In computer news this week, 04/12/2000

Buying a new laser and color printer; my how times have changed.

In 1989 I bought the first HP color inkjet printer, which cost $ 1300, and used a continuous roll of special paper. It could print true color, slowly, and at pretty good resolution for the times.

About 3 years ago I bought a new HP color printer, the model 722, for around $ 385.00. This used regular paper and printed absolutely astounding color quality, and was also very fast in the black and white mode, a very important feature most people don't consider. A year later I bought another one of the same model and the price had dropped to around $ 300.00. So in 10 years the price had dropped 300% and the quality was photographic, no comparison really.

In 1991 I bought a laser printer that's lasted me wonderfully for almost a decade now. I bought a Hewlett Packard Laserjet III, which was virtually the industry standard laser printer in those times. It printed 8 pages a minute, which was considered very fast, had 1 meg of ram, a resolution of 300 DPI, and a paper tray with an envelope feeder on it. This cost around $ 1900, and when I upgraded the ram in after a couple years so I could print better pictures, , that was another $ 270, so overall it cost about $ 2,200.00. I find I go through about one toner cartridge a year, which generally runs around $ 70.00.

In today's market place, there are a lot more brand choices in laser printers, but I still prefer Hewlett Packard for printers. Call me a brand loyalist, or maybe I just like that tv ad about the 2 guys starting the tiny company in their garage.

In looking for a laser printer today, I know I want speed, quality, resolution and reliability. There's 2 HP Laser Jets I'm considering. One is the 2100TN for $ 999, which prints 10 pages per minute, a little faster, but has a resolution of 1200 DPI, 4 times better, and now pictures actually look like pictures, not computer copies. This also has 3 paper trays, and comes standard with 8 megs of printer memory. It also has a much smaller footprint and weighs a lot less than my Laserjet 3.

My other choice would be the Laserjet 4050T, for $ 1,249, which prints at 17 pages per minute, more that twice as fast, and has the same other specs.

Either choice would be about or less than half of my old laser, and both are faster and have better resolution.

The mistake businesses and individuals make when buying printers is to buy too small; to fall for the real low price, instead of considering performance, or what the lack of performance costs you.

In the early days of PC's we spent a lot of time being what's known as i/o bound, waiting for the printer to print so we could use the computer again. Today's pc operating systems spool the print jobs to disk, so you don't have to wait to use the computer, but if you've bought the wrong slow printer, you still wait forever to get your printed copies.

For color printers, the speed of the black and white printing is a very important factor. A lot of people buy a color printer to do a little color and mostly black and white, and find the black and white speed is very slow. These printers are so inexpensive now that you can buy an excellent one for under $ 300, so why try to save $ 100 or so and buy a cheap slow one that you'll regret over the life of the printer?

Same thing applies to laser printers. I saw one that cost less than $ 300, but when you replaced the toner cartridge it looked like you replaced over half the innards of the printer, and it cost over $ 200 for the cartridge. The life of a laser printer today might hopefully be expected to be 5 years, so don't handcuff your office for the next 5 years by buying the wrong slow printer.

For Raw Bytes, this is Frank Delaney

3414 E. 30th

Spokane, WA 99223

(509) 245-3736

fdspokane@aol.com