CompTIA_Rep
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- Jul 13, 2006
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We tested the Nvidia App performance problems — games can run up to 15 percent slower with the app
I'm just a power home user, but I want to put in a good word for the Dell 3110cn. This has built in networking, is plenty fast for home office, and actually comes with full toner cartridges. Quality is solid, it can manually duplex (i.e. you don't have to worry about fusing toner to your drum when printing on the backside of a page) and I've printed on all kinds of paper, from card stock to glossy white to crappy copier paper with no problems. I wouldn't use any laser for photo prints, though I did use this one to create a brochure containing many photos and the output was more than acceptable. I think it's a great buy at $360 (though of course that means timing your deal with Dell, as always). The cons are that it's a little tall and I've read some complaints about having to go to the printer to reset it when a job goes bad, but I don't know the details and my printer is very nearby anyway.
I used a HP 2550L in the past and while it promised 1000 pages out of the box, it was more like 500... which means it pretty much cost me about $1/page to print. Additionally, when one toner cartridge goes low, all printing is blocked by the printer (including black only)... it wasn't until I ran into the problem that I learned about HP's "smart chip" system.
If I had to buy an HP I would definitely go to the business grade level (model 3600 or up) and this review confirms what I found out the hard way. HP has made the mistake of trying to use an inkjet mentality at the consumer laser printer level.
Oh, and if anyone wants a HP 2550L, I have one to give away for free. Of course, you'll have to pay shipping and buy new toner cartridges for it, which would be more than a new printer anyway. :roll:
I used a HP 2550L in the past and while it promised 1000 pages out of the box, it was more like 500... which means it pretty much cost me about $1/page to print. Additionally, when one toner cartridge goes low, all printing is blocked by the printer (including black only)... it wasn't until I ran into the problem that I learned about HP's "smart chip" system.
If I had to buy an HP I would definitely go to the business grade level (model 3600 or up) and this review confirms what I found out the hard way. HP has made the mistake of trying to use an inkjet mentality at the consumer laser printer level.
Oh, and if anyone wants a HP 2550L, I have one to give away for free. Of course, you'll have to pay shipping and buy new toner cartridges for it, which would be more than a new printer anyway. :roll:
michaelahess
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- Jan 30, 2006
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Interesting this article is being resurrected. I will point out my experience.
The 510n sucks, the toner waste bottle fills up very quickly and has to be replaced, not just dumped. The fuser is very picky, print many sheets that don't cover the whole fuser, like 4" wide for example, and the fuser burns itself out. Had a customer have this happen twice in the first 4 months of ownership. And another customer replaced the toner waste bottle a couple times in a few months. Both under relatively heavy use, but I've seen HP's and KM's last MUCH longer.
I have two KM 2430DL's, upgraded memory from 32MB to 288 with simple SDRAM, has to be single bank though. I sent KM a couple of wedding photos and got printouts on all their printers. I then went to various stores with my laptop and printed the same pictures on HP, Oki, Samsung, and Lexmark lasers, all of which were in this review. The images I got back from KM were superior in all terms. So I bought one. They come with full capacity toners (1500 page), high capacity (4500 page) is available but cost more than the printer. Hence me getting a second one (plus a free 320GB HD), now I have an unused backup and will start buying high capacity carts.
I have printed thousands of pages, most color with no problems. Photos may not be as good as high end ink jets, but photos that we want preserved always go to walmart anyway
I've clocked the 2340DL at 18ppm in black only, memory makes it much faster. Color is still only 6-8ppm since it's a quad pass, but those are actual speeds I've seen. Built in networking worked very well for Mac OS X and linux (Fedora Core and Linspire) no problems whatsoever getting it working.
I've used the Dell 3110 and have to say it's pretty close to the 2430DL, much better than the 510n or 2600, but you are then locked into Dell, not my idea of fun.
If you print 300dpi or lower images, they get blocky, gotta start with good quality to get good quality, and this applies to any printer.
The 2430DL is now discontinued and replaced by the 2530DL which has 64MB base memory and a different processor, 130MHz ASIC vs 200MHz, but is otherwise identical. The duplex unit and additional paper tray are way overpriced, but this isn't a bussines level printer so that's to be expected. Manual Duplex is an option.
The 510n sucks, the toner waste bottle fills up very quickly and has to be replaced, not just dumped. The fuser is very picky, print many sheets that don't cover the whole fuser, like 4" wide for example, and the fuser burns itself out. Had a customer have this happen twice in the first 4 months of ownership. And another customer replaced the toner waste bottle a couple times in a few months. Both under relatively heavy use, but I've seen HP's and KM's last MUCH longer.
