Re: Looking for rants and raves on Laser Printers

Hi

I received seven responses to my query on subscribers' experiences
with laser printers they've purchased recently; thanks to everyone who
responded. The people who responded and didn't request to remain
anonymous (one respondent expressed such a desire) were

Jon Broshious [jonbro at berkeley dot edu]
Ted Crum [tedcrum at socrates dot berkeley dot edu]
Richard DeShong [rdeshong at berkeley dot edu]
Lucia Greco [lgreco at calmail dot berkeley dot edu]
Robert Hiramoto [rhiramoto at berkeley dot edu]
Marilyn Saarni [saarni at eps doe berkeley dot edu]

Robert asked what problems we had experienced with our 4200Ns. We have
six computer labs with an average of 30 workstations each and one
4200n, we also have one 4200n in our office and 2 critical spares for
a total of 9 printers. Beginning in 2003 we have sent printers to
repair a total of 16 times with problems involving the paper feed
belt, tray lifter-driver, feed roller, paper-delivery assembly, and
replacement of the fuser.

An anonymous respondent asked what volume of printing we see in our
labs. This semester the most pages we've printed across all 6 of our
labs in a single week is 30360 pages, minimum is 7860 pages and the
average is 19229 pages per week. For each lab the numbers vary
(numbers below are pages per week). Numbers for past semesters are
quite similar though smaller overall as the population we serve has
increased since Spring 2005.

Lab Max Min Average
1 9154 2388 6178
2 6862 2640 5041
3 6676 2772 4683
4 4294 1596 2902
5 2886 1137 1967
6 3018 483 1050

HP states[1] that the print volume for the 4200 series is 150,000 pages
per month which we are well under. Even when you take into account a
marketing number penalty of 50% these printers are not
performing well. This is quite a departure from the performance of
previous HP workhorses such as the LaserJet III series. (If anyone
feels I'm misinterpreting or being unreasonable in my expectations for
the 4200 series, please let me know.)

Different folks had different views on workgroup HP printers. Robert
reports that he has a few of the now older models of the 4050N and the
4100N, and they have been great. An anonymous respondent reports that
they have a 4100 that has never given them any problems. Their 4300dtn
works great but it has this huge grinding noise w/ the second tray
(this doesn't seem to be a problem with another printer of the same
model in a different department).

Ted reports that he found the 4000tn and 4500n needed far more
attention than a departmental printer should. His department has
replaced one of their problematic printers with a 2420n, which is
supposed to be just a workgroup printer, but which he finds to be much
better than the 4000 series. He will probably replace the other
printer with a 2420 tn or dtn.

Lucia says that her 1320 works well (including in duplex mode) in her
lab. Her only complaint is the lack of a straight paper path option
which precludes printing on heavy stock. She found the configuration
tools to be lacking (the windows tool didn't work).

Marilyn who was raving earlier about the reliability and ease of
repair of Xerox printers wanted to throw her 4100dtn off the balcony
and returned a 2100n after poor performance. She further reports that
Xerox was the top-rated major company in terms of reliability and
compared to the 4100dtn the Xerox 4500dt is practically
therapeutic. Xerox is much better at cross-platform support: Unix,
Linux, Mac and Windows are all supported. Toner cartridges bought
directly from Xerox cost more, however she has experienced far few
printing errors and the cartridges seem to last far longer.

Richard would like to put in a plug for combining printing a copying.
He replaced an old OCE copier and HP laserjet with a new Xerox
WorkCenter 255 copier/printer. Cost per page is less than with the
Laserjet, and it allows the user to access typical copy functions for
a print job (such as stapling).

Robert also reports that his HP 8100DN is used fairly heavily, and it
has held up well so far.

Folks also had things to say about color printers. Marilyn pointed out
issues with some of the more expensive workgroup color printers; they
break down unless they are kept in consistent use (for solid ink/wax
ink color printers). Her advice when evaluating networked color
printers is to not overlook inexpensive inkjets due to high cartridge
costs. Two years down the line we may find that we are all working
with different decision factors when it comes to color.

Jon had this story to tell about his experience with HP 4600dn
printers.

We have three HP 4600dn printers. While they are generally very reliable,
they can also be quite annoying. Reliable? Touchy? Yer call.

Our nickname for them is "Catbert". They are constantly requesting new
toner, for days or weeks on end before a new cartridge is actually
required. No printing will occur until the error message is read (Press the
check message key. An announcement scrolls across the message screen that a
cartridge will be required at some point in the near future. Then you are
rewarded with having your pages print... while you sit and wait for them).

Other Catbert moments:
Ha! You've waited too long to press the check message button. I will
calibrate for five minutes to punish you.
Don't touch me when I'm duplexing! Now you must open and close all of my
doors. Thank you. I will now calibrate for five minutes to punish you for
touching me while I was duplexing.

Finally, here are a list of urls I've come across while searching the
web for printer information.

CNet laser printer ratings

http://reviews.cnet.com/Printers/4521-6528_7-5021406-6.html?tag=subnav

CNet color printer ratings

http://reviews.cnet.com/Printers/4521-6528_7-5021406-7.html?tag=subnav

Toms Hardware Guide to inexpensive Color Laser Printers

http://www.tomshardware.com/consumer/20050817/index.html

Last MacWorld review of Laser printers

http://www.macworld.com/2005/01/reviews/monochromelasserprinters/index.php

PC World ranking of workgroup printers

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,121207,00.asp

Erik

[1] http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/uk/en/sm/WF06b/5043-5343-5347-5347-5439-1774383-7912847.html

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Received on Mon Dec 5 15:42:56 2005