Buying new laser printer - where to go for advice

elljay

Dear all, I need to buy a new laser printer/scanner/copier but am confused by all the options and reviews. I can pay maybe up to around £350 (it's for a small charity office) or slightly more if needed. We have an all-in-one which was around £40 from Argos but is now completely inadequate.

It needs to be able to scan/copy/print (A4 - though A3 would be lovely) and have one of those rising lids so I can copy pages from thick books on it (sorry, don't know what that function is called). I also can't work out how to tell which toner inks are likely to work out cheapest, it seems to me the cheaper the machine, the more expensive the toners. And an automatic document feeder would be lovely if possible so I don't have to stand over it feeding pages in one by one.

I've looked at Viking and Staples catalogues but feel even more confused. I'm so worried about making the wrong choice for the organisation which doesn't have an awful lot of money. Can anyone recommend something?

Thanks, Liz

interzen

elljay wrote: »

Dear all, I need to buy a new laser printer/scanner/copier but am confused by all the options and reviews. I can pay maybe up to around £350 (it's for a small charity office) or slightly more if needed. We have an all-in-one which was around £40 from Argos but is now completely inadequate.

It needs to be able to scan/copy/print (A4 - though A3 would be lovely) and have one of those rising lids so I can copy pages from thick books on it (sorry, don't know what that function is called). I also can't work out how to tell which toner inks are likely to work out cheapest, it seems to me the cheaper the machine, the more expensive the toners. And an automatic document feeder would be lovely if possible so I don't have to stand over it feeding pages in one by one.

I've looked at Viking and Staples catalogues but feel even more confused. I'm so worried about making the wrong choice for the organisation which doesn't have an awful lot of money. Can anyone recommend something?

Thanks, Liz

I very much doubt you'll be able to get something capable of scanning A3 in your price range, since a lot of A3 scanners appear to be aimed at pros and priced accordingly - I'm not aware of any A3 all-in-one devices, but then I try and steer clear of hardware-related issues

However, whilst reading my usual crop of websites this morning I found a review of the HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 on The Register and it looks like it does pretty much what you want with a RRP of £299, meaning that if you shop around you'll likely get it cheaper. Not quite sure how it might handle scanning books though, since the lid looks very bulky.

The other downside is that it's an inkjet and HP have elevate price-gouging to an artform where printer consumables are concerned. That said, HP claim running costs of 1.2p/page for black and white and 4.8p/page for colour prints which is certainly cheaper than a lot of colour lasers even given HP's consumable prices.

Sticking "HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 Wireless" into Google pulls up a clutch of reviews, some of which may be a bit less technical than the one on the Reg. Unfortunately, I'm unable to post a link to the review.