I have two KM 2430DL's, upgraded memory from 32MB to 288 with simple SDRAM, has to be single bank though. I sent KM a couple of wedding photos and got printouts on all their printers. I then went to various stores with my laptop and printed the same pictures on HP, Oki, Samsung, and Lexmark lasers, all of which were in this review. The images I got back from KM were superior in all terms. So I bought one. They come with full capacity toners (1500 page), high capacity (4500 page) is available but cost more than the printer. Hence me getting a second one (plus a free 320GB HD), now I have an unused backup and will start buying high capacity carts.
I have printed thousands of pages, most color with no problems. Photos may not be as good as high end ink jets, but photos that we want preserved always go to walmart anyway
I've clocked the 2340DL at 18ppm in black only, memory makes it much faster. Color is still only 6-8ppm since it's a quad pass, but those are actual speeds I've seen. Built in networking worked very well for Mac OS X and linux (Fedora Core and Linspire) no problems whatsoever getting it working.I've used the Dell 3110 and have to say it's pretty close to the 2430DL, much better than the 510n or 2600, but you are then locked into Dell, not my idea of fun.
If you print 300dpi or lower images, they get blocky, gotta start with good quality to get good quality, and this applies to any printer.
The 2430DL is now discontinued and replaced by the 2530DL which has 64MB base memory and a different processor, 130MHz ASIC vs 200MHz, but is otherwise identical. The duplex unit and additional paper tray are way overpriced, but this isn't a bussines level printer so that's to be expected. Manual Duplex is an option.
YberDoggie
Distinguished
- Feb 15, 2007
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quote="Nyago123"]I'm just a power home user, but I want to put in a good word for the Dell 3110cn. This has built in networking, is plenty fast for home office, and actually comes with full toner cartridges. :roll:[/quote]
No - Dell laser printers don´t com with full cartridges.
http://www.dell.com/downloads/emea/products/printer/3010cn_en.pdf
1 standard B/W cart 2000 pages , 3 color carts (non standard) 1000 pages.
http://www.dell.com/downloads/emea/products/printer/3110cn_en.pdf
1 B/W cart 5000 pages, 3 color carts 4000 pages.
Normal aviable B/W & color carts lasts 8000 / cart.
OKI used to deliver their color laser printers with full set of carts, but not any longer.
And as earlier stated, many people try to sell, or just throw away they r color lasers, because its much cheaper to buy a whole new printer with carts, than only 4 new carts.
Really expensive pixiedust in there, and some very strange way to make business.
No - Dell laser printers don´t com with full cartridges.
http://www.dell.com/downloads/emea/products/printer/3010cn_en.pdf
1 standard B/W cart 2000 pages , 3 color carts (non standard) 1000 pages.
http://www.dell.com/downloads/emea/products/printer/3110cn_en.pdf
1 B/W cart 5000 pages, 3 color carts 4000 pages.
Normal aviable B/W & color carts lasts 8000 / cart.
OKI used to deliver their color laser printers with full set of carts, but not any longer.
And as earlier stated, many people try to sell, or just throw away they r color lasers, because its much cheaper to buy a whole new printer with carts, than only 4 new carts.
Really expensive pixiedust in there, and some very strange way to make business.
I don't know if they all do, but the 3110cn does, even based on the information you quoted yourself. 5000 B/W & 4000 color pages in is a full standard cartridge and Dell makes this well known and sells cartridges of this size separately... you won't find any other manufacturers selling their 1000 page "starter" cartridges separately.
The 8000 page cartridges (which I was well aware of when I made my original post) are high-yield cartridges.
But even if 5000/4000 cartridges are "starter" cartridges, I could live with that for a $350 color printer that prints about 30 ppm/17 ppm color. Like I said, the HP 2550 I bought for $450 didn't even make it 1000 pages total before it shut itself down.
I know, I'm one of them.
YberDoggie
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- Feb 15, 2007
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Thank you for your post, Nyago123!
If you have 1/2 glass of beer in front of you, is the glass half full or half empty?
To sort things out, maybe there are, say, 1 size and type of laser toner cart, with 3 types of content.
1:Starter = only a very small amount of powder in it, just so you can see that the printer works.
2.Normal = about half full / half empty.
3.High yield = packet full of expensive coal dust.
And, of course, to help the consumer, and to be on the safe side, the carts have small chips that count the pages, so the printer can safely shut down well before its really empty.
To futher aid the customer, if one of the colour carts are flagged as empty, you may not print in B/W until a new colour cart is inserted.
I have still to find 1 laser printer that is delivered with type 3 carts.
