Why Cheap Color Laser Printers Are a Dicey Deal

Most people shopping for a colorise laser printer want one because they think it will impress quickly, produce unspoiled-looking end product, and toll less to run than an inkjet pressman. Just the sad evidence from our tests and research shows that for the cheapest colourise laser printers, the opposite is true: They tend to be dense, their print timber beyond plain text is fair, and their toner costs as much American Samoa (or more than) the ink for a comparable inkjet.

Dell 2150cdn color laser printer — Dell 2150cdn

Slowpokes: It's virtually a guarantee–the let down the price of a color laser printer, the slower it will be. Two current $400 models, the Dell 2150cdn and the Oki Printing Solutions C330dn, managed decent speeds in our testing, reaching 15.1 pages per minute and 15.2 ppm, respectively, when printing textual matter. You can certainly find colour in laser printers that are faster, but those speeds are about mean for all the distort optical maser printers we've evaluated. If you slide much lour connected the price scale, you'll be drumming your fingers patc waiting for your printouts to appear. On the said text-printing process test, for instance, two current $230 models, the HP LaserJet Pro CP1025nw and the Dell 1250c, posted perceptibly slower speeds of 11.2 and 7.5 ppm, respectively–the last mentioned sporty one-half the average hurry of all color laser printers we've tested. If you value your time, remember that the money you save happening unrivalled of these printers you'll oddment up profitable stake galore times over just waiting for prints.

HP LaserJet Pro CP1025nw color laser printer — HP LaserJet Pro CP1025nw

Lousy photos: Well-nig gloss laser models still print stunted photos in comparison with inkjets, and cheap people of color laser printers are no diametrical. The Dell 2150cdn's output was pretty good–later we fiddled with its automated and manual color-registration tools far longer than we usually have to. The Oki C330dn's color graphics showed noticeable banding and graininess, and cartoonish flesh tones. Photos from the HP LaserJet Pro CP1025nw looked dark and oversaturated. Only the Dell 1250c's semblance character was impressively good.

High-priced toner: Buying toner for a cheap colouring optical maser printer is a trifle like dining at a trendy new restaurant where you pay $30 for a scale with three shrimp. Cheap color lasers have the most valuable toner, which comes in baritone-capacity cartridges that print 2000 pages at the most.

Dell 1250c color laser printer — Dell 1250c

For illustrate, the Dell 1250c (as well as its cousin, the Dingle 1350cnw) has the highest-monetary value toner of any color laser we've tested. The printer's standard toner cartridge prints reasonable 700 pages. The black toner costs $50 (which works dead to 7.1 cents per page), while each semblance costs $55 (7.9 cents per color, per page). A page with all four colors would cost almost 31 cents. Those prices look steep even when compared with the costs of a color inkjet pressman.

You can buy out cartridges for the Dell printers that will yield more pages. The costs of those versions are lower, but lul heavy. The black toner lasts 2000 pages (3.5 cents per page), and each color lasts 1400 pages (5 cents per foliate). A four-emblazon page would cost 18.5 cents.

Oki Printing Solutions C330dn color laser printer — Oki Printing process Solutions C330dn

The situation ISN't much better for other cheap color laser printers. The Dingle 2150cdn's standard-sizing cartridges are very expensive, and its heights-return cartridges are just mean in price. The Oki C330dn's toner costs are tolerant. The H.P. LaserJet Pro CP1025nw's toner cartridges cost more than average.

Is a cheap color optical maser pressman a well behaved mickle for anyone? If you are patient, you print fairly little (no more than a few dozen pages per week), and you bind reniform color graphics rather than photos, a color laser might be a reasonable buy. But so would an inkjet–and it would generate better photos and might well cost less initially.

The color laser printers we've dependable that perform the best–print quickly, produce nice images, function light on toner costs–are designed for higher-volume situations, such as a workgroup in a busy office, and have higher purchase prices to match. Incidentally, Dingle, the unvaried company that makes the disappointingly slow and costly 1250c color laser, likewise makes our rife top-rated models, the speedy 5130cdn and 3130cn.