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I am gonna break down and buy.....


islandgirl

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A Laser Printer....:shocked2: Going to say bye-bye to the injet.

I have all my candle labels printed by USBOX, but would like to start printing my own. I think in the long run, it would save me time and money..

I did a search and many of you use the HP Printers which is what I am looking at..

Any suggestions would be appreciated..

I have never used a laser printer and do not know much about them.

I will be printing on round labels, is that tough to do..

Do they align pretty easy?

If not, maybe I will switch labels to rectangle??

TIA

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I can't speak for the HP, but I have a Dell 3110CN that I have had for about 3 yrs now. I love it, have had no problems, and I have yet to have to replace the toners. I think I paid about $340 at Sam's Club (The same one was actually higher directly through Dell - Go figure!) So it really is a cost savings over having to always replace the ink cartridges. Also prints much nicer and faster.

I print round, but they are very challenging! I really struggle with getting them lined up right throughout the whole sheet. No problems with squares and rectangles. What I have been doing lately is do print on paper, or full sheet label and then just Punch them out with a Fiskars 2" round circle punch. It works great, however is a little more work.

I did a lot of reading and research prior to buying mine, and for the price that was rated as one of the top buys overall at the time. Haven't checked out the market recently though.

Just shop around and do a little research, I think you will be very happy with the laser.

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You know I hear so many people talking about inkjet and wonder why they don't switch to a laser. The costs of ink, and general cheapness of the inkjet printers is astounding.

The most important thing to consider is the cost of toner and the cost of replacing the drum. Running out of ink is one thing, but when print quality goes, you have to replace the drum. So check out your options, but check out the availability of generic types of toner, costs of toner, and drums.

You will love it, and even though it is a hassle getting your labels all lined up again, it'll improve the look of your labels too.

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I just bought a HP Color Laser CP1518ni... I will tell you I almost fell out of my chair, when looking at the first picture I printed. WOWEEEE it is like you are standing at the base of Alaska in a field. The differance on my labels are night and day. You wont regret it!

:yay:

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Thanks for the replies..

Glad to hear the Dell Printer is a good choice and the ink last so long... I like that feature.. I will see if Costco carries it in my area.

I will research the replacement cost of the drums and ink before I buy.. Great tip!! THANKS..

I will check out the HP Color Laser CP1518ni.

I ordered some samples from onlinelables to test different size and shaped labels. I will keep you all posted on what I decide on!!

Thanks a bunch!!:cheesy2:

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Just to clarify some facts about color laser printers, I speak as someone who has been around laser printers since they came out at about $2500 for a black laser printer back in 1984 or so. Laser Printers are almost always going to cost less to print with than Inkjet printers. There are really only 2 drawbacks to "color" laser printers. The first one, is that although the cost per page is relatively low, the cost of the 4 toner cartridges that are included, usually equal the cost of the entire printer these days. As an example, my brother-in-law has an HP, that cost about $400 at the time. The new cartridges are each about $100. So by the time you replace the 4 cartridges, you might as well have bought a new printer. The second drawback is usually the photo quality isn't as good as with Inkjets. Laser printers usually have a print resolution of 600 dpi whereas even a lowend inkjet printer has a resolution of at least 1200 - 4800 dpi. This makes the most difference in photos, but can be seen in many different situations. Inkjet printers use a mixing technology to form their colors, whereas a laser printer tends to put dots next to each other to simulate colors. If you want to think about it in the candle world, think of how someone would make a purple candle. We would get some blue (cyan in the printer world) dye and some red (magenta in the printer world) dye, and mix them together to get the shade of purple we want. That is the way an inkjet printer works. A laser printer type candle on the other hand, would make half the candle blue, and half the candle red, and spin it fast enough so that the viewers eyes would see a purple candle. It isn't quite that simple, but I hope you get the idea.

yan_yulay, As far as finding the labels, Avery makes a number of sizes of round labels. There are a few others out there, but I actually buy the 2" round labels to use for printing my Warning labels. They don't have tons of sizes, but usually you can make due with one of them. They have some while, silver and even gold labels. You have to look at what they were designed to print with. Some are designed for laser printing, some for inkjet. You have to be careful which ones you buy.

