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Looking for a new printer? We try out the latest laser models, and two inkjets that will also print labels for your CDs and DVDs. |
Printers are becoming cheaper and more versatile all the time. A compact multifunction printer/scanner/copier will suit most personal and home office users, at a cost of $200 or less. But if you print a lot of text documents, a laser printer offers greater speed. An inkjet printer is better for colour images, especially photos. You need to assess your printing needs carefully before choosing. The two inkjet printers reviewed here are multifunction printers capable of many other tasks, but were tested mainly for their ability to print CD and DVD labels. LASER PRINTERS
Laser printers are now very affordable. Once upon a time they were big, heavy, and cost a fortune. Now their initial cost starts only slightly higher than inkjet printers, while the cost per page of replacement toner cartridges is a tiny fraction of the cost of inkjet cartridges. Most lasers only print black, though affordable colour lasers are now available. Colour lasers are good at printing colour text and graphs in school assignments or business documents. However, colour lasers still can't print photos as well as a photo-quality inkjet printer. All the laser printers we tested were supplied with toner, either in cartridges with built-in photoconductor drum or with separate photoconductors. In some cases these had "starter" capacity adequate for the first thousand or so pages, while replacement cartridges had higher capacity. All the printers came with a printed "quick start" sheet that covered the basics of unpacking and connecting the printer and loading printer drivers. All had a full manual on CD. All the printers were simple to install.
 Brother HL-2040
RRP: $169
Site: www.brother.co.nz
The Brother HL-2040 is a small black and white laser. Operating systems supported are Windows and Mac.
The two interfaces are USB and the traditional parallel printer connector. Duplex printing is not supported.
The HL-2040 has separate toner and drum. The bundled toner is good for 1500 pages, replacement toner for 2500 pages, and the drum for 12,000 pages. Input is a 250 sheet tray, which does a better job of holding paper flat than stack loading printers. First text page appears after 13 seconds. After that the speed is 17 pages per minute. Pros:
Print quality is excellent: sharp and clear. Strokes within letters have clearly defined edges.
Cons:
Some print options difficult to find.
Verdict:
An excellent black and white printer for home users.
 Canon Laser Shot LBP-3000
RRP: $249
Site: www.canon.co.nz
The Canon Laser Shot LBP-3000 is a small stack-load black and white laser printer aimed at the price-conscious home market. It is a Windows-only printer with a USB interface. Toner and drum are combined in a single cartridge. Capacity of the original and replacement cartridges is 2500 pages. The input slot is located at the bottom of the front panel and takes a stack of up to 150 pages. It's easy to load, although you'll want to remove paper to store the printer. The output bin is on the top of the unit. First page of our test text appeared at 17 seconds. Subsequent pages printed at 13.3 pages per minute.
Pros:
Economical initial cost. Full capacity starter cartridge included.
Cons:
Text very slightly less sharp than some other printers.
Verdict:A well made printer from with good speed.
 HP LaserJet 1020
RRP: $269
Site: www.hp.co.nz
The HP LaserJet 1020 is a small black and white laser printer aimed at personal users. Input is stack load with a capacity of 150 pages. Drivers are provided for Windows 98 to XP. Other operating systems are not supported. Interface is USB only. Installation is very easy. Load drivers from CD. Open a flap on top of the unit and slide in a cartridge. Plug in power and USB cables, then power up. In use, the HP 1020 was the quietest of all the printers tested. Speed was quite good, at 12 seconds for the first page to appear and 14.1 pages per minute for each subsequent page. Print quality is very good at first sight, however when viewed under a powerful magnifier very slight edge fuzziness was just visible.
Pros:
Easy installation, quiet operation.
Cons:
Text very slightly less sharp than some other printers.
Verdict: Fast, quiet and compact. Excellent value.
 Lexmark E250d
NZ approx. price: $341
Site: www.lexmark.co.nz
The Lexmark E250d is a mid-sized printer with some very useful features. Duplex printing saves paper, trees and storage space, making it ideal for those who print a lot, or those with a small office in the home. While it is slightly larger and slightly more expensive than the other mono printers reviewed, it still fits into an average home. Interfaces are parallel and USB. A slightly more expensive version, the E250dn, also has a network interface. The drum and toner container are separate units. The starter toner is good for 1500 pages, replacement toner for 3500 pages, and drum for 30,000 pages. On test the first page appeared in 12 seconds. Speed in duplex mode speed was 11 pages per minute. Single-sided print speed was nearly twice as fast.
