Highest Quality Color Laser?

[Nathan Rutman]

Hello,

We're getting ready to replace our company's Xerox Phaser 850, and I just wanted to know if anyone has come across a really good color laser printer. Budget really isn't an issue, and we don't do very high volume, but we NEED top quality. Just got samples from Oki Data 9300 and 9500 printers, as well as HP 5550 and 9500. Wasn't really impressed with any of them. The text was not even close to being as dark and crisp as the Phaser 850 (which is a solid ink) and photographs were not extremely smooth. The HP color vibrancy (especially in the blue hues) was fantastic, but not enough of a victory to outweigh the negatives.

We should be getting samples from the Phaser 8400 (solid ink) and the 7750 soon. I'm anxious to see what those produce.

Any ideas, direction, or feedback? I'd be interested as to what you guys think.

Thanks,
Nate

[Keyare]

The thing is, the newer Xerox machines don't have quite the same RIP that the old ones did. The older Phaser 780 had a far superior RIP that was easily comparable to a $10,000 Fiery controller. The newer ones, 7700, 7300 and 7750 have SUPER FAST RIPS, but their colour gamut is not as wide, so you are giving up quality for speed. I would still reccomend Xerox however, as their colours (Pantone calibrated etc) are actually pretty accurate to the press. HP however, are just "pleasing colour" and can be all over the map.

Xerox supplies are insanely expensive, while HP are a little more reasonable. HP machines are generally cheaper but the quality isn't great.

QMS makes some great machines too that you might want to look into. I don't think they develop their own tech, but they really have an eye for quality. They've used the same Fuji-Xerox engines in some of their printers as Xerox and Epson, yet the consumables are slightly less and the quality is as high or higher.

The Xerox 8400 is nice. The solid ink is better than the older 850, it's harder and doesn't scratch off easily. The colours are "Nice" not as vivid as a phaser 780, but probably better than the 850.

I have a 740 for sale! It doesn't work, but it's for sale!

[Nathan Rutman]

Keyare, thanks for the info. I'll have to check out QMS. If you were forced into giving a recommendation on a color laser, what model(s) would you expect to come out on top? It sounds like I can expect good things from the Xerox 8400 and the 7750.

Thanks again,
Nate