Color Laser Printers - Things to Consider When Buying a New Color Printer

Basic Features of a Laser Printer

There's lots to take into account when buying a new printer. However, here are the main features that your new printer must have:

Paper Capacity: if you’re planning on printing bulk jobs, you a large paper tray is essential, otherwise you'll go mad with constantly having to reload the paper all the time.
Availability & Price of Consumables: it’s no good getting a great deal on a low-cost printer, only to find you have to spend loads of money on new printer cartridges, or that they are hard to find.
Duty Cycle: how many pages the printer can easily print each month without breaking. Think seriously about the number of pages you are likely to need to print in a month, and make sure your new printer can cope with it.
Memory: a large RAM is essential if you plan to print a lot of graphic-intensive documents.

Additional Features of a Laser Color Printer

Although the list above gives you the main features to look out for, here are some other features which you may find useful to look for:

Duplex Printing: this automatically prints on boths sides of the paper, thus saving you lots of time. If you’re in a busy office with many other people, then this feature could be extremely important. However, if you’re a single user then this feature is not necessarily essential as you could print all the odd pages first then flip the paper and print all the even pages.
Speed: cheaper printers print slower than more expensive ones. However, unless you are in a busy office with many other people printing high volumes, this will probably not be too much of an issue.
Networking: if you want your printer to be part of your computer network, get one with built-in networking capabilities. Try to find pritners with the letter N at the end of their model number.

The Major Printer Brands & Their Products

HP: $175-$5,300. A lot of products spread across an incredibly big price range. You’re bound to find something to fit your needs and budget here.
Lexmark: $249-$4,700. Quite a lot of products across an exceptionally large price range.
Xerox: $220-$5,200. An incredibly good printer make. A decent collection of products across an extremely broad price range. 
Samsung: $150-$770. Not very numerous products to choose from, but they are a decent brand.
Brother: $240-$600. Again, not lots of products but a good make