What is a good, cheap, color laser printer?

I have been looking at the low end models from HP, Samsung and Brother, which seem to hover around $150, depending on where you shop. I definitely need color, but not for photos. Any graphics I print would be icons and logos and many may have gradients, so I'm not sure how well these cheap printers would print them. Any help or suggestions on specific models is appreciated.What is a good, cheap, color laser printer?
In our extended family we have five Samsung CLP-300s. These are small, fast, sharp color lasers. A set of 4 toner cartridges is $50 at http://www.ccs-digital.com We recently replaced our first black toner after a year of regular use. We just bought our fifth one off ebay for $96 delivered brand new.What is a good, cheap, color laser printer?
Oh, I also wanted to point out that the toner cartridges are cheaper, but they print about 2/3 of what the comparable HP cartridges print (for the HP CP1215). That's okay, because I don't need to print a ton of stuff all the time. Plus the HP CP1215 is HUGE and the Samsung is tiny. :-) Report Abuse

you might want to look at the price of the toner cartridges before you purchase one also you might want to make sure you have a local repair shop to fix or do any warranty work you might have to get done. it is hard to pick the best one!?! i like HP myself but if i were you i would ask around about toner prices, drum replacement if not included with the toner cartridge!!! and look at cost per copy too and also life expectancy of the machine. sometimes cheaper is not the better, maybe one in the middle of the price range might fair better for you too.
Take a look on http://amazon.com They have the best prices I've found. I personally like the HP printers. They seem to have good dpi rates and the toner cartridges seem to last quite a long time. I have a ColorJet 2600n that works great. http://www.amazon.com/Color-Laserjet-260鈥?/a>





It is on my LAN via ethernet to my Airport and wireless/wired through a router and hubs from the Airport Base Station to my dozen Macs. (It also can connect via USB if desired.) We have had it running with no problems for over 2 years and finally (last month) replaced the black toner. The colors are still at more than 30%.





It prints 8ppm in color, or grayscale @ 600dpi x 600dpi, and is Mac and PC compatible. It has a single paper tray that holds about 250 sheets and there is an extra cost optional second tray available. The speed is a bit slow if you need production type speeds, but the quality of printing is worth the short wait. It isn't photo quality, but photos do print clearly. (including gradients and shading) For your type of work it would be ideal.





Price: about $150. (There are some wanting 500-800 for the same unit and I don't know why.) We bought ours on sale for $130, 2 years ago. It came with free shipping. (A friend bought one at the same time and feels the same about his as we do about ours.)
There's an article comparing colour laser printers in the August edition of Macworld.





They rate a HP, Konica, Lexmark, Oki Data, and Xerox. The Lexmark gets top marks according to the article. It's a Lexmark C544dn and the article says that is cost $499.





Good luck
brother does it for me on dvd labels, photo's etc, correct paper essential