On Thu, Feb 16, 2006 at 12:00:03PM +0000, Barry Samuels wrote:
I want to get a colour laser printer but find the offerings rather confusing. Can anyone recommend one to work with Linux from experience?
I want it to be capable of producing good prints from digital photographic images as