ComPrint
Solutions provides color laser printers to the corporate community
in Alberta. We stock Xerox, Lexmark and HP color laser printers,
as well as many other brands.
For several years the cost of buying a color printer was high, preventing
most businesses from using color in all but exceptional cases. In
recent years the cost of a color laser printer has fallen significantly,
to the point where color is now mainstream and the color laser printer
considered a necessary piece of office equipment. Most modern color
printers operate at speeds of 6-30 ppm and higher when printing
black only. Paper handling features have improved as has resolution
and paper capacity.
What are your needs
Now that color printers are priced in the same range as black
and white laser printers, consumers are purchasing color printers
to replace their black and white printers. The main drawback to
using color throughout an organization is the higher cost of supplies
and the generally lower printing speed. In the SOHO market, a
single color laser printer may be a good choice, whereas in larger
offices a balanced deployment of black and white, color and multi-function
laser printers, combined with a single copier, may be more appropriate.
Image quality
While price, speed and features are straightforward comparisons,
manufacturers try to differentiate themselves on image quality.
When it comes to image quality, the market can be divided into
three groups: business color, photographic color and professional
color.
Business color is appropriate for logos, charts, and presentation
materials and is a balance between image quality and the cost
of supplies. This class of printer is represented by the majority
of color laser printers.
Photographic color produces superior looking images that
are usually glossy. This kind of look is produced by inkjet and
some color laser printers.
Professional color suitable for designers and graphic
artists is used for production of folders, covers and packaging
materials. Color accuracy is key and is achieved by high end color
laser printers that offer color calibration and color matching.
Solid Ink Printing vs Laser Printing
Laser printing uses a source of light to etch an image on a photosensitive
drum which attracts toner before being transferred to the paper.
Newer color laser printers can accomplish this in a single pass.
Xerox is the only vendor of solid ink technology. Solid ink relies
on a solid block of toner which looks like a large piece of crayon.
The solid ink is melted on the paper during the printing process
and solidifies immediately. Since very little of the ink soaks
into the paper, colors tend to be brilliant and produce photo
quality results. The benefits of solid ink are extraordinary image
quality, low operating costs, ease of use, fast speed, and a wide
variety of media to print on. The disadvantages of this technology
are the potential to jam if placed through a fax/document feeder,
as well as the potential to scratch the surface more easily than
prints coming from a regular laser printer. See Xerox
Solid Ink Analysis (pdf) for more information.
