At last, laser models provide affordable color

By MIKE LANGBERG
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
I don't like making wrong predictions, except when prices fall faster than I expect.
In October 2002, I wrote about color laser printers as "finally becoming affordable for individual consumers" with models as low as $799. I concluded: "It's possible color lasers could dip below $500 in two or three years."
It took less than 14 months, I'm pleased to report, with the first $499 color laser printer arriving late last year. The trend picked up major momentum June 2, when Hewlett-Packard -- the long-time market leader in laser printers -- announced its first $499 model.
There are now three color lasers at $499: HP's new Color LaserJet 2550L (www.hp.com), Konica Minolta's Magicolor 2300W (http://printer.konicaminolta.net/usa) and Samsung's CLP-500 (www.samsungusa.com).
I've just finished trying them, and -- although none is perfect -- they all delivered good-looking printed pages on inexpensive plain paper.
Black-and-white issue
This is important because laser printers are the last gasp of black and white in the otherwise full-color world of computing. It's been more than a decade since any computer came with a monochrome screen, or an inkjet printer produced only black and white pages.
Monochrome lasers remain popular because they deliver sharper text and work faster than inkjets. Lasers also provide full quality on plain paper; inkjets -- although costing as little as $50 -- need expensive special paper for color to shine.
Color lasers, then, are potentially the best of both worlds. But early color lasers were stratospherically expensive, costing at least several thousand dollars.
I personally got interested in acquiring a color laser about a month ago. My 10-year-old monochrome HP LaserJet 5MP is a reliable workhorse that refuses to die, but it's much slower than newer lasers, and I hankered to occasionally print Web pages in color. I've also got an Epson Stylus Photo 870 inkjet printer, but I save it for printing photographs because it's too slow for casual color, and I don't want to bother with putting in special paper.
After doing much research online, I settled on the Konica Minolta 2300DL, a step-up model at $599 that includes built-in networking but is otherwise identical to the 2300W.
I found the 2300DL easy to set up, once I'd recruited my wife, Debbie, to help lift the 61-pound unit out of its box and onto my desk. The output, on 24-pound bright white paper, was excellent, with razor-sharp text and rich colors.
Sound and fury
But there was a fatal flaw, at least for me: The 2300DL has a fairly loud cooling fan that runs all the time, even when the machine isn't printing. My home office is a small room, and I very much want silence while I'm working.
So I reluctantly packed the 2300DL back in its box and returned it to the store for a full refund.
I next went to a different store and bought the Samsung CLP-500, which says it has a low-noise design. Debbie and I risked compressed vertebrae lifting this monster, at 77 pounds when fully configured.
Sure enough, the CLP-500 was much quieter than the 2300DL when printing. But the CLP-500 also had a cooling fan that ran nonstop. Not as loud as the 2300DL's fan, but still too much for me. Also, the print quality fell short, with slightly fuzzy text and graphics that were too dark. As soon as my spine recovers, the CLP-500 is also going back to the store.
Next try
Then HP announced the Color LaserJet 2550L. This time, I called the company and arranged to borrow a unit for review.
My spine got a break; the 2550L weighs only 48 pounds fully loaded. The setup process took about half an hour, in part because the skimpy manual is unclear on several steps.
On the plus side, the 2550L turned out to be blessedly quiet. It clunks and whines while printing, but it has no fan and is completely silent between print jobs.
Print quality for both black text and color graphics was excellent, equal to or slightly better than the 2300DL.
On the down side, the 2550L is slow. Printing a 14-page Adobe Acrobat document mixing text and color graphics took a sluggish 9 minutes and 10 seconds. The CLP-500 did the same job in 3 minutes and 20 seconds.
The 2550L also has a slender 125-page paper input tray that sticks out the front of the unit like a sore thumb -- something HP disgracefully shows nowhere in its advertising materials. The CLP-500 has a 250-sheet internal paper tray; the 2300DL has a 200-sheet tray that sticks out only slightly from the bottom. This means you'll be fetching paper for the 2550L far more frequently than its $499 competitors.
There is a solution for my second gripe. HP sells a step-up model, the 2550n at $699, with an internal 250-sheet paper tray, along with built-in networking and higher-capacity toner cartridges. It's a good deal for those willing to spend a little bit more.
Further pointers
Before you consider buying any color laser, there are a few more things you need to know.
Color lasers use four toner cartridges, one for black and three in the primary colors of cyan, magenta and yellow. Replacements are typically $80 to $100 each. The cartridges will cover anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 pages, so you won't have to replace them often. But be prepared for sticker shock if you have to buy all four at once. There's another component called an imaging drum that wears out after about 10,000 to 20,000 pages, costing $150 to $200.
Manufacturers also are working on low-cost color laser multifunction printers, which combine copying with printing and sometimes faxing. The first sub-$1,000 color laser multifunction device could arrive before the end of this year, so don't buy now if you would rather have one.
Still, the current crop of $499 color lasers can be a good choice for anyone who needs to conveniently print a lot of color pages. I don't need a multifunction printer or quick output, so I'm seriously considering the HP 2550n at $699 to give myself both color and quiet.