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The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles
Entire Contents © 2006 Prog
ressiv
e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 3
BROTHER
Bridgewater, NJ
908 704 1700
www.brother.com
Vendor Profile
Brother International — the US subsidiary of Brother
Industries, Ltd., of Nagoya, Japan — has created a repu-
tation for v
alue by selling low-cost small- and home-
office-oriented equipment. A solid presence in the mono-
chrome laser printer market,
the company has been try-
ing to mak
e its way into the color market.
The company’s color models are respectable, but break-
through of
ferings from other vendors mean that Brother
has to play catch-up to stay viable in this market.
Brother sells its color laser printers through the tradi-
tional tw
o-tiered computer equipment channel: national
distributors and value-added resellers (VARs). While
Br
other makes its own engines for most of the laser prod-
ucts it sells — including monochrome printers, faxes, and
multifunctional machines — it uses other companies’
engines in its two current color laser products.
Product Pr
ofiles
Brother HL-2700CN
8ppm full color
31ppm black & white
Sum-up:
A g
ood bar
gain with strong standard features.
The HL-2700CN can print up to 8ppm in color and
31ppm in black-and-white. That’s acceptable for a print-
er that costs $500. It is notable that the HL-2700CN is
Ether
net-r
ead
y (the CN suf
fix stands f
or “Color,
Netw
orked”) and offers PostScript 3 (as well as PCL 6)
Vendor & Product Profiles
This section provides an overview on each vendor (complete with contact details) followed by
a
nalysis on each model offered for sale in the color laser printer market. General information about
the market, including discussions of technology as well as advice on how to buy a color laser print-
er, follows this section.
Buying Tips
Color Laser Printers
✔ Resolution is not an issue for the majority of offices; it
should not determine your choice.
✔ Take monthly duty cycles with a grain of salt. Use them
for comparison purposes only, but don’t expect to get
the full page count month in and month out.
✔ The street price of a printer is usually in inverse pro-
portion to the price of toner.The cheaper the machine,
the more expensive per page.
✔ Cost per page is based on an industry standard cov-
erage of 5%. If you use lots of graphics, shaded boxes,
and/or small type, your costs will be higher.
✔ List prices are what the dealer starts negotiating with;
you should be able to settle for one-third off that price.
✔ P
ostScr
ipt is a m
ust if y
ou use Illustration or page lay-
out programs. For other office uses, PCL or host-
based pr
inting is fine
.
✔ Extra memory is a big plus if you use PostScript; good
if y
ou run multipage and multicopy jobs (electronic col-
lation); it adds nothing to host-based printing.
✔ Most users don’t need hard disks on their printers. An
e
xception is for high-secur
ity pr
inting, often-used
forms, or truly enormous electronically collated jobs.
✔ It’s great to have thousands of pages of input, but not
if you have only a 250-sheet exit tray.
✔ T
oner sa
ver and automatic duplexing can be money
savers — but only if you get people to use them.