Pros: Duplex or single-sided printing. Excellent print quality.
Cons: Slightly bigger and more expensive than other printers tested.
Verdict: An excellent printer for larger print quantity.
 Samsung ML-2510
RRP: $A249
Site: www.samsung.com.au
The Samsung ML-2510 is an economical small-sized printer with rocket ship speed. Duplex printing is not supported. Installation is very simple. Plug it into power and into either the USB port or the parallel port on the computer. Load Windows, Mac or Linux drivers. Slip a stack of paper into the input slot. Start printing. Print speed is very fast. The first page appeared 14 seconds after pressing Print. Each subsequent page took three seconds, giving a speed of 20 pages per minute. Starter cartridge is good for 1000 pages, while replacement cartridges print up to 3000 pages. Print quality was excellent. All letters were perfectly formed. When viewed in a powerful magnifier there was no visible edge softness.
Pros: Fast printing with excellent print quality.
Cons: More expensive than other stack load printers.
Verdict: A very good printer for homes and home offices.
 Samsung CLP 300
NZ approx. price: $550
Site: www.samsung.com.au
The Samsung CLP-300 costs just $550, making it one of the most affordable colour lasers on the market. As a mid-size printer it is also one of the smaller colour lasers. The combination of size and price make it an option for many home offices. Colour pictures print quite well. However, laser printers can only print on plain paper and the pictures can never look quite as good as an inkjet print on photo paper. However, the output is quite OK for pictures in documents. Text print quality is good, rather than excellent. Text is black and easy to read, but very slightly soft. Viewed under a magnifier, the toner on the edges of letters seems to slightly "bleed" into the white space around the letters.
Pros:
An affordable colour laser printer.
Cons: Print quality is good but not excellent.
Verdict:An entry-level colour laser for home offices.
INKJET PRINTERS
It's all but impossible to buy a PC or notebook that doesn't come with either a CD or DVD burner in it. This ubiquity has made it easy for consumers to back up their own data and make endless copies of home movies, which is great in an archival and backup sense, but there's a catch: You can easily end up with a pile of shiny discs and little more than a scrawled note converning their contents. So, you need to label your CDs and DVDs. These two printers carry the promise of simple CD/DVD labelling with more than a touch of style. Disc printers all tend to use the same mechanism for actually printing to discs; use a CD-sized caddy that slots into the paper-out tray of the printer. The two inkjet printers we tested both came with this kind of tray, along with adaptors for using 8cm CD/DVDs of the type now found in many consumer DVD camcorders. You've got to tell the printer that you're printing a disc and not a page, so that it knows to activate the feed mechanism for the print tray; it'll then suck the tray and disc in and print directly onto the surface of the disc itself.  Canon PIXMA MP600
RRP: $399
Site: www.canon.co.nz
Pros: The MP600's CD/DVD labelling software has plenty of inbuilt features for getting your disc labels just right prior to printing. It's also a very quick disc-labelling printer, shooting discs out in an average of one minute per disc and at at the same kind of quality as the Epson RX950.
Cons: Discs can't be pre-loaded; you've got to set up your label and then load them in once you've told the printer you're going to print a disc. While there are plenty of features in the labelling software, the interface isn't as friendly and intuitive as that on the Epson.
Verdict: A quick and good-quality CD/DVD labelling MFD that just edges out the Epson as our CD/DVD labelling solution of choice.
 Epson Stylus Photo RX950
RRP: $399 (tbc)
Site: www.epson.co.nz
Pros: The RX950 uses a simple lever to put its output tray into DVD/CD printing mode, so you can pre-load discs while you're still working on the design and then go straight to printing. The supplied CD/DVD labelling software is bright and very simple to work out how to use. Disc print quality on Sony printable DVD discs was very good.
Cons: Disc printing was a comparatively slow process, taking an average of two minutes and 40 seconds per disc. While it's nice to be able to preload discs, you've got to line up a triangle on the tray to one on the feed mechanism, so there's no easy way to just slot the disc into position and know it's right. The CD/DVD labelling software is quite simple to use, but it also lacks some finesse when it comes to features.
Verdict: A good CD/DVD labelling solution (along with a fine MFD), but not quite up to scratch against the Canon.
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