Anyone Know Of A Better Priced Colour Laser

[mouse]

Found a Xerox Colour Laser Printer Model C525A for 14,000 Baht specs are:

Speed/PPM: Color 5ppm/ Black 25ppm

Processor: 300 MHz CPU+ASIC

Resolution: 600x600 dpi/ 9600x9600

Memory (Max 576MB): 64MB

Printer Language: PCL 6/ Auto

Paper Input

Tray 1 - 200 sheet multipurpose tray

Tray 2 - 500 sheet tray

Media Sized: A4/A5/B5/Letter

Interface: Parallel/USB2.0/Ethernet 10/100 Base-TX

Warranty 3 Years (Onsite by Xerox)

They also include an additional (free) B/W Toner catridge!

Problem is I seldom get to Pantip Plaza in Bangkok. If anyone is at Pantip Palaza in the next few days and sees a better deal, please let me know by PM and I will change my upcoming travel plans accordingly.

Edited May 30, 2006 by mouse

[Firefoxx]

I've seen the Oki color laser at IT City... if I remember correctly it was around 13k baht, and there was some other promotion to make it even cheaper (ie, buy something, get this laser for xxxx baht).

The Oki is good in that it's single pass... basically all the color drums are arranged in a line, and the paper passes through the drums one after another in a straight line to the output. Most color lasers are the type where the drums are arranged in a carousel (or ferris-wheel). Only one drum is used at a time... the paper passes through one, the wheel rotates to the next color, the paper passes through that, and so on, until all colors are done. This isn't really ideal, since it's very complicated (mechanically involved), which means more room for error/failure. It's also much slower, and the paper is being rolled and battered a lot more. Changing cartridges is also a pain... there's only one place to change a single cartridge, so you need to go through the rotation bit.

The Zerox beats the Oki in the interface area.. the Oki only has a USB port, while the Zerox has an ethernet port... which is extremely strange for a budget color laser (or any budget laser).

(I was in the market for a color laser a few years back so I did a bit of research.)

Hmm, does it *have* to be by PM?

[mouse]

Hmm, does it *have* to be by PM?

Heck no Firefoxx you can deliver the informaiton in person, I always have a cold one ready for you!

Seriously! Thanks for the information, it is precisely the network capabilities that caught my attention!

[Firefoxx]

I've looked at the online reviews, and they seem to be favorable. It's pretty slow at color printing, but most 4-pass color lasers are. Everyone seems to like the network interface... but it's only for TCP/IP printing (it can be used with windows) and not SMB. The toner seems to be pretty expensive. The small amount of RAM (64mb) might be problematic for printing complex pages.

If you want networking and don't already have a print server, this is a pretty good value. Be sure to check out the consumables price and the print quality before commiting. This is a budget printer, and not a workhorse printer... don't use it too heavily.

[croftrobin]

I've looked at the online reviews, and they seem to be favorable. It's pretty slow at color printing, but most 4-pass color lasers are. Everyone seems to like the network interface... but it's only for TCP/IP printing (it can be used with windows) and not SMB. The toner seems to be pretty expensive. The small amount of RAM (64mb) might be problematic for printing complex pages.

If you want networking and don't already have a print server, this is a pretty good value. Be sure to check out the consumables price and the print quality before commiting. This is a budget printer, and not a workhorse printer... don't use it too heavily.

I purchased the OKI Colour Laser last year from IT City in Pantip and I am happy with it, consumables are a bit expensive but I was fully aware of the costs before I purchased it.

Its quick and gives a good output quality

I paid around 17k for it then but it has come down in price since then.

[mouse]

Well Went to Chiang Mai and bought it at a cost of 14,900 Baht. Got it home set it up and am pleased to say the least. Eaxctly what I needed. Especially the ip part that allows for remote printing! You can view it HERE

[tracker]

Hi,

did research a year ago when I needed 170 printed catalogs (21pages) for my boss. IT was cheaper to buy a laser-printer and do the job ourselfs including the ink and the booklet machines then to set it out to a offsetprinter.. boy, are those expensive!

I found out that you must go for the COST PER PAGE rather than the price of the printer.

I bought a brother laser color printer with network connection. It was around 15000 baht but the price per page was the lowest of all.

I recently refilled the toner which cost only 1200 baht/color... a lot cheaper than the original toner cartridge of 5200 baht/color. You can actually refill yourself as the powder is only 600 baht... I didn't want to go through that messy stuff however.

[Firefoxx]

I've never trusted refills, as there are too many things that can go wrong with them. Some people swear by them.

I have a HP 2420N, a workhorse mono laser. Usually used genuine cartridges with it, but then one of the employees tried a refurbished cartridge. It worked fine with normal paper, but once we switched to tranparencies, the sheet melted and ruined the printer's rollers. These were transparencies we used all the time with the genuine cartridges with no problems whatsoever. Needless to say, we had to get the printer to a service center, and since the printer was used often, we lost a lot of time.

Cost per page actually depends on several things, and is a bit difficult to calculate accurately. Color lasers complicate matters, since they tend to have more consumables (more toner colors, more fusers, coatings, developers) than mono lasers, and their complicated paper path makes things worse.

Speaking of cost per page, HP Inkjets were traditionally *the* most expensive of all inkjets by a large margin with regards to TCO (total cost of ownership). This was because of their combined color ink cartridges with integrated print heads, both of which made their cartridges very expensive. Yet recently they switched to separate inks on their office inkjets, and are marketing it as "cheaper TCO than color lasers", and saying it's the best thing to come along since sliced bread... even though every other brand has been doing it long before they thought of it.

[Guest endure]

Xerox make some excellent printers. Especially good are the Phaser solid ink printers which will print both mono and colour pages at the same speed at brilliant quailty. Their main problem is that, in order to effect the best ink economy, they need to be kept on all the time.

Edited June 18, 2006 by endure

[MikeWill]

Any recommendations for a mono laser (or other) printer for home (seldom use).

[h90]

Any recommendations for a mono laser (or other) printer for home (seldom use).

Ihave good experience with some brother and minolta.

Bad experience with Fuji-Xerox