Newbie: looking for a color laser printer to start printing small but nice quality

[walter_moclear]

Hello,

I am looking to get a good color laser printer. We deal with fine furniture and we have to print nice pictures once in a while. We do not need to print quantities but when we print we need the colors and the quality to be beautiful. We like to use glossy paper.

We had the printer HP2600 and now we are testing the lexmark C543dn and we are very disappointed by the prints. Poor quality and colors when it is supposed to be a resolution of 1200 x 1200.

Can anybody recommend us toward which printer we should go?
Thanks in advance
Wally

 

[mightyandy]

Take a look at the older Xerox docucolor 12, compared to modern digital copiers they are very slow however the print quality is still very good and can handle a wide variety of stock.Because of their age they can now be obtained used very cheap.

Hope this helps

 

[archipelago]

Agreed. Have prints from the doc 12 that still look great by today's standards. With a tiny bit of blood (learning to maintain it) sweat (getting it) and tears (when you have to replace a big part once in a while) It will do you far better than the cheap desktop lasers. The doc12's print quality was really nice and they can be had for a steal now. Get a test print from the one you're buying and if possible get it from someone you trust to have maintained it well.

 

[steinkebeyer]

About 1.5 years ago I was looking for the same type of printer as you are looking for. I too print lots of photos and some text. I had been a veteran Xerox user for 10 years but was motivated to switch because of higher repair costs and consumables. I switched to a KM Magicolor 7450. Shortly after getting this printer, I had problems with the text being blurry, it's call toner scatter. Since I use a Mac this creates a serious problem. My recommendation is to stay away from Konica Minolta and go with Xerox.

 

[scarface]

first thing the dc12 does 12 prints a minute a4. duplex it does 5 pages a minutes. a canon clc 3200 would be perfect for you (32 pages a minute). very low running costs and top quality and at the same time fast. you can also print booklets on this if you needed to, you would be limited to print only with the dc12 ie. no finishing on the dc12. also gloss paper is useless for laser printers as you will only get a matt/silk finish on laser printers. the toners are very expensive on the dc12 compared to the canon which does 25000 pages at 40% coverage. dc12 is 12500 pages at 5% coverage.

 

[Jeff]

. the toners are very expensive on the dc12 compared to the canon which does 25000 pages at 40%

Where do you get this figure??? We've run 1.5 million prints on our canon 3200/3220 and don't get nearly this yield. Can you point to anyplace canon claims 25000 pages at 40% yield for their cartridges vs. 5%? I'm quite sure it's 5%. If not the canon cartridges we get in the oem canon boxes certainly don't measure up to what you're getting.

dc12 ie. no finishing on the dc12. also gloss paper is useless for laser printers as you will only get a matt/silk finish on laser printers.

We considered getting a DC12 before we got our two 3200 and 3220. I found the gloss finish from the DC12 quite pleasing. I also like the gloss finish we now get from our docucolor 242 on kromekote, hammermill gloss, and sterling ultra gloss. The canons irc's don't deliver gloss but the xerox do. I also really liked the gloss from the imagepress c1 if you are a canon-man, but again it's slow like the doc 12. Some people say the xerox looks "baked on" compared to the canon which is more "natural" with the satin finish. It's all a matter of taste, but I and my customers have been really happy with the gloss from the xerox, especially on kromekote. It's not the gloss quality of a uv coating on offset, and it does slow down when run in enhanced gloss mode by about half, but it's nice for what it is. After being limited to the satin from the canons for years (which was also nice for what it was) I do like having a gloss option now. I also find both the old doc 12 and the doc 242/252 density and consistency superior to what we get from our canon 3200 or 3220.