In "PS" post, he claims that the Samsung CLP-550 is sold with full-size toner cartridges. (Black 7000p, and Color 5000p).
When checking this out on the Samsungs swedish pages, there are no claims, that the CLP-550 is delivered with type 3 carts - no, it is delivered with type 1 carts.
But I found a Norwegian company, selling Samsung printers in Sweden, "Komplett", stating that they are delivering the printer with type 3 carts - all lies of course.
http://www.komplett.se/k/ki.asp?sku=303453
I myself have a small restaurant, and I print out quite many menues every week.
But I have found no reason to buy a colour laser, it is by far too expensive.
It is much cheaper to refill the carts on my Canon inkjet printer.
The question really is, why aren´t there any inkjet printers, with huge easily refillable inktanks, say in 1/2 liter size, that would be the cheapest solution of them all.
And inkjets are so much cheaper and simpler to make, than the overcomplicated laser dinosaurs.
Maybe this review should have been named "Color Laser Printers: Slow, overcomplicated and very expensive to run"
If you have 1/2 glass of beer in front of you, is the glass half full or half empty?
To sort things out, maybe there are, say, 1 size and type of laser toner cart, with 3 types of content.
1:Starter = only a very small amount of powder in it, just so you can see that the printer works.
2.Normal = about half full / half empty.
3.High yield = packet full of expensive coal dust.
And, of course, to help the consumer, and to be on the safe side, the carts have small chips that count the pages, so the printer can safely shut down well before its really empty.
To futher aid the customer, if one of the colour carts are flagged as empty, you may not print in B/W until a new colour cart is inserted.
I have still to find 1 laser printer that is delivered with type 3 carts.
In "PS" post, he claims that the Samsung CLP-550 is sold with full-size toner cartridges. (Black 7000p, and Color 5000p).
When checking this out on the Samsungs swedish pages, there are no claims, that the CLP-550 is delivered with type 3 carts - no, it is delivered with type 1 carts.
But I found a Norwegian company, selling Samsung printers in Sweden, "Komplett", stating that they are delivering the printer with type 3 carts - all lies of course.
http://www.komplett.se/k/ki.asp?sku=303453
I myself have a small restaurant, and I print out quite many menues every week.
But I have found no reason to buy a colour laser, it is by far too expensive.
It is much cheaper to refill the carts on my Canon inkjet printer.
The question really is, why aren´t there any inkjet printers, with huge easily refillable inktanks, say in 1/2 liter size, that would be the cheapest solution of them all.
And inkjets are so much cheaper and simpler to make, than the overcomplicated laser dinosaurs.
Maybe this review should have been named "Color Laser Printers: Slow, overcomplicated and very expensive to run"
Hi YberDoggie,
Maybe rather than "half full or half empty", one could just look at overall cost. I've seen refurb Minolta color lasers at Fry's for $169, but that would not be worth it to me if they have the 1000 page cartridges.
And if Dell has "smart chips" in their cartridges, it's news to me. HP screwed me on this and that's why I went with Dell.
All I know is HP 2550 = about 700 pages for $450 before it died. Dell 3110cn = 1065+ pages so far for $350 and my cartridges still say they are 100% full (which makes me wonder if the status is working :roll: ) Oh, and the Dell actually came with a real paper tray. Shocking!
I have both a color laser and an inkjet. In general I use the color laser for business documents/graphics, and the inkjet purely for photos.
As far as inkjets go, I'm looking forward to the Kodak releases in a couple months. They hired a number of former HP engineers and are looking to break the ink cartel.
Maybe rather than "half full or half empty", one could just look at overall cost. I've seen refurb Minolta color lasers at Fry's for $169, but that would not be worth it to me if they have the 1000 page cartridges.
And if Dell has "smart chips" in their cartridges, it's news to me. HP screwed me on this and that's why I went with Dell.
All I know is HP 2550 = about 700 pages for $450 before it died. Dell 3110cn = 1065+ pages so far for $350 and my cartridges still say they are 100% full (which makes me wonder if the status is working :roll: ) Oh, and the Dell actually came with a real paper tray. Shocking!
I have both a color laser and an inkjet. In general I use the color laser for business documents/graphics, and the inkjet purely for photos.
As far as inkjets go, I'm looking forward to the Kodak releases in a couple months. They hired a number of former HP engineers and are looking to break the ink cartel.
hubbabubba
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- Feb 16, 2007
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This is actually my scenario. I print very little, say, a couple of pages a month. This means that an ink-jet cartridge dries out many years before it would get empty, and maybe I get 10-20 pages per cartridge. That is expensive printouts!
Would this be better with a laser? I mean, does it not have such a problem with aging of consumables like toner? If so, the HP sounds like a great solution. But I have a hard time finding an answer to this aging-question...
