So many choices, what to look for when choosing a laser printer.
Jun 05 '01 (Updated Dec 31 '02)
The Bottom Line Research! Research! Research! I can't emphasize this enough, it is the single most important thing when choosing a laser printer.
If anyone were to ask me how do I decide what laser printer to buy, I have several points to help them decide.I have my favorites and after I finish sharing my thought on how to decide on which printer to buy. I will share my recommendations for specific brands and models.
What am I going to use it for?
This should be the first thing to be considered when looking for a laser printer. Too many times I have seen clients of mine use laser printers that a sales person told them would work for them, only to find out it couldn't keep up. If you know what type of print jobs you will be printing on the printer you will be able to match the printers capabilities to your printing needs.
How many people will be using it?
This is an important question because it will help to decide which size of laser printer you will need. Laser printers are categorized into three different groups, personal use, workgroup and departmental.
Personal Use Just as it sounds, these printers are generally designed to be attached to a single computer. They usually are small in size to fit on the users desk. They also usually have a small paper capacity, around 100 sheets and have a small amount of memory and a slower processor. The slower processor and limited memory makes it difficult to print large print jobs, which makes them a poor choice for a shared printer on a network. The speed of the printers in this category usually fall into the range of 4-12 pages per minute.
Workgroup This category of printers is designed to used by a small to medium size group of people. These printers have a varying degree of capabilities, from 600 sheet capacity up too 1100 sheets of paper. They also have faster processors for speeding up the time for the first page to start printing and a larger amount of memory to allow for printing larger files. Another feature that is popular in this category is the ability to duplex, or print on both sides of the paper, this is an option on some models and standard on others. I will discuss this a little more later in the review. These printers have print speeds from 15-24 pages per minute.
Departmental This category of printers are designed to be used by a large number of users. These printers have a multiple paper trays and some model will have a stacker/finisher which looks similar to a copier. This feature is designed to allow for larger prints jobs to be printed unattended without shutting the printer down. Most models of these departmental size printers have a input capacity of 1100-3600 sheets of paper. These printers also have several optional and standard features like the duplex option for front and back printing, multiple paper size selections. A special feature can be installed in these printer that allows the user to load different font styles and save pre-made forms, that feature is an internal hard drive. These printers generally have faster processors to ensure faster times for the first page to print to ensure that they're no bottlenecks for all the users of the printer. These printers also come with more memory for the larger files to be printed. The print speeds are usually 32-50 pages per minute.
How much printing will I be doing?
This is a big question which has to be figured out because this will determine which category of printer is best suited for your printing needs. I ask this question mainly because printers have what the manufacturers call a duty cycle. This means how many pages the printer can print in a one month period without causing undue wear on the printer. You see laser printers use rubber rollers to move the paper from the paper trays generally on the bottom of the printer up into print path where the image is generated a placed on the page and then it is fused or heated and it is then transported out of the printer. As time goes by these roller get worn and need to be replaced. If you overwork or exceed the duty cycle of a laser printer you can cause uneven wear on the rubber rollers and you end up with paper jams and lost productivity. The other thing to consider when deciding how much do you print is how much paper do I need to have loaded in the printer to keep from having to reload every time you print a job. Input paper trays come in four sizes 250, 500, 2000 and 2500 and depending on the model of printer you choose you have a limit on how many input paper trays you can have. The other factor is how many output trays you need, if you don't have a large enough output paper tray, it will shut the printer down until you remove the paper that has already been printed.
Do I need a color printer?
This is question that is important to decide if you can get away with using a color inkjet printer to do your color printing or do you need a laser printer that has color capabilities. I would say if you are printing more than 100 copies of a mixed image print job, by that I mean a image that has black and white text and color graphics I would consider seriously going with a color laser. Mainly because you will be going through ink cartridges left and right with an inkjet printer trying to print large mixed image print jobs.
What type of system are you attaching the printer to?
There are numerous types of computer platforms out there in the business world and you have to match the capability of the printer to attach and run on the operating system of your computer system. Most personal laser printers are attached to a PC and run on either Windows OS and or Mac OS. On the other hand your Workgroup and Departmental laser printers generally attach to a network of PC's, these networks are either running WinNT, Novell Netware or even Unix OS. A couple of other computer platforms to be considered are IBM Midrange and IBM Mainframe systems, these systems use special adapter cards and communicate through these cards similarly to the network Ethernet cards. I will explain a little more about these different cards a little later.
How am I going to attach this printer to my system?
This is an important consideration when deciding on which model printer to buy. Most printers come in a standard model which includes a parallel printer port, this will allow for direct connection to a stand alone PC or Network Server. Then there are the optional interface cards can be purchased and installed by the operator. These interface cards are what the cable in connected to that connects to the PC network or IBM system. You can purchase models of these laser printers that already have the network interface card installed, these printers are referred to as network ready. These printers are attached to the network by an Ethernet or CAT5 cable. Now the IBM systems use a different type of interface card and cable to connect to the main system. The IBM Midrange system uses what is called a twinaxial adapter card and this is installed in the printer just like the Ethernet card and it is connected to the computer system using a special cable called twinaxial cable, this uses two shielded wires and had a special connectors on both end ends of the cable. The IBM Mainframe uses different type of interface card and cable system, it uses a coaxial interface adapter and a coaxial cable. This cable only has one wire and it also has special ends on both ends of the cable.
You need to be very careful when selecting the model of printer, if you don't pay attention to the Specifications you each model you may end up with a printer that will not attach to your system or just not work with your software.
Research is your best friend when it comes to selecting which printer.
Now here is where I probably get in trouble with some people, because I have been accused of being overly partial towards one brand of printers.
My Recommendations
Personal Laser printers:
HP Laserjet 1100, Lexmark E320
Workgroup Laser printers:
HP Laserjet 4100,HP Laserjet 4200, Lexmark T520 and T522, IBM Infoprint 1120, 1130
Departmental:
HP Laserjet 8150 and Laserjet 9000, Lexmark T620 and T622, and the IBM Infoprint 1140, 1145.
Color Laser printers:
HP Color Laserjet 4600, Lexmark Optra Color 1200
All preceding information is my opinion as a person that has used and serviced a large number of Laser printers and I have gained a knowledge of the printers and I wanted to share that with you. I know there are people out there that are partial to other brands and models, but I only tell it like I see it.
In conclusion I hope that my words have helped at least one person make an informed decision on selecting a Laser printer.
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