Sub-£1000 colour laser recommendations

[Miss Perspicacia Tick]

My faithful SC900 has just bitten the dust and, as it was the last decent
inkjet ever made, I am now looking at sub-£1000 colour lasers. My needs are
modest: -

1200x1200dpi
Fast warm-up
At least 64MB as standard
Easily refillable tanks
Duplexing
Separate envelope tray (though not essential)
Reasonably priced additional components (the most obvious would be an extra
paper tray).
Longevity
Technical support who a) speak English (preferably without a thick Asian
sub-continental accent) and b) know what they're on about!

So far I've looked at:

Epson: C3000 and C4000 (both have a duplexing unit as standard)
HP: - LJ3700 (no duplexer, but double the memory of the Epsons)
OKI: - C7300 (temptingly offered with a free mono laser which my parents
could use)
Minolta: - Magicolour 2430 (with additional 256MB, paper tray and duplex
unit, though its colour output is rather slow).
Dell:- 5100n (are these Lexmarks? It's also unclear whether this is supplied
with toner or not. If not, then it's out of the running).
Lexmark: - 510cn (lack of features means it's expensive)


Usage
--------
Brochures (tri-panel double sided and bookfold)
Business Cards
Flyers
Posters
Leaflets
Labels
Envelopes
Letters
Newsletters (tri-panel and A4)

Any ideas would be good. Epson and OKI are the front runners at the moment,
but I'm unsure how easy the Epson tanks are to refill and where to purchase
the toner.

Thanks

 

[me]

My faithful SC900 has just bitten the dust and, as it was the last decent
inkjet ever made, I am now looking at sub-£1000 colour lasers. My needs are
modest: -

1200x1200dpi
Fast warm-up
At least 64MB as standard
Easily refillable tanks
Duplexing
Separate envelope tray (though not essential)
Reasonably priced additional components (the most obvious would be an extra
paper tray).
Longevity
Technical support who a) speak English (preferably without a thick Asian
sub-continental accent) and b) know what they're on about!

So far I've looked at:

Epson: C3000 and C4000 (both have a duplexing unit as standard)
HP: - LJ3700 (no duplexer, but double the memory of the Epsons)
OKI: - C7300 (temptingly offered with a free mono laser which my parents
could use)
Minolta: - Magicolour 2430 (with additional 256MB, paper tray and duplex
unit, though its colour output is rather slow).
Dell:- 5100n (are these Lexmarks? It's also unclear whether this is supplied
with toner or not. If not, then it's out of the running).
Lexmark: - 510cn (lack of features means it's expensive)

You may also like to consider the Kyocera C5016 (I think this is
changing to C5026) which is at the top of your price range but seems to
have much lower running costs - I had a print sample for the A3 version
of the same machine and it has a very good output. PC Pro has it as its
A-listed colour laser at the moment. Another possibility is the Xerox
solid ink things, which are quite simple to run.

One final option - which may not have occurred to you is to look at a
rather more heavy duty machine second hand. There are some quite decent
machines on e-bay that are a3 colour lasers (that are primarily colour
copiers) within your budget, which is what I did a couple of months ago.

 

[Hecate]

So far I've looked at:

Epson: C3000 and C4000 (both have a duplexing unit as standard)
HP: - LJ3700 (no duplexer, but double the memory of the Epsons)
OKI: - C7300 (temptingly offered with a free mono laser which my parents
could use)
Minolta: - Magicolour 2430 (with additional 256MB, paper tray and duplex
unit, though its colour output is rather slow).
Dell:- 5100n (are these Lexmarks? It's also unclear whether this is supplied
with toner or not. If not, then it's out of the running).
Lexmark: - 510cn (lack of features means it's expensive)

You've missed the overall best for TCO - Kyocera. We've used their
printers and they're bullet proof and much cheaper to run than any of
the above. I would suggest you look at this one:

http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/hardware/printersandscanners/productView.htm?quicklinx=3N8X

It's the Kyocera FS-C5020N. It's £911.48 ex VAT.

--

Hecate - The Real One
(e-mail address removed)
Fashion: Buying things you don't need, with money
you don't have, to impress people you don't like...

 

[Tony]

If you do look at the Kyocera please be sure to check the cost of replacement
drum units. In some geographies the drum units for their monochrome lasers are
staggeringly expensive. This may not be the case with the model you are
considering and may be different in the UK.
All of the makes you mention are quality manufacturers so I suggest the final
decision should be made on price, cost of running (true cost per page) and
performance/options (do you need a duplexer? that sort of question).
Tony

 

[John]

My faithful SC900 has just bitten the dust and, as it was the last decent
inkjet ever made, I am now looking at sub-£1000 colour lasers. My needs are
modest: -

Any ideas would be good. Epson and OKI are the front runners at the moment,
but I'm unsure how easy the Epson tanks are to refill and where to purchase
the toner.

I have some experience of refilling Epson toner cartridges - I have a
C1900. I have tried two suppliers of toner and one supplier of a
re-worked cartridge. The cartridges are very easy to refill but the
results are not great.

The re-worked cartridge arrived with significant amounts of toner
spilled around the package. I put sealant round the filler plug but
the cartridge jammed - this is a definite hazard with refilling this
particular Epson cartridge - and it may also be true of other Epson
cartridges.

I returned that the duff cartridge and was given a replacement - it
too was leaking on arrival and I decided that I would give up with
that company and get my money back - there was no problem with this.

The experiences with my own refilling (about 6 times) are
disappointingly varied. It seems to be a bit of a lottery, frankly,
although, in conversation with the tech man at one supplier, it was
claimed that only one in 800 gave problems - I find this hard to
believe because I am fairly used to this kind of operation from my
many years as a practical science researcher. I've been successful
three times in six.

The most annoying thing is to have a couple of days of success after
refilling and then have the cartridge jam - at which point you might
as well give up - the chances of reworking success are very very slim.

On balance, I have saved myself some cash by refilling and I now
notice that the supplier whose toner seemed to work better
(http://www.refill-toner.co.uk/) has dropped their price very
considerably - a definite reason for a re-think by me and I have just
ordered some for yet another try. At 30 uk pounds for the refill I
can have one failure and still win in relation to the Epson
replacement price of around 90 uk pounds.

It would be interesting to hear of people's experiences in refilling
other makers' cartridges.

 

[me]

It would be interesting to hear of people's experiences in refilling
other makers' cartridges.

I've got an HP IIIp as a backup machine, and I've been using
remanufactured toner cartridges (as opposed to refilling it yourself)
for about a decade in that machine (and in a IIp) without any problems
at all. Obviously they are rather older machines (therefore more solidly
built?!) and are black only.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

I'm always interested in what causes an Epson inkjet printer to die the
ultimate death. What happened to the SC900 (one of their best letter
sized printer, and very well built)?

Art