Tong Family

If you are outfitting an office of say 8-10 people, what’s the best way to make printing. Well, with all these multifunction printers (a.k.a. all-in-one or mopiers), its been amazingly easy to get a nice color printer, scanning, fax and duplexing for not very much money. Here are some to consider for the small printer that might be behind the receptionist and the big workgroup one for those bigger print jobs. Like making 10 color books for a prospective client presentation. Today, cost per copy is on the order of $0.10/page for color and $0.02/page for black and white, so really very reasonable.

Here are models to consider

h3. Heavy Duty Printers

These are pure printers, but useful if you jsut want lots of output. “PC Magazine”:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2145522,00.asp did a nice roundup. “HP Color LaserJet CP4005dn”:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2145522,00.asp has a 600 sheet capacity and does duplexing. The output quality is decent and even photos look OK if you aren’t an expert. I’ve used this as a good standard printer, kind of the color replacement for the trusty, dusty HP LaserJet 4050n.

“Xerox Phaser 8860”:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2199147,00.asp is $2500 street, but has very low ink prices at 3.2 cents per page vs. 7-9 cents you see for most because of ink costs. It is what is called a solid ink printer, so you need to leave it on all the time and the output in text is a ilttle below laser quality, graphics are good enough for PowerPoint handouts and full graphics are good enough for mailings or newsletters. It has a duplexer as a standard and 525-sheet drawer. It is an editor choice like its smaller sister the “6360DN”

h3. All-in-one Workgroup Printer.

Our Qiming friends have a smaller HP Color LaserJet 2820. It is slow and the quality is decent. The scanning and fax software is pretty clunky compared with the Canon MX700 I’ve also used. The main thing is the software is just huge. Over 300MB worth of shovelware to just do the basics. Here are some of the models to consider:

“HP Color LaserJet 2840 All-in-One”:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1835786,00.asp costs $1K is based on the HP ColorJet 2550L engine, but is slow at about 8.2ppm as is actually slower than many inkjets. QualityLogic tests. Text quality is excellent, graphics have a little banding, but can be used for trifold brochures. Photos are good enough for newletters.

“PC World”:http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,142066-page,1/article.html seems to like the “Brother MFC-9440CN”:http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,142066-page,1/article.html as a multifunction printer. I have a Brother laser printer and the main issue is that it is cheap ($700), but not as supported as an HP or other mainstream printer. It prints black and white at 21ppm but color graphics at 4.8ppm and the color looks grainy.

“Xerox Phaser 6180MFP”:http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,142021/article.html has better quality than the MFC-9440CN, although PC Magazine didn’t like the quality so go figure. It prints at 28ppm but only 1.7ppm for photos. The output is decent. The duplexer included costs $1150.

If you dare, the “Xerox Phaser 8860MFP”:http://www.office.xerox.com/multifunction-printer/color-multifunction/phaser-8860mfp/enus.html isn’t cheap at $3400 street, so it ain’t cheap, but it does copy, fax, print and scan and is fully networked. 30ppm. It’s sister, the “Phaser 8860”:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2199147,00.asp won Editors Choice (see above)

h3. Print Shop Quality Printer

If you really are doing big jobs, then for $5,500, you can get the “HP ColorJet 9500HDN”:http://www.amazon.com/LaserJet-9500HDN-Printer-C8547A-ABA/dp/B0000C3GVW which is literally everything but the kitchen sink. Has 3,100 sheet capacity and comesw with a 10GB hard drive even.