Hope that helps... SteveG

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Steve,

I would have to disagree with your injet vs lazer. I have had my hp color lazer now for three months. I print all my labels. I also print brouchers, booklets and shipping lables. The quality of the HP vs my Epson exceeds in any comparison. As for the price of the toners, put it this way. The amount of ink I would have purchased for the espon, would have been about 800.00 now, for the one toner I have and is still using in my Hp. One toner cost me 72.00 and if I would buy ink for my epson, I would have bought 6-8 of them by now. I have saved huge! You have to remember that - one toner is going to last you 5 -8 times longer. Besides that, my new labels look like a professional did them now!

:yay:

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yan_yolay,

I DID say that the laser would be cheaper per page to print with. As for the quality of the print itself. I have tried the newest lasers versus my Canon inkjet printer, and for photo's there is no comparison in print quality. The laser printers dots are quite apparent when I look at it closely. Now as a comparison, when I print on the larger office laser printers, there isn't as much of a difference, but I would still rather see the photos off my $99 inkjet printer than the $800 color laser printer at work. As a comparison, the Canon Pixma ip4600 ($99 MSRP) has a color resolution of 9600 x 2400 vs. the highly rated Dell i1230c ($230) with a resolution of 2400 x 600. Even on the Dell website, the main Complaint, is color photo printing. No doubt, if I needed spot colors or needed to add color to presentations and handouts, I would go with a color laser, but photographically, I stand by my assertion that there isn't a color laser at any price that can print as cleanly as a decent inkjet. One other factor, is that most inkjet printers will also allow you to print on continuous paper for a banner. Is the cost of supplies for an inkjet prohibative for large jobs, ABSOLUTLEY. If I was printing brochures and colorful handouts in quantity, I would choose a color laser printer, but if photo quality is the most important thing for you, and you want to print 4 x 6 to 8 x 10 photos, then a inkjet with the right paper is the way to go.

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I have used a HP 2600n for years and just love it!

I have this same printer and I LOVE mine!!!! I wouldn't go back to an inkjet for anything. I have no problems getting my round, square, or rectangular labels to line up. I also print business cards, flyers, catalogs and brochures on my HP laser.

I go through over 1000 brochures a year . I think I paid around $750 for my printer and the toners run around $450 to replace all four but I am still saving tons of money using my HP.

I think HP make the best laser printers available. The print quality is phenomenal and the colors are absolutely vivid.

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You should be able to adjust the output resolution on your laser printer! That seems a little low! The end result also depends on what kind of finish your labels have, glossy or matte. Anything printed off an ink jet will run if it gets wet, even well after it's printed. Laser printers heat set and it takes quite a bit of abuse to disturb the colors. Buy the LASER!

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I have used a HP 2600n for years and just love it!

I would like to add that I have this laser printer also and no problems. I do my round labels on it also, which go all the way to the edge. I finally sat down and took the time to do them in Word instead of thru a label program and they turned out a lot better. I buy one toner cartridge per color per year, which to me was a substantial savings over all the inkjet cartridges that I was buying. Most people think that I get my labels printed. The other great thing is that the colors dont run when they get wet. Beware of discount toner cartridges for an HP though. I tried it on one color and my print quality was terrible. I replaced it with an HP toner and all was fixed. HTH

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Islandgirl

Whatever you do STAY AWAY FROM BROTHER! You'll be broke before you print 50 labels!

I am a die-hard HP fan. Everything I own has always been HP...until I discovered Samsung.

After doing some serious comparison shopping in 24 hours, I settled on the Samsung.

My decision was influenced by the fact that outside of the toner, the only other consumable is the transfer belt after 50,000 pages. No drum to deal with! And they have 2 types of toner to choose from: standard and high yield. About a $20-$25 difference in prices, but if all you have is 80 bucks you can get a standard toner that will hold you. The footprint is a little big for home use (it's really an office printer), but for me it's well worth the space.

