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r/sysadmin•
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Colour Laser Printer Suggestion for Small Office

Sorry for posting here. I realize it's not all that much a system admin question, but r/printers is so small and sysadmin shows up with all sorts of printer questions in the search anyway.

So, we're a small office with three employees. We need to print in colour simple things like tables and graphs and small pictures for presenting professionally to clients. We're realtors, so we're looking at small batch printing for a few clients or a few mailouts at a time.

Using an HP CP1025nw at the moment, which is the slowest piece of shit and refilling the three colour toner options is going to run us 250-500 dollars after shipping depending on whether we buy the single pack or the double pack. So it seems cheaper and better to begin with to get a new printer.

So pretty much I'm just looking for a recommendation for something that will print reasonably fast and not gouge the ever living shit out of us on toner costs in the future.

Thanks for the help in advance.

Posted Mar 24, 2014, 4:40 PM UTC

59
Xeppo•

You've got two options: Buy an expensive printer and pay less for toner, or buy a cheap printer and pay more for toner. Our company uses the Konica Minolta C25, and the cost-per-page is around $.015, but the printer itself is upwards of $1000.

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imadethis2014•

What is your monthly print volume? - that is an important metric.

You might be able to get that out of the current printer's status page. But note the difference between what you've actual printed vs. what the cartridge/printer says it is capable of.

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DisolveOP•

If I had to guess I'd say it's between 1000 and 1500 pages a month, but the majority are BW.

Pretty much it's at the point now where we can either buy more toner for this one or a new printer, and a new printer will probably be functionally better and hopefully cheaper.

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imadethis2014•

I'd look at the HP printers that have Enterprise in the name, or otherwise some higher yield Lexmark printers. Shoot for something in the 35000 to 40000 monthly print range, even though you don't need it, the printer and the cartridge will just last that much longer for you.

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FireproofjeansJr. Solaris Admin•

Check out the HP 525, it's a little bit overkill at 2k-6k pages per month, but that gives you room to grow. It's a B/W printer, but I think there's a colour version avaliable if that's something you'll need.

I have no loyalty to HP, but these things are pretty nice in terms of managing the devices (web interface, remote management, and on-device configuration are all available. Web interface is easiest for a single device IMO) and you don't have to deal with any lovely two or three button interfaces.

Plus they're stupid easy to learn, the help menu is integrated into that touch screen for users, and servicing them isn't unnecessarily difficult. If there's a jam, a picture shows up on the screen that tells the user where the jam is (and which panel to open to clear it). My personal favourite is the M880, for the built in keyboard, but it's a far higher volume device and would be a waste of money for you.

Slight bonus to the new HP printers? they can automatically order new toner when the current cartridge hits ($default_value = 30%).

Full disclosure: I'm a contractor for an MSP that both deploys HP printers and works very closely with HP for said deploys. Look into other options too!

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FireproofjeansJr. Solaris Admin•

Reread the title, if most of your volume is b/w then getting a good b/w and a smaller, replaceable colour would be a better solution.

If you get a colour that has a designated b/w cartridge, you'll be replacing it often as the colour toner carts take up at least half if not more of the space depending on model.

If you just have a CYMK colour printer, then B/W copies are using 4 different toners to create black and you're using more toner than necessary IIRC.

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VectorB•

One option you might think about is to lease your printer. Im not sure how others feel about it, but our office just switched to a lease program and while I dont know how much we are paying for it, I just know that when it breaks its not my problem, call the printer guy.

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DragginKneeJack of All Trades•

Kyocera Printers are some of the best ones I've seen lately. Their CPP (Cost Per Print) is the most competitive in the industry. You will pay for the machine up front, but you won't be over-paying for toner down the road.

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filosofy•

www.amzn.com/B00BQU141C

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