Searching for the ideal color envelope laser printer…

My name is Quin, and I run a small vegetable seed company in Southern California. We have been printing out our seed packets ourselves using the media tray of a Brother HL-5340D printer. The flexibility of this approach has been very beneficial to us because of the small size of our business: because we don't print out thousands of envelopes at a time, we can create new variety packets whenever we want. However, the limits of this approach is very related to the printer we are using: the brother media tray can only print out 3 envelopes at a time, they must be fed manually, and the printer has had trouble feeding the envelopes as time goes on. We use #5 coin envelopes, which I think makes the feeding a little trickier. We probably will be upgrading to a better brand with a slightly larger size, which might make the feeding go a little better.
I have been doing research to determine a better solution for our business, which also involves upgrading to color. I'm posting here because I'm curious if anyone has any other suggestions for me.

I have identified a few options: the brother 4570CDW, which has a 50-envelope media tray – Seems to be a low-end option that might not make it through the rigors of our needs, but it's also much closer to an immediate price range. Then, the lexmark C792de which has a 100-envelope capacity media tray, which has a. I also notice that Lexmark offers a CS510 series printer, but it's just announced and couldn't really get any specifics from the technical support people regarding its media tray.

It would be also be great to be able to print these out envelopes in duplex, but I haven't found a single color laser printer printer that has the ability to duplex an envelope. I'm imagining this might be a technical difficulty, because of the back of the envelope.

In short: large capacity media tray, color, high quality, and consistent feeding of small envelope sizes. Any other suggestions?

Thanks for your help!
-Quin

 

Hi. The only time/way you will have your envelopes feeding so-so stable if you'd use a dedicated envelope feeder. Any manufacturer and model, if they mean to use a by-pass tray as enveloper tray - it is all BS, big time. HP 4200 has an accessory called envelope feeder that is designed to feed envelopes exclusively, here it is: http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-LaserJet...18997?pt=US_Feeders_Trays&hash=item3ccc0071f5
Assuming envelopes you use will fit in it, it could provide you with somewhat reasonable capacity and jam free feeding, also what is important that printer you choose (HP4200 has it) will have a straight paper path as forcing envelopes to go on numerous turns is trouble some. I am not sure which color printer has similar accessory so really cant advice you there. May be it would make better sense if you have your envelopes preprinted in large quantity in color and imprint B/W something that being changed, like name end specific of the seeds.... Let me know if you have more questions. I am a printshop owner and copier/printer service engineer so I know my printers

 

Oh, also - really important! I did not bother to check the size of the envelope you use, but choosing a printer, check minimal size of the media it can take, larger boxes have a tendency of having a larger gap between mechanisms that pull the paper trough, imagine if one roller stopped feeding and another did not grab that envelope because it to short - instant jam.