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Colour Laser Printer Review
Hewlett Packard and Oki, have now made colour laser printers really affordable. HP's offering starts with the Colour LaserJet 1600 at $579 plus GST and you can then move to the HP2605 at $680 plus GST.
Oki starts with the C3300n at $753 plus GST with the next machine up in the range being the C3400n at $888 plus GST.
You can get a detailed comparison of these models, including running costs, by sending an email to davidh@second-image.co.nz.
The HP1600 and the two Okis are all GDI printers. This means that they do not have an inbuilt printer language and, instead, use the Windows printing system. The HP2605 has both PCL6 and Postscript level 3 emulation. This latter feature would make this printer very attractive to users in the design or graphic arts areas.
All the printers use USB 2.0 for connecting to the computer. In addition the Okis have network cards built in which probably accounts for the more expensive starting price.
Memory in the HP1600 (16MB) and the Oki C3300n (32MB) is not expandable while the HP2605 starts with 64MB and can be expanded to 320MB. The Oki C3400n starts with 32MB and can be expanded to 288MB. Processor speeds are 264MHz (HP1600), 200MHz (both Okis) and 300MHz (HP2605).
Print Speeds
Hewlett Packard print speeds and resolution are 8ppm and 600x600 dpi (HP1600), 12ppm mono and 10 ppm colour and 2400 dpi using REt (HP2605).
The Okis print at 16ppm mono and 12ppm colour for the C3300n and 20ppm mono and 16ppm colour for the C3400n. Both have 1200 x 600 dpi resolution using ProQ2400.
The Okis use 1,000 page toner cartridges with separate drum units while the HP printers use a 2500 page black cartridge and 2000 page colour cartridges. These are all in one with a drum included in the cartridge.
Paper handling
Paper handling features are directly comparable between all the machines.
All of these printers are designed primarily for a single user although the network cards in the Okis open up the possibility of sharing across a network. I would be cautious about sharing USB printers on a peer to peer network (i.e. the printer connected directly to one computer and shared) as this type of arrangement can lead to conflicts.
The costing shows that the Okis are more expensive to run than the HPs but this may be slightly misleading. Oki shows the cost of a fuser unit and transfer belt while neither of these items appear on the Hewlett Packard list of consumables. HP apparently considers these to be "life of the machine" items.
Note that consumable prices are current as at 1 September 2006 and recommended retail prices have been used.
Summary
On balance, and unless there is a need for networking, my preference is the HP2605. The features I find attractive are the dedicated printer languages, 64MB of memory which can be expanded and the faster processor.
If you need a network card then the next model up in the HP range, the 2605dn has both a duplex unit and a network card and costs $920 plus GST. This is directly comparable to the Oki C3400n and may, with the additional feature of automatic duplexing, be a preferred option.
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