Finding it hard to choose a Laser Printer?Nov 07 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Laser Printers are an economical solution to all of our printing needs.
With so many choices in the laser printer market today, many people often have a hard time to even choose the printer for their everyday needs. Well here's a guide that can set things straightforward. Many laser printers are economical to operate by many users and it has offered a very significant amount of savings, and compared to inkjet printers, black and white text printing only costs about 2 cents per page compared to the average inkjetˇ¦s 5 cents per page. Laser printers have an internal motherboard, which houses the microprocessor and memory. The memory is a buffer for your printer to temporarily store data when the printer is on hold, due to the process of printing another page or the paper tray is empty while the printer is in a middle of a printing session. The more memory that the printer has, the more capable the printer is to print complex documents, such as graphics. There are 3 classes of Laser Printers on the market today. They include Personal, Workgroup and Departmental. They all have their capabilities and they are all priced and featured for all different buyers. They only differ in printing speeds, expandability and the capacity, in which it includes sheet capacity and duty cycle. Duty cycle is an indicator, in which how many pages can the printer handle within a month, without premature damage, wear and tear to the printer. This is because, laser printers use rubber rollers to transport the paper through the printer and it picks up paper dust or lint while a page is printing. With excessive lint and dust in the printer, the rollers wouldnˇ¦t feed the paper properly and could lead to paper jams. All should look for laser printers that offer an alternative input and output tray for heavier media including and not limited to envelopes, page covers, business cards and transparencies. What I mean is that, by using the standard output paper tray for heavier media, because it could damage the media by curling and for the printer, the paper may jam. Itˇ¦s common to have a universal tray separate from the main tray for greater versatility. Personal (1 or 2 users) As a start, for those who are looking for personal laser printers, they should find a printer that is compact enough, so that the printer can actually sit on a desk. Also, buyers for this class of printers should look for at least 600dpi of monochrome (black and white) printing and should have an output rating of 10-16 pages per minute. For memory, buyers usually canˇ¦t really expect a lot of expansion being offered for laser printers within this category and only expect at least 4MB of standard memory and a maximum expansion of up to 100MB of RAM. For paper handling, expect only one main paper tray with a capacity of 125 to 250 sheets and a limited capacity bypass feeder for heavy media, including and not limited to envelopes, transparencies, and cover pages. All heavy media must be loaded through the bypass tray and it should come out of the Buyers can expect either a Parallel and/or USB interfaces for PC and Mac compatibility. If both interfaces are offered, then two computers can use the printer. A good laser printer within this class should have an expected duty cycle 20,000 single sided (simplex) pages per month, which allows us to safely print up to 475 pages per day. Expect a price of $200-$500 for a quality printer within this league. Additionally, buyers within this league should look for at least PCL 6 and/or Post Script 2 printing language(s). With a low price, even this class of laser printers is making their way to home use. Workgroup (3 ˇV 20 users) For those whose printing requirements are more demanding, a workgroup laser printer would fit the bill. Expect more capacity, expandability and better performance. For printers in this price range, usually the printer would have to sit on a dedicated desk, because printers within the price range are generally heavier. Printing quality should be at about 1200dpi of monochrome printing and should expect a rating of 16-30 black and white pages per minute. In this league, this is where color laser printers start to pitch in. For those who are looking for color, they can expect an output of 3-7 pages per minute for color or color and black and white combined pages. Paper handling really starts to add a wider variety in this class of laser printers. For expansion, many can expect an array of expansion options including paper handling, where they can expect to add up to 3 more paper trays and expect a maximum capacity of no more than 2000 sheets with all the optional paper trays fitted in addition to the standard trays. Almost every printer within this league have a bypass input and output tray for heavier media to prevent damage to both the paper and printer. In addition, expect a larger capacity universal tray compared to the personal laser printer counterparts. Plus, if the users for the printer want to automatically print both sides of the paper, they can add an optional duplexer, a device that automatically turns the printing page over to print the second side of the page after the first side of the page is printed. For printers at this price range, expect memory to be at least 8MB for the black and white units and at least 32MB for color units, they should be expandable up to a maximum of 320MB. For connectors, buyers should expect a standard Parallel and/or USB, and it doesnˇ¦t stop there, because many printers within the league can add an optional network interface module to use the printer under a network for high-speed transfer or in some cases, the network module comes standard with the printer right out of the box. Many printers within this class can be fitted with a hard drive, to store miscellaneous fonts, security features etc. for versatility. A good laser printer in this league should have a duty cycle of 30,000 pages per month up to 150,000 pages per month. This allows the printer to safely print up to 975 pages a day to 4900 pages a day, without premature damage to the printer. Expect a price of $550 - $ 3500 for a good quality printer within the class, including color laser printers. In addition, shoppers for the printers within this class should at least include Post Script 2 printing language. Departmental (16 or more users) If your printing needs are even greater and you have a large workgroup that would like to share a printer, then this league is the category in which you should fall in for shopping a laser printer. Expect even greater capacity, maximum expansion and faster printing outputs. A printer in this league is usually heavier than workgroup printers and it may not be able to sit on a desk. Printing should at least be 1200dpi, like the workgroup printers and expect a rating of 24 pages per minute to 65 pages per minute. In this league there are also color laser printers that can print at a rating of 6 ˇV 24 pages per minute for good quality units. In paper handling, users can expect at least 3 paper trays including one universal tray with a minimum capacity of 1000 pages up to a capacity of 5000 pages with the optional paper tray(s) fitted. Also, they can fit a stacker on the side of the printer, but usually it requires high capacity paper trays. With a stacker, it allows the users of the printer to print large amounts without emptying the output trays and in cases where overnight printing must occur, large capacity input and output trays are essential. In addition, the high capacity input tray also allows less frequent refills to speed up productivity. Again, you can also fit a duplexer in the printer to automatically print both sides of the paper without manually reloading the paper into the input tray. Printers within this league should at least contain 32MB of memory for black and white, 64MB for color and with a maximum memory of 768MB. For connectors, I would suggest a network connector, to connect the printer to a network, so that it can provide the users quick printing. Again you can add an optional hard drive for storage of security codes, fonts and even back up the forms for versatility. Laser printers should at least have a duty cycle of (60,000 for color and 100,000 for black and white) to 500,000 pages per month. This allows the printer to safely print an average of (1,950 for color and 3250 for black and white) to 16,000 pages a day without premature damage to the printer. Expect the price of $2000 - $16,000 for a high quality printer within the class. The buyers should at least expect Post Script 3 printing language.  |
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