Color printer advice for promotional materials?

[OneGrassRoot]

Not sure which forum is best to place this question.

I'm doing posters for my daughter's various theatre productions, doing author promotional material and other color printing projects.

The costs are just too much for anyone to handle right now.

I have an account with Dell and can get a printer for a low monthly fee, so I'm thinking about going in this direction for these periodic projects.

Keeping a high-quality output in mind -- as professional a look as possible -- I'm confused as to whether a color laserjet -- using high-quality, heavier paper stock -- or photo inkjet is best.

I know the initial cost for inkjets is less, but the toner cartridges eat you alive.

I don't anticipate needing SUCH a high quality as photographers, for example, may need, but it does need to be professional.

And, it would be sporadic, and inkjet cartridges dry up so fast.

Any advice as to which way to go for the most cost-effective, high-quality result for promotional materials?

Thanks. :hi:

[pokerfan]

1. Laserjet

A toner cartridge will last for thousands of pages (compare with hundreds for inkjet) and never dry out. The up-front cost is more expensive (because ink-jet manufactures practically give the printers away) but the laser wins in the long run. I've never owned an inkjet printer that I didn't wind up hating.

[LiberalFighter]

2. Color Laser may be expensive too if you don't use it enough to pay off.

Color laserjet requires 4 cartridges.

You need to do some cost analysis. I use straight laserjet and find it less expensive than inkjet per copy by a substantial margin.

IIRC inkjet cartridges have about 400 copies per while laserjet depending on the printer would be about 4000-6000 or more copies.

You could check out costs at Office Depot or Staples to find out cost per copy.

[LiberalFighter]

3. If you are doing a lot of graphics that will mean more ink being used

regardless of type of printer. So inkjet will probably be substantially less than I mentioned.

[hobbit709]

4. Color laser is the way to go

There's several models in the $150-250 range that will work just fine.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010330630+1614340409&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&Subcategory=630&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

[canetoad]

5. Another thing....

Grab a ream of presentation paper, around 110gsm. You'd be amazed at the difference to stuff printed on plain old copy paper.

[OneGrassRoot]

6. Thank you, all, very much...

:hi:

[Stinky The Clown]

7. Kinkos

I have to do large format color printing. I've done as large as72 x 42, and routinely do 30 x 42. I own an appropriate large format color printer. It cost as much as a small car and uses very costly ink cartridges.

The recent explosion of PDF files has pretty much reduced my formerly frequent printings to a few sheets a month, with many months seeing no printing at all.

Enter Kinkos. For the cost of printing, I can e-mail a drawing (as a PDF) to their office nearest my clients, and they will print it and then deliver it to my client. That is literally cheaper than the cost for me to print and ship the same drawing by Fedex (who now own Kinkos). When this plotter dies, I will not replace it.

Look into Kinkos to get a per sheet cost. It is usually pretty reasonable. Given that you want high quality and have low volume requirements, I think you'll find this the sweet spot in your calculations weighing the quality against the volume.

[OneGrassRoot]

8. Thank you, Stinky!

Much appreciated. :hi:

[CrispyQ]

9. I love, love, love my Dell 2135cn color laser.

I got it a year ago right after Xmas for $385 plus free shipping. ~gasp! Great deal! And the color quality is divine!

I used to work in an office that had a Xerox Phaser & the color on that was poor - very dingy. Also, instead of toner, it used these wax cubes, & you couldn't write over it - the ink would smear. The Dell was a third of the cost of the Xerox & the color is gorgeous! However, legal is the largest size it prints. The only drawback is it takes four toner cartridges & they cost about $90 each. However, I've yet to replace one.