Anybody?
digitalprinting
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- Jun 26, 2007
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Hello:
Here would be my thoughts from a commercial printer:
Things should be looked at from 2 points of view. Either point of view involves consumables and that’s where the printer company hopes to make good if not great money.
For the commercial use machines that are made to do 100’s or 1000’s of copies a day or week you are going to spend significantly more to purchase upfront and then you will have maintenance contract and consumable costs. If you add all those costs together and divide by the number of copies I have ran into very few companies that do better than just going to a commercial printer and paying for them to do it. That being said Canon, Epson or Xerox docucolor on the low end would be what I would recommend from an equipment standpoint if you still feel the need to go this route. The maintenance and consumables are what need to be focused on for costs over the long term.
For the Home use with low quantities are the printers that are going to be fairly inexpensive but the consumables will be high priced if you are replacing the cartridges quite a bit. Companies that buy these low end machines and try to produce work on them in large quantities will be most likely disappointed in the consumable costs and how well the machine holds up. I am partial to HP machines but none of these sub $500 machines are going to hold up to long term commercial use. You will be lucky if they do.
Good Luck.
Buzz
The Odee Company.com - Dallas Printer
Here would be my thoughts from a commercial printer:
Things should be looked at from 2 points of view. Either point of view involves consumables and that’s where the printer company hopes to make good if not great money.
For the commercial use machines that are made to do 100’s or 1000’s of copies a day or week you are going to spend significantly more to purchase upfront and then you will have maintenance contract and consumable costs. If you add all those costs together and divide by the number of copies I have ran into very few companies that do better than just going to a commercial printer and paying for them to do it. That being said Canon, Epson or Xerox docucolor on the low end would be what I would recommend from an equipment standpoint if you still feel the need to go this route. The maintenance and consumables are what need to be focused on for costs over the long term.
For the Home use with low quantities are the printers that are going to be fairly inexpensive but the consumables will be high priced if you are replacing the cartridges quite a bit. Companies that buy these low end machines and try to produce work on them in large quantities will be most likely disappointed in the consumable costs and how well the machine holds up. I am partial to HP machines but none of these sub $500 machines are going to hold up to long term commercial use. You will be lucky if they do.
Good Luck.
Buzz
The Odee Company.com - Dallas Printer
emcinerney
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- May 24, 2003
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I'm in the same boat with hubbabubba.
I print a couple of times a month, if that, from home. I've been very happy with the quality of the Epson InkJet all-in-one units in the past as well as their customer service (sent me a free upgraded replacement unit and ink when my previous one stopped working even though it was just out of warranty).
However, the ink cartridges just keep drying up and the primary problem is that I can't seem to get the replacement cartidges (yes, a new full set) to work for more than a few days...it's like something happens to the print head when the ink dries up.
One item that is never considerd in the "cost per page" calculations is the users' time and frustration. If I have to spend 5-10 minutes attempting to clean the print heads (which wastes ink) and printing nozzle check patterns (wasting ink and paper) just to try to print a decent page (I forgot to mention the cost of ink/paper/time printing the initial page which never seems to print well), then the "cost per page" SKYROCKETS with inkjet printers.
I'm sick and tired of not being able rely on my printer to be able to print when I need it too. So, I'm considering a CLP b/c it appears to me that they will "just work" when I need them too and I don't have to worry about the consumables (ink) drying up.
I'm just starting to look at CLPs, but from what I've read I'm going to seriously consider the Dell 3110cn.
I print a couple of times a month, if that, from home. I've been very happy with the quality of the Epson InkJet all-in-one units in the past as well as their customer service (sent me a free upgraded replacement unit and ink when my previous one stopped working even though it was just out of warranty).
However, the ink cartridges just keep drying up and the primary problem is that I can't seem to get the replacement cartidges (yes, a new full set) to work for more than a few days...it's like something happens to the print head when the ink dries up.
One item that is never considerd in the "cost per page" calculations is the users' time and frustration. If I have to spend 5-10 minutes attempting to clean the print heads (which wastes ink) and printing nozzle check patterns (wasting ink and paper) just to try to print a decent page (I forgot to mention the cost of ink/paper/time printing the initial page which never seems to print well), then the "cost per page" SKYROCKETS with inkjet printers.
I'm sick and tired of not being able rely on my printer to be able to print when I need it too. So, I'm considering a CLP b/c it appears to me that they will "just work" when I need them too and I don't have to worry about the consumables (ink) drying up.
I'm just starting to look at CLPs, but from what I've read I'm going to seriously consider the Dell 3110cn.
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