I'm looking to get a new colour laser for work - anyone got any recommendations?

Looking to buy something between about £600 and £1000.

I know they are not the cheapest to run, but the HP 4550, 4600 and 2550 colour laserjets have always been good.

I'd say unless you find something compelling go for a HP.

If you're doing regular large volumes, the tectronix wax printers are good, especially if you have a dedicated B&W printer to keep B&W costs down on both fronts.

Have no experience of colour lasers at this price point, but HPs usually come out favourably when I do appraisals for kit at the 3k+ level.

I would also have a look at the OKI range; we have some of their stuff, again at the higher end of the scale and have been impressed. I wouldn't say the aftersales/support is as good as the HP, but the quality and speed is at least on a par, they're often cheaper and they've proven cheaper to run.

Steve

My mate has a Samsung, a number of years old now.

Does OK print wise.

Laser Toner is £100 new though, refills may be cheaper.

I know they are not the cheapest to run, but the HP 4550, 4600 and 2550 colour laserjets have always been good.

I'd say unless you find something compelling go for a HP.

If you're doing regular large volumes, the tectronix wax printers are good, especially if you have a dedicated B&W printer to keep B&W costs down on both fronts.

We use Laserjets for most of our mono printers so I'm happy to give HP a bit more of my money. Any idea how good they are on photo quality compared to a decent domestic inkjet?

Our current colour printer is a Xerox wax thing that doesn't do great quality , isn't all that reliable and costs a fortune in electricity because they refuse to turn it off. Apparently it takes too long to warm up...

I'd vote for HP too.

Just bought their cheap colour laser for home use (print labels, odd colour docs, etc). Ticked all the right boxes including network connectivity.

All our printers at work are HP too, mixture of B+W, colour laser and A0 colour plotters. The colour lasers have been very reliable, are serious workhorses and colour registration / alignment has been very good.

Another Samsung vote here.

I'm looking to get a new colour laser for work - anyone got any recommendations?

Looking to buy something between about £600 and £1000.

Ok,

I repair printers, copiers, fax, plan printers for a living. Whats the main thing you will use it for, how good does it have to be?

1. If its high volume look for how much the consumable cost and if your gona need a service contract. If it goes wrong my company charges £130 an hour plus parts for non contract so its expensive and thats the average call out charge from authorised dealers who know what there doing.

2. HP are good, 95% of items the end user can fit themselves and so far no complaints from the customer.

3. Samsung - rebaged from either sharp or another manufacturer

4. Kyocera do good printers and canon copy quality is very good but i'm not a fan of their reliabilty. Rioch and sharp are well established in the print world and reliable as well.

With any purchase check the cost of the consumables like fusers, drums, toner (ink)

etc where most manufacturers make the money. As i said HP would probably suit you better as its mostly customer fit items so less chance of having to call someone out.

HTH:)

Very good advice , thanks.

There's a Ricoh SPC420dn that looks ok and has noticably lower running costs than a HP.

That's worth considering

We use Laserjets for most of our mono printers so I'm happy to give HP a bit more of my money. Any idea how good they are on photo quality compared to a decent domestic inkjet?

Our current colour printer is a Xerox wax thing that doesn't do great quality , isn't all that reliable and costs a fortune in electricity because they refuse to turn it off. Apparently it takes too long to warm up...

Depends what you mean.

Compared to glossy photo paper and photo cartridges and the best quality setting, the inkjet will win, but obviously will have cost a fortune to print.

However on plain paper the laserjets knock inkjets for 6. the 2550/2600 range are compact printers suited for low to medium volume printing and they are good and fast, but if you look for it you can see the dithering on certain colours when close.

The 4550, 4600 and whatever has replaced them are slower (IME) but the quality is pretty much up there with the full glossy inject/paid for photo print and have been fine, even for selling pictures.

The tectronix (or whoever owns it now) wax printers are IMHO the best you can get for colour photographs as they mix the wax not dither, however obviously they can cost a bit more to run if you don't have dedicated B&W printers as the black wax isn't the cheapest.

HTH and if you get a laserjet can i recommend a duplexer and the jetdirect as it saves a lot of effort with people trying to manually duplex.

I've had a look at the ricoh service manual for this m/c (Ricoh SPC420dn)

pcu = 50k cyan, magenta, yellow black

transfere belt = 100k

pm kit = 100k includes fuser & feed rollers

As i dont know what prices are, £80 each toner?

toner yield is 15000 these are ALL based on 5% coverage for each colour and to be honest anyone who has a true colour copier/printer doesn't work on the 5% rule.

Whatever m/c you go for try to use genuine toner as i've seen it ruin parts in a m/c - yes its cheap for a reason.