Quality color printer wanted

[MikeY69]

After having a nightmare with Epson stylus C82, I started to use B/W laser printer. But my office need color printer too, so I would appreciate a recommendation on a quality color printer. We print about 5-10 color pages a day.

 

[cliffordwagner]

I have had good experience with the OKI c5150n model. It is the LED technology, so it is faster and cheaper than comparable "Laser" based systems.

The toner is refillable, I have not ordered any refill kits yet so I cannot reccomend a brand or retailer for the toner. I know that the original toner cartridges are not refillable, you have to buy one set and can refill it a number of times before buying a new one.

The only problem I have with it is my favorite card stock, Cougar Opaque Cover, is too slick for the MP tray to grab and it reports a jam every 10 pages or so. When I am printing on super-smooth card stock I usually help the MP tray feed a bit.

I have printed 1000 post cards on it (2-up) and it performed very well. Used about 70% of the original toner (which is only rated for 3000 pages at 15% coverage) on that job. But it was fast and just popped them out one after another.

The cost of it when I bought it was about $400 with free shipping from pcconnection.com, plus a $50 rebate that I had to call and remind them to send the check, I did get it though.

The toner, as with all color toner, is expensive if you use OEM cartridges, but no tools are needed to refill them if you use refill toner. The duplexer is another $300 or so if you need duplex option, without it you can just place the document back into the tray and run the second side.

As far as print quality, it is great for block color, and some photos. Some images don't print right and I haven't isolated what causes the problem. If the color needs to be exact you should use a color managed application (Such as Adobe Photoshop "Let Photoshop determine colors") and disable color management on the printer.

Summary: For general purpose office documents it is wonderful. Don't expect it to print photo-quality prints from your digital camera. For speed it is perfect. In the $400 range you can't get 15-22 ppm (with approx. 9 sec to first page) on a color laser.

I was worried about the LED technology, but it appears to be a solid system. The maintainance cost ends up being about $0.07 to $0.15 per page including toner, belt, fuser, and image drums by my calculations based on OKI's rating for the life of each component (much cheaper than color prints at Kinko's).

I will probably compile the information I have found into one thread on this board and update it as I use the printer. I have found a reset fuse for the image drums for pennies that will allow you to use the drums until they start to fail, as opposed to replacing them prematurely when the page count ticks over. I will also post my experience refilling the cartridges once I get around to ordering new toner for the thing.

Hope this info was helpful.

Clifford Wagner