen for photographic ability), and do little enough other color work that I just use the inkjets for it; I don't do nearly enough to justify a fairly high-volume printer.
Check how long the cartridges keep for (and if there's any way to find out, how long they *really* keep for instead of the shorter period they usually *say* they keep for). If cartridges become unusable before they're used up, it runs the price way the heck up. The cartridge size needs to match your use level decently; a fancy workgroup printer made for high volume use might be a bad choice (even setting aside the cost of the printer itself).
It doesn't go bad. Reviews indicate it's not the most exciting color around, but if I want that I can just watch Speed Racer again. My experience with inkjet has been clogged, clogged, clogged, clogged, and clogged again. Not that I've ever had much more than basic pile o' crap inkjet but spending twenty minutes trying to clean the jets each time I wanna print indicates it's not a viable technology for me.
Black toner cartridges I've used have expiration dates, and I've had a couple start behaving weirdly when beyond their expiration dates. The sample isn't big enough to be sure age was the cause of the weirdness I saw, of course.
I've never had clogging trouble in an HP inkjet. Clogging happens in Epsons, especially when using pigment inks, if they're not used frequently enough. I'm living with that now, I try to print more often :-).
no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 02:14 pm (UTC)I like my color laser fine, and I was able to keep costs down by stockpiling discounted cartridges off of Ebay.
DD-B, who does most of his work as photographs would find all but the most expensive units unacceptable in terms of quality (and he might take issue with those as well)
use?
Date: 2008-05-19 02:42 pm (UTC)Re: use?
Date: 2008-05-19 02:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 05:02 pm (UTC)I haven't owned one because I own color inkjets (chosen for photographic ability), and do little enough other color work that I just use the inkjets for it; I don't do nearly enough to justify a fairly high-volume printer.
Check how long the cartridges keep for (and if there's any way to find out, how long they *really* keep for instead of the shorter period they usually *say* they keep for). If cartridges become unusable before they're used up, it runs the price way the heck up. The cartridge size needs to match your use level decently; a fancy workgroup printer made for high volume use might be a bad choice (even setting aside the cost of the printer itself).
It's toner
Date: 2008-05-19 05:22 pm (UTC)Re: It's toner
Date: 2008-05-19 06:52 pm (UTC)I've never had clogging trouble in an HP inkjet. Clogging happens in Epsons, especially when using pigment inks, if they're not used frequently enough. I'm living with that now, I try to print more often :-).
no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 02:40 pm (UTC)There's one...
Date: 2008-05-19 04:28 pm (UTC)