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UPDATE: This group test has been updated. See Budget colour laser printers
As you will have seen from the six reviews in this budget colour laser printer group test, you can't ignore the cost of those all-important consumables. What might appear to be a cheap printer at first could end up costing you far more than you bargained for.
The biggest problem facing consumers is how to compare the cost of ownership for the various models. Manufacturers will be happy to boast about the various benefits associated with choosing their printer, but they won't be so quick to inform you of all the various consumables that need replacing.
It's also important to make sure that you know exactly what you're going to use your printer for.
Will you be printing out hordes of colour documents, or are you looking to print a large number of text documents and simply using the colour mode as an occasional luxury?
As you'll have noticed from the various reviews, some printers perform well if used basically as mono printers, but with the ability to print in colour if you need it, while others are more geared towards extensive colour printing.
In order to choose the right printer for you, it's a good idea to try and get a figure in your head of how many pages you'll actually be printing every week. This can be far more than you might expect, especially if you're not going to be the only person using the printer.
When you have a rough estimate, work out how many printouts it equates to over a period of two years and then take a look at our cost of ownership graph to see how much each printer would have cost you. You'll notice that the total cost can vary wildly depending on the model you choose.
Of course, it's not just consumables that you need to worry about. If you're going to be sharing your printer with a number of other users, you don't want to be sitting around for an age waiting for your printouts to appear, so print speeds will obviously be important.
Then there's the quality of your printouts themselves. While most lasers are capable of outputting similar high-quality mono text, colour output can vary a great deal.
Don't forget that all the printers reviewed here have significantly lower street prices than their RRPs. You can find out the latest offers by going to our price comparison service at www.pcw.co.uk/bestprices
The winners
If you're looking for high-quality colour printouts, there's one model in
particular that stood out in this group test. When examining the A4 colour test
photo, we instantly spotted the extra detail exhibited in the sample produced by
the Aculaser C900 from Epson.
However, this printer wasn't without its faults. We noticed that it struggled a great deal to cope with extra-small 2point text, and when it came to colour consumables the Aculaser C900 was far more expensive than the rest.
That said, if you're after high-quality colour prints, you're going to have to pay a bit extra, so we felt that the Epson Aculaser C900 was therefore worthy of the first Highly Commended award.
If you're not too fussed about being able to print excellent quality photos, and are more interested in low running costs and fast print speeds, then the printer that would probably suit you best is the Oki C5100n , which wins our second Highly Commended award.
Being a single-pass model, the Oki managed to rip through colour prints at the rate of knots. What's more, the cost of the consumables was kept low for both colour and mono printing, which impressed us a great deal.
The only real downside of the C5100n is the fact that it can't produce high-quality colour photo prints - detail was lacking and colours were oversaturated. However, if this doesn't bother you, the slightly higher RRP of the C5100n pays you huge dividends in time.
Choosing the winner wasn't an easy task, mainly because what's right for you depends what you're going to use the printer for.
However, we decided that the Konica Minolta Magicolour 2300W had the best balance of image quality, cost of consumables, and print speeds. Although the colour printouts couldn't match those of the Epson, they were still extremely impressive for a laser printer.
What's more, the Magicolour 2300W was one of the cheapest printers to run when printing in colour. The Editor's Choice therefore has to go to the Konica Minolta Magicolour 2300W .
Go to colour laser printers group test
See also:
All Inkjet Printers
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