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I'm getting increasingly fed up with my inkjet getting blocked when I don't use it for a few days, and am wondering whether to bite the bullet and get a colour laser?

Anyone have experience of them? How good is the quality? How expensive are they to run? Do they get blocked up? Whats a good one to get? Are there any expensive down-the-line replacement parts etc?

I'd be very grateful for any direct experience you'd care to share about them.

Thanks

Notice Tesco were selling laser printers at the Greyhound site at Chester on Sunday for £33 but I didn't bother looking to see if they were colour or black and white, the replacement cartridges are expensive but they print and print and print.

I have owned a Ricoh colour laser. Print quality was excellent and very fast, photo quality really. What you have to be careful of is the price of the toner. The Ricoh has 4 toner cartridges 3 colour and 1 black and the replacements cost more than the printer!! Also, the toner supplied with the printer was a 'cut down' version ie they were not 100% full
Check out the costs of the consumables first to see if it makes sense

Steve

experience: use them every day in work and have done for the past 3-4 years

quality: excellent i found for both text and photos

expensive to run: if you're talking about replacement cartridges; thats the most expensive bit, they're between £45-80 a pop depending on make, size etc

do they get blocked up: no, none of the ones i've used have ever got blocked, the odd paper-jam here and there but if it's in constant use 9-5 mon-fri it'll happen a few times a year...

good one to get: i've only ever used HP ones and as i say, they have been good, but i do believe HP are hte most expensive for replacement cartridges. again, it's a work printer so i haven't had to worry about that at all.

same goes for down-the-line expenses, though judging by the age of some of the printers in the places i've worked, laser printers will still be going strong in 5-10 years time compared to inkjet ones which last about 6 weeks it seems...

hope this helped in some way

I saw those, shame they are B&W.

I use a few different types of laser printer, but I'm a bit of a tight-wad when it comes to toner cartridges.

There are some (we have a Samsung that we use every day) that can be refilled quite easily, takes less than five minutes these days, and that includes the refill and swapping the chip so the printer thinks it's full again.
New toners for it are about £60 for originals, £20 for copies and less than a tenner for refill kits. Can normally refill it about half a dozen times before you need to replace the cartridge as, over time, it does leave marks on the paper.

I have a Dell colour laser that has four cartridges. Full set is less than £20 (copies) and for that have never bothered to try and refill them.

Whenever I see a laser printer on sale at a good price I check the cost of toners first, that's the money, not the printer itself (same goes for inkjet).

I have used an Epson 760 stylus colour inkjet since they came out. I can buy compatible inks real cheap. 6 colour and 6 black (12 in total!) for £12.49 with free postage, that's £1.04 per ink.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/6-SETS-OF-INK-CARTRIDGES-FOR-EPSON-STYLUS-COLOR-760-/130723379675

I just looked and there are no printer for sale on Ebay, but well worth thinking about if you can get one cheap enough.

You're paying too much for these, I sell them at 90p each individually, less if you're buying sets or multiple sets.

Yes you are cheaper, but with delivery to my door being free, it is cheaper than the travelling costs incurred to your shop and back.

I thought you had a bus pass

What price would they have to be to make it viable (this is to you, not me, I can the profit margins being in the pennies )

For the amount I use the difference is hardly noticeable. I buy most of my stuff on line and in bulk, all delivered to my door. I cant remember the last time I went to Birkenhead, Liverpool or Liscard. I just hate shopping so much and the fools who walk in your way and stop for no reason. Some come out of the shop, stop right by the doorway and look at their receipt, cause a queue to get out and they then carry on oblivious to the world. I stopped shopping incase I ended up on a murder charge :-))

Oh, and don't need a bus pass yet..

Depending on your budget you can pick up a cheap working second hand printer very cheaply if you do a local search on Ebay, because they're heavy and cost a fortune to post.

My personal recommendations would be the HP 4650 or the Dell 1320c.

I have ran our business printer which is actually an ink jet printer for the past year at a cost of about £1.99, refilling the cartridges myself. It has printed about 15,000 sheets in that year too, good luck printing that much on a laser printer for anywhere near that cost.

laser printers are fantastic and I do have a few but the toner prices are a rip off.

It all depends on the printer and the toner costs. Compatible cartidges mean that some can cost around a tenner.

Thanks everyone for your help. That you can get replacement cartridges for £20 or less changes things significantly. It was the cost of these that really discouraged me, but it would appear that they are nowhere near as expensive as I thought.

At that price I would not bother with attempting to refill them myself. I have recollections of a spillage of toner at work many years back when laser photocopiers were new and needed refilling, and the mess it made was horrific. Someone attempted to use a vacuum cleaner on it and the stuff went straight through the bag and left a black mark on the wall that looked as if someone had lit a fire next to it! Carpet, and vacuum cleaner had to be replaced and the wall redecorated.