Laser tag: affordability has finally caught up with performance in laser printers. Does that make you "it"?

Entrepreneur,  June, 2002  by Amanda C. Kooser

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TWENTY MINUTES. THAT'S HOW long it took to get going--from opening the box until we were printing a test sheet from the Samsung ML-1651N networkable laser printer. Not too shabby. You can expect to get a good degree of user-friendliness when dealing with most of the lasers on the market, even when you take the extra step of tying them into your network. Congratulations, you're one wire away from sharing a printer.

The days of working in an office that looks like an inkjet ranch or spending a Bill Gatesian ransom on a laser printer are gone. Growing businesses can now choose from a herd of affordable monochrome lasers to meet their workgroup printing needs. Benefits of going this route include low consumables costs, fast printouts and robust duty cycles. One disadvantage is lack of color, but that's still not a requirement for most business printing. For the sake of comparison, the one exception in this article is the Xerox Phaser 8200. We'll give you more on that later. No matter what, a good laser will look like Charles Atlas compared to your average inkjet.

As with your choice of computer, you'll want to choose a printer that meets you at the intersection of budget and performance. For example, the $1,580 (all prices street) HP LaserJet 4100N has a maximum duty cycle of 150,000 pages per month and a top speed of 25 pages per minute (ppm). Need more speed? You can get the same duty cycle and 35 ppm out of the MINOLTA-QMS PagePro 9100 N for the slightly more attractive price of $1,499. Remember, duty cycles and ppm numbers are like gas mileage--actual performance and output quality can depend on how hard you drive your machine. Other specs to look out for are processor speed and memory. Just as with that PC sitting under your desk, a higher processor speed and more memory help boost performance. The amount of RAM, in particular, is an issue when the printer has to keep track of multiple print jobs coming in. The MINOLTA-QMS Page-Pro 9100 N comes standard with 64MB of memory and can be upgraded to 512MB if you need more.

The printers in our chart all slip in under the $2,000 price point. It's easy to go higher if your business requires faster printing times or heavier duty cycles. Most growing workgroups will do just fine with one of these. For small workgroup applications when price is pressing, you can look into models like the $450 Samsung ML-1651N. A small footprint also makes a difference in tight workspaces.

There's more to laser printing than just lasers. The Xerox Phaser 8200, for instance, uses solid ink, and the Oki Data OKIPAGE 24n uses Digital LED technology to achieve laser-quality prints. These three methods of printing don't necessarily offer any difference in quality; they're just different. Unless you have a strong preference one way or another, purchase according to price and features. For example, the Phaser 8200 offers a fairly fast sub-$2,000 alternative if you need color occasionally. It does have the one trade-off, however, of slower print time.

There's a wide-open world of workgroup printing technology out there, and the mostly midrange machines in our chart are a good place to jump in. Entrepreneurs with more sophisticated printing needs can explore the realms of high-volume color printers that vault well over the two-grand mark.

Wireless print servers are hitting the scene as well. Hewlett-Packard, for one, offers the $300 WP110 external print server for Wi-Fi networks. Expect to see more untethered printing options aimed at growing businesses and their wireless workgroups. Wires or no wires, it's all about networking.

Shopping List

READY TO START PUTTING YOUR PRINTING NEEDS AND YOUR BUDGET ON THE
APPROPRIATE SIDES OF THE SCALE?

PRODUCT          CONTACT             PPM  DUTY CYCLE  FEATURES

HEWLETT-PACKARD  (800) 752-0900      25   150,000     250MHz processor,
Laserjet 4100N   www.hp.com                           32MB memory,
                                                      256MB max

LEXMARK          (888) LEXMARK       25   120,000     250MHz processor,
T522n            www.lexmark.com                      32MB memory,
                                                      288MB max

MINOLTA-QMS      (800) 523-2696      35   150,000     250MHz processor,
PagePro 9100 N   www.minoltaqms.com                   64MB memory,
                                                      512MB max

OKI DATA         (800) OKI-DATA      24   70,000      120MHz processor,
OKIPAGE 24n      www.okidata.com                      32MB memory,
                                                      80MB max,
                                                      Digital LED

SAMSUNG          (800) SAMSUNG       17   40,000      166MHz processor,
ML-1651N         www.samsung.com                      16MB memory,
                                                      144MB max

XEROX            (800) ASK-XEROX     16   65,000      300MHz processor,
Phaser 8200      www.xerox.com                        64MB memory,
                                                      192MB max,
                                                      solid ink color

PRODUCT          STREET PRICE

HEWLETT-PACKARD  $1,580
Laserjet 4100N


LEXMARK          $1,299
T522n


MINOLTA-QMS      $1,450
PagePro 9100 N


OKI DATA         $1,430
OKIPAGE 24n



SAMSUNG          $450
ML-1651N


XEROX            under $2,000
Phaser 8200