The print quality on draft (black and color) is beautiful, crisp and clear. I discovered that if I spend a little bit more for 96/24 paper I can save on toner in the long-run. The Staples laser printing paper works perfectly. I use labels from labels by the sheet and they print fine.

I had a print job to do for an alternative health care group: 100 seminar booklets w/ 13 double sided pages each including 4 double sided pages with 4 graphics on each page. I was able to complete the job with the standard toners included with the printer. I still have toner left. And that was including the 200+ pages I accidently printed in duplicate! Everything was printed on draft and I couldn't believe the clarity and sharpness. Apparently they couldn't either: They contracted me to do all of their seminar booklets and flyers :yay:

I'm still working out some kinks because I don't like to read instruction manuals for electronics, I'd rather just do it.

OK, enough free advertising for Samsung.

You can read about it here

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3566396&CatId=21

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yan_yolay,

I DID say that the laser would be cheaper per page to print with. As for the quality of the print itself. I have tried the newest lasers versus my Canon inkjet printer, and for photo's there is no comparison in print quality. The laser printers dots are quite apparent when I look at it closely. Now as a comparison, when I print on the larger office laser printers, there isn't as much of a difference, but I would still rather see the photos off my $99 inkjet printer than the $800 color laser printer at work. As a comparison, the Canon Pixma ip4600 ($99 MSRP) has a color resolution of 9600 x 2400 vs. the highly rated Dell i1230c ($230) with a resolution of 2400 x 600. Even on the Dell website, the main Complaint, is color photo printing. No doubt, if I needed spot colors or needed to add color to presentations and handouts, I would go with a color laser, but photographically, I stand by my assertion that there isn't a color laser at any price that can print as cleanly as a decent inkjet. One other factor, is that most inkjet printers will also allow you to print on continuous paper for a banner. Is the cost of supplies for an inkjet prohibative for large jobs, ABSOLUTLEY. If I was printing brochures and colorful handouts in quantity, I would choose a color laser printer, but if photo quality is the most important thing for you, and you want to print 4 x 6 to 8 x 10 photos, then a inkjet with the right paper is the way to go.

Well, since most here use (or want) a laser to print color LABELS I don't think printing pics is really an issue. A 4x6 or 8x10 pic would look awfully tacky wrapped around a bar of soap or a jar of body butter.

Most usually have a perfectly fine and working inkjet before making the move to laser...just ready to step it up a bit. Chances are, they aren't going to just throw it out if it works. They'll probably keep it (like I did)...along with the variety of injet-only paper sitting in the cabinet...and they'll use it to print the pics as necessary.

And, there's always overnight prints for those rare, super high quality print jobs

See, not really an issue :)

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You guys rock here!! Thanks for all the responses and suggestions!!

Beau's Mama - Thanks for the tip on Brothers.. I was looking at them, but think I will skip it and not waste my time now..

I will research the samsung...

I have one of their MP3 Players & phone, I love them.

Never had a problem with one of their products.. So I will research the printer..

HP, Samsung, Dell - Those are the ones I will look at next week after I finish up my fundraiser this week.

I will let ya all know which one I get... I am very excited!!!:yay:

THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE!! Get tips!!!

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beau's_mama, I have a photo on my label, therefore my reasoning for touting the superior print quality of ink jet printers. It's kind of ridiculous to mention putting a 4 x 6 or 8 x 10 photo on a bar of soap, but I'll consider that your unique way of telling me where to go with my ideas.

As someone who has been in the computer and printer field for 25+ years, I was just throwing out some industry knowledge to try to make sure people had ALL the facts.

In case anyone is interested in the latest advance in ink jets, I have a friend who works in the R&D department for the Kodak ink jet printer division. They use a technology, that uses a coating to prevent their inks from getting ruined (running) if they get wet. I have tried out my labels on them, and they look great. There were some early problems with reliability, but since the production of them has been moved to a new facility, the earlier problems have been resolved. They even have the least expensive ink cartridges on the market when it comes to cost per page. Still not in the realm of the cost of laser printers per page, but depending on what you have on your labels, it may be worth a look. I won't bore anyone with more facts, but I just thought "some" people would be interested.

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