Printer suitability?

It's very good quality, but with inkjet printers Catch 22 applies.

The printers themselves are not particularly expensive, but the ink is - especially OEM ink. If you use the printer a fair amount, it will be expensive (you can try a non-OEM ink substitute, but it will probably invalidate your guarantee if anything goes wrong). If you don't use the printer that much, you will almost certainly find that after a while the jets get clogged and require cleaning - which will waste ink. The lower the usage, the more likely it is to get blocked too.

Others here might have experience of printing photos with a laser printer and can comment on the quality.

What kind of print volume do you expect, in terms of pages per month?

If this is going to be to any volume, invest in either a 'tank' printer, which doesn't have individual cartridges with a teaspoon of ink (literally) inside but has 50-300ml tanks of ink. They're more expensive but allow you to use any kind of aftermarket ink (the printer can't tell you're using unauthorised ink, unless you get it badly wrong and clog it), and even OEM ink is much cheaper in bulk.

Or you can fit continuous ink supply system (CISS) which is the same idea but for a printer not designed for it. They're available aftermarket for some models:

DIY can be hit and miss depending on the specifics of the particular printer, especially with whether you can disable 'replace cartridge' messages.

Inkjet printers are more fickle, all told. But some of the photos are very good - a common word is 'giclee' which is a term for professional artist printing. However for that you need many inks (6-12) and special paper, which also costs.

I think it depends what you want to achieve. Laser photos can be 'ok' but they aren't the kind of thing you'd want to hang on your wall. However inkjets can be a big hassle and expense. So if this is more church newsletter than fashion magazine then you may find it's better to go laser and sacrifice quality for reduced costs and dependability of a laser.

Theo

I've found colour laser printers can print a pretty good grey scale and acceptable.

I wouldn't touch an ink jet. They are expensive to run, very slow and unreliable.

Choose a printer from the cost of consumables aspect. Whenever I have needed a printer I look at cheapest first and then check up toner costs. I then keep going until I have a reasonable compromise.

Second tip, don't update the printer firmware in case third party cartridges stop working.

Thanks, with an inkjet I'd probably want to use third party ink. So I'll need to research which printers make this as easy as possible.

Depending on what quality you expect from a laser printed photo, you might be surprised. I used to have an HP colour laser and I was! May well be better than you imagine.

Inkjets can do incredible jobs with images, but the choice of paper is more important (ink soaking and spreading, etc) so it's easier to get a crappy image out of an inkjet printer than you'd perhaps think.

If you have the ability - perhaps going to somewhere like PC World - ask for a demo: take an image of your own, and the type of paper you will be usiing, and print it on an inket and a colour laser. There's no substitute for direct examination! Look at it under the shop lights AND under sunlight.

Once you have two examples, then it's easy to do the mathematics of running costs & print costs, etc.

Good luck!

When you say someone else will print out the newsletter/magazine, I presume you are sending them files direct for publishing. Therefore, if all you want is a copy for proof reading or getting a feel for what the finished publication will look like then how photorealistic pictures will appear may not be important even in a professionally printed community magazine it will not warrant a forensic quality court approved image. How accurate photos will appear is not just down to the printer but also the camera or scanner. I would go for whatever your budget allows perhaps as someone has pointed out already a printer that has refillable tanks rather than cartridges if going for an inkjet. As for colour lasers having to replace toner cartridges can be very expensive for doing one off prints. I had one which cost more to replace the toners than the printer with a set of partially filled toner cartridges out of the box.

The last 3 I had (paid for by work, luckily) all clogged irreparably because they only got used once a month if lucky.

Around 162 per month

I'd definitely go for the Tank option

The above look like fascinating projects. I'd like to think I was up to such skills.

Another interesting consideration.

Thanks for all the info. The pros and cons are many, and I have a much clearer idea of most of them now.

Sounds like a good way of processing the choice.

Good tip, thanks.

You'll need to use photo paper to get brochure quality prints, and as that's normally heavier, check the printer GSM spec.If you ever expect to print on card, you'll need one that can do 300 GSM, and with a rear feed to keep the paper path fairly straight.

There are brochure-quality lasers, but they tend to be more expensive than inkjets.

I suppose a weekly maintence run might be a bit of a chore.

Great idea, thanks

Yes, I've been reading up on the various options and they all stike me as pretty tricky, especially when reading the 1 star reviews.

Thanks Joe, yet more things to consider.

I always choose printers which can take aftermarket supplies, because often the business model is to suck you in with a low price and then expect to make it back massive by the official ink/toner. If the printer lets you use aftermarket then you can sidestep this and make the running costs much cheaper. However the printer manufacturers don't want you to do this and so they try to block it - cartridges have chips in them so the printer can check they're 'genuine'. In particular you ideally shouldn't connect the printer to the internet or run the vendor USB drivers, as sometimes vendors ship new firmware out of the blue which blocks new types of aftermarket cartridges.

Generally speaking Brother is best for lasers as their blocking is somewhat behind the competition, although catching up. HP are worst.

For inkjets I've found Epson to be troublesome, Canon a little better, HP also have a bad reputation.

Another fun wheeze is multifunction printers which refuse to scan when they run out of ink. Better to have separate units.

Unfortunately it's a bit of a minefield and a cat and mouse game if you don't want to be in hoc to the manufacturer and use the printer your way.

Theo

You get to the point (as I did) where the only thing the ink gets used for is the weekly stay-unclogged run.

Last time I *needed* a hard copy was for a letter to the DWP*. I used an online service to print and post the letter. A fraction of the cost of a printer for a once every 2 years occurrence.

A few maybe relevant observations

- for 1 200 brochure run, buying a laser printer was cheaper than the print shop.

- Color rendition varies from ink to ink. Cheap replacement carttidges my not be the same color as originals

- inkjets are useless for occasional usage. Also colors can fade.

- Lasers are in nearly all ways better excpt maybe for photos

There are so many things to look out for. I was reading about the enormous amount of trouble people were having, after they'd bought a Brother laser printer from Amazon and found that the sellers were sourcing the printers from Eastern or other European markets. Consequently, the replacement toner cartridges, when bought in the UK wouldn't fit, or weren't available at all without major surgery.

I wonder whether scanners are really necessary at all in many cases considering the availability of digital cameras for a work around.

If I go for inkjet it will be for the Eco Tank version, though I suppose this type of printer will have to be used frequently to avoid ink blockages

Therein lie several dilemmas.