In order to end up with the color laser printer best suited to your needs, you have to clearly understand what you are looking for and what options are available to you. This is done by researching in two areas.
Firstly, you research the market to find out what kind of color laser printers are available, familiarizing yourself with the different features, styles and price ranges etc. Secondly, you examine your own unique requirements in a color laser printer.
Research the market: Color Laser Printer essentials
The first part of the research step is to investigate just what's available in the color laser printer market. The range of options can seem overwhelming, but you can make a good start by understanding the following major features:
Toner cartridges: Toner cartridges may well be one of the last things consumers consider when purchasing a printer. However, toner cartridges should be a major consideration, especially since some printers require rather expensive cartridges. If you do a lot of color printing, you want to first find out what type of cartridge the color laser printer uses and how much a replacement cartridge costs.
If you're interested in being environmentally friendly, you can recycle your cartridge when you're finished, and you can also purchase cartridges made from recycled products.
Memory (RAM - Random Access Memory): Color printers come with as much as 128Mb (Megabytes) of memory, and similar to computers, more memory can generally be added later. Memory determines how fast your printer will work, and the more memory you have the more fonts you can use.
Resolution: Resolution is measured in dots per square inch, and the higher the resolution, the better quality your printed pages will be. Color laser printer resolutions range anywhere from 600 by 600 up to 9600 by 600. The higher resolution color laser printers tend to cost more.
Paper tray: How large your printing jobs are will determine what type of paper tray you'll want. Color laser printers feature trays that fit as few as 50 pages to as many as 1200 pages.
Cost: Color laser printers range from affordable to high-end expensive.
Research your needs: Questions to ask yourself
Now it's time to determine what your requirements are in a color laser printer. For example, will you use the color laser printer only for printing out the kids' school projects or do you run a small business from home?
You can start this process by considering the following questions - as well as any others you think of yourself - and recording your answers.
| Have I used a color laser printer before? |
| | If you have used a color laser printer, work out what you did or didn't like about the printer. You may be looking for one exactly like it, hoping to upgrade, or even trying to avoid any particular features that you found inconvenient. |
| What will the color laser printer's primary use be? |
| | You need to determine if you will you use it for work or at home. And will you be printing large documents and photographs? |
| Do I need a fast printer? |
| | In a work environment, speed may be important to you to print documents quickly. For home use, however, speed may not be so important. Printers, especially laser printers, can churn out pages fairly quickly - but this facility may also affect the price. |
| What type of printing resolution do I want? |
| | Again, this will depend on if you are using it in a workplace setting where you may have to print documents for public distribution and so would want better quality and higher resolution. At home this may not be so important to you, but again, if you are going to print photos, you most likely will want better resolution. The important thing to remember is that higher resolution normally means higher price. |
| What size paper tray do I need? |
| | Will you be printing 500 to 800 sheets at a time where you don't want to refill the tray every few minutes? Or are you using the printer at home and only ever print out a few sheets at a time meaning a 50 sheet paper tray would suffice? |
| What is my budget? |
| | Color laser printers have become ever more affordable, but you do need to factor in the cost of cartridges when making price comparisons. |
Understanding your needs is the key to a successful purchase and you can revisit your list of needs at any time during the buying process.
Once you complete this Research step, having informed yourself about the essentials of color laser printers and identified your needs, you are ready to move on to the next step: Evaluation.
Video Links
Buyz123.com Research Links:GeneralBuying guide for laser printers Laser printers and how they work Buyers guide to printersTest drive the laser printer online before you buyHow to chose a laser printerWhat to look for when buying a laser printerTop 5 color laser printersTop 10 color laser printersChoosing a personal laser printer