A Little FYI on Consumer LaserJets

I recently started looking into replacing my HP 932C inkjet printer with a colour laserjet instead. Two models at a local Staples caught my attention so I asked a local printer expert for his opinion. Here's what he had to say:

The HP 2600N is a good price but is an entry level machine which means they've scrimped a bit on some parts of the printer. It uses 4 toner cartridges (black @$89 and prints up to 2500 pages) (Colors run $97 each and produce up to 2000 pages) The machine prints well but if you don't use the colors much users are surprised to find out the machine will force you to have to install new color carts or stops printing unless you do and this is because the image drum on the machine rotates, wipes and cleans the color cartridges on every print run whether toner is used
or not and so the color carts become "worn out" even though still containing toner. Not a good printer option if not printing "color" as much as black.

The Samsung 300 is okay if you didn't get one of the "Monday lemons" which many people have and getting satisfaction thru Samsung Canada warranty is turning out to be "legend" for user dissatisfaction. I helped a client try to get warranty on a cartridge which took nearly 2 months of correspondance and in the end we left a code letter off the end of the printer models name and were rejected on claim even though every Samsung printer uses that code letter. They are that picky even though every other number, letter, description and RMA information were included all in original packaging. Doh! Also the Samsung cartridges are expensive compared to the HP's. (Samsung Black is $64 but prints half as many pages as the HP black) and the colors are $54 but also only print half as many pages.

Consumer color lasers are very poor performers per page cost. Once you go up a few hundred dollars the performance and cost per page is quite a bit better but expect to pay $450 plus the cartridges are proportionately more money (but print more).