There were a lot of repsonses to this one and I encountered another sum on Esri-L shortly after I asked my question. If anybody wants the full text of both, (ie: a digest) email me. Original question: >Our office is considering purchasing a colour laser >printer. It would be used for small maps (11x17), >brochures & newsletters as well as your standard >everyday printing of memos and letters. > >Does the list have any recommendations? love stories? >horror stories? The responses categorized by vendor are summed immediately following. There are some general notes on printing technology at the bottom which is well worth noting. BY VENDOR Canon ImageClass C2100: expensive to startup but cost per page is low. It gives great prints, but has tricky colour matching relative to inkjet - need driver adjustments to match (close enough) screen colours. A minor annoyance is that it takes a long time to wake up from sleep mode, but once awake prints are fast (1 response) Minolta copier/printer CF910: On the whole, it seems to be a good machine. There are unresolved questions regarding inconsistent line-widths. It has an add-on print server called a Fiery 2Xe. The model of copier one down from this has poorer print quality. (1 response) Xerox 5750: great! does double duty as colour copier (1 response) [NB: Xerox and Tektronics are now the same company] Lexmarks: the Lexmark Optra 1275 C was loved, while the (unknown model) was hated. Reasons for hate: colours not true, banding, finicky cartridges. Reasons for love: 1200dpi, easy networking (no server needed), automatic language selection, excellent output on various media. (3 respondants) QMS Magicolor 330: wide range of responses, ranging from "underwhelmed" and "there is no magic" to "way to go". Those who didn't like it cite colour problems and indistinct line work. The fellow who do like it, didn't give much detail.(3 responses) Tektronics Phasers are generally popular and well liked though a few were less than satisfied. Finickiness with selecting paper sizes, colour matching, and high maintenance were the usual reasons for dissatisfaction. They also produce "gargantuan plot files that amble through a 100 base T network". Works well in a multi OS environment. (8 respondants) HP as usual is at the top of the list. (13 responses) Does this reflect technical superiority or greater mindshare and trust? HP 8500DN: A good all purpose workgroup colour printer which is relatively fast. I can't really give anymore details than that, because as is usual those who like it, say "It's great!" and no more. :) There was a warning about expensive supplies. Perhaps the most significant fact is that nobody complained. HP 4500DN: Lesser model to the 8500, still liked. Only 2 repondants mentioned this printer. GENERAL NOTES It is probably more effective, both in terms of usage time and cost (maintenance and purchase), to have 2 dedicated printers, one for colour and one for general purpose B&W, than to find an all in one solution. In this scenario the HP2500 is recommended for colour because the cost is lower (than 4/8500) and there is not a difference in print speed for full colour images. Quoted in full because of it informative value: -=< Peter Halls: We use Lexmark & HP colour lasers, and have looked at the QMS and Tektronix machines as well. My advice would be "if colour quality matters, stay with ink-jet". This is a technology issue. Although the dye technology used in ink jets is advanced, and offers pretty close to pure primary shades, this soes not yet seem possible with colour lasers. Despite the pigment primaries being cyan, magenta and yellow, some of the colour lasers use the light primaries, red, green and blue! The cym pigments we see are not very pure - cyan probably being the best, as a result all colour mixes tend to end up a bit 'muddy'. I've not seen any laser that manages to mix its primaries and achieve as good a colour as the ink jets. I suspect that the reason some use rgb pigments is that most business graphics seem to use those colours and the manufacturers recognise that the cannot, in particular, obtain a good red from the cym laser toners. I do not know if there is an issue concerning the need for heat in the fusing process that is involved here, this would certainly be a possibility. My colleagues chose the laser over inkjet in our move from thermal wax because they though[t] the inkjets would need constant maintenance and operator attention, and that they were apparently fast. No one seems to be satisfied with the colour quality, and our central colour printing load has sunk whilst almost everyone seems to be buying a colour inkjet for the desktop! OUR DECISION We've opted for a 3 printer solution: The HP 1055CM for very fast inkjet prints up to 36" wide, the Epson Stylus Colour 3000 for slower 720x1440 dpi colour up to 13x19", and an old HP laserjet 4M for black and white everyday needs. Note that we already owned all of these, but the Epson was broken. It was the idea that it's replacement would be a colour laser, thus upgrading the old HP4M at the same time. The 1055CM is usuable in this scenario because of it's ability to load cutsheets of 8.5x11" to 36x48" _without unloading the roll_. The Stylus 3000, now 3 or 4 years old, is -still- Epson's flagship product for tabloid colour printing. We fixed ours. The HP4M? Well, we're not allowed to replace it simply because it's old and doesn't support duplexing. {sigh} :) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks for everyones' patience while they waited for this long overdue summary. And special thanks to Brad Miller who provided a sum to bulk out and refine my sum. In no special order, thanks to the respondents: Rodney Wing, Robert Tyler, Lynn Hay, Dennis Kaplan, Hal Watson Laura Bell, Kirk Regular, Raymond Kinser, Karen Behm, Tim Nuteson Tony D'Ambrosio, Jason Adam, Brad Miller, Mark Graves, Scott McGee Eric Lowrance, Chris Jacob, Vivienne Rutlidge, Joseph Howell, Charlie Richman, Trina Wong, Larry Halweg, Ralph Campbell Jim Lemieux, Mark French, Jerson Rivera, Toni Tisdale, Reiner Fuest, Peter Halls,Stephen Cook live long and prosper, -matt ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put "unsubscribe MAPINFO-L" in the message body, or contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]