Thread: Best color laser for 12" x 18" prints for graphic designer?

What's your maximum budget?

Personally I prefer the print quality from canon and the finish from xerox; I've had some great ricoh b/w machines but I haven't seen top-end graphic color from them.

Have you requested and looked at the print samples already? That's the only way to know for sure if the print quality will be what you're after (many like the punchy color from xerox for example, but I prefer the more subtle, I believe realistic and offset-like, colors and gradations from canon machines in general.)

Once you settle on the mechanics, the rip will also make a big difference on the subtle smoothness of screens, gradiations, speed, and color management.

Thanks for the info! As far as budget... being a small operation, myself, I would like the best quality I can get for the best price. If I decide to go with the Ricoh Aficio CL7200 I have located it for around $2300. That is a great idea about print samples, I haven't gotten those yet. You have definitely given me some great guidance!

My wife needs a tabloid color printer for her graphic design studio. I estimate <20,000 pages/year, but with high coverage. I boiled down the choices to
a.) Ricoh Aficio SP C820DN
b.) Xerox Phaser 7500DT

They cost the same, toner costs a lot more for the Xerox, but the most important criterion is print quality. Does anybody know both these printers?

a few years ago did some reseach on the phaser 7400, same as oki and xante, and came to the conclusion, that very expensive to run and quality diminishes rapidly, and xerox will not replace drums if they have more than i think it was 20% remaining, which could lead you into a machine with 60-70% drum life with dreadful copies. cant tell you anything about ricoh accept if you get one, get a service contract.