Hi Everyone,
Can anyone suggest an “affordable” desktop 11x17 Color Laser printer?
The only model I can find is an HP CP5225dn. (At $2200, that is really pushing the upper limit of my budget.) It is basically what I am looking for except I really don’t like HP as a company anymore and would rather not give them any money. It doesn’t appear that Xerox, Canon or Brother make any desktop 11x17 laser printers.
Thanks.
Are you going to print on Tabloid so much that you need a dedicated color laser printer? Even at $1 a page going to a copy shop or somewhere like Staples could save you money in the long term on your printing costs, electricity, and replacement toner.
Xerox VersaLink C7000/DN Color Printer is about the same $2000 price.
If you only need to do a little bit of tabloid printing, inkjets are cheaper:
For drafts, you could shrink down to US Legal (8.5x14") and print on ANY color laser printer, or I guess split across two pages and piece them together.
If you need to do a lot of tabloid printing, instead of a printer, you should look at buying or leasing an “A3” copier for your office… You may be able to get one for around the price of that one HP printer, and you’ll be able to do a lot more tasks with it not just printing… ADF scanner, easy copies, booklet maker, several paper trays, etc.
First one I found is the Xerox WorkCentre 7845. Refurbs go for $2,200, and used working units can be found for as little as $800 on eBay if you happen to be able to do local pickup.
Lots of companies prefer to lease copiers instead of buying them, which includes maintenance and consumables. Not sure what pricing you would get for only a single unit.
Thanks for all the replies…
I missed the XeroxC7000/DN when I was perusing the Xerox website. Will definitely look into that.
This is for a home office environment. I don’t do much 11x17 printing (probably about 25-50 sheets per month). but it’s nice to print my engineering drawings at full size. Black and white is all I need for the 11x17 prints but I was hoping to avoid having two printers just to cover my color letter/legal and b&w tabloid sizes.
Currently I have a Brother 11x17 inkjet and it is a piece of garbage and really want to replace it. There is no way I am ever buying an inkjet printer again. In the past I have had HP, Canon and Brother and the ink never dries on the paper. In fact, when I grabbed a doc I printed two weeks ago my fingers were back with ink when I was done paging through. I’m done. (Funny though, I have an old HP DeskJet 895cxi from back in the day. It still works perfectly and those pages dry instantly.)
Again, thanks for the info…
Did you consider investing in a plotter instead? Certainly less than $2,000, and besides working for tabloid printing, you’d be able to print out huge poster sized drawings as well whenever needed/desired. But I understand the desire to switch to laser for everything, even though the economics don’t seem to make sense.
Maybe an Epson SureColor T3170x? 24" wide and “Cartridge-free” (EcoTank).
Considering the prices, splitting a tabloid print onto two sheets of US legal and cutting and taping them together sounds like a decent option to me.
I was looking at Epson printers and noticed the 13" and 24" wide models supported continuous paper-rolls which seemed intriguing. Haven’t used an Epson inkjet since the late 90’s so I don’t know how the new ones rate. (The old ones used to drink ink every time you would power them on because they would do a self-clean.) I wonder how Epson ink compare to HP/Canon/Brother. (Does it actually dry and stay on the page.) Maybe I’ll buy a cheap little Epson just to test.
Before getting my current 11x17 Brother, I used to tape two letter pages together. But when dealing with schematic diagrams, it was always difficult to align a hundred little lines that passed from one page to another.
Thanks for the suggestions.
The Epson SureColor T3170x uses an EcoTank, so you can fill it with absolutely any brand of bulk ink you want.
Long ago I tested out Epson “DuraBrite” ink. It was decidely waterproof and only came off when treated with (concentrated) Simple Green, but otherwise impervious to most everything else. I was otherwise very disappointed with the Epson Stylus C82 printer, but that was quite a long time ago.
I don’t see “DuraBrite” branding on Epson inks in general, so not sure if it is at all common, even available for newer printers, or if they’ve moved on to something else.
FYI: I don’t get notified of your comments since you’re clicking the “Reply” button at the bottom of the page, instead of the one just under my comment(s) and you’re neither quoting nor mentioning me. I only just happened to see this topic was updated. You’re likely to see more follow-up activity if you do one of those in future.
The “DuraBight” inks are still available in some of their WorkForce line of printers. (ST-C7000/ST-80x0) Glad to hear that type of ink was waterproof and resistant to smudging.
It appears that most of Epson’s printers use “Claria” inks and the SureColor series seem to use “UltraChrome”. (For whatever any of that truly means in the grand scheme of things.)
An update.
I went to my local office supply store and they had some Epson printers setup for demos. I was able to try out a WorkForce unit with DuraBrite inks. Very impressive. You cannot smear the page even one second after the printer ejected it. After a twenty minute ride home, I hit the page with a highlighter pen and some water and it didn’t care. (No smudging.) So I placed an order for a WF-7310 printer. This printer was on sale for $159 and the cheapest “tank” version was over $1000 more. Since I can buy 12 sets of XL cartridges for $1000, I skipped the “tank” unit.
Here’s hoping I made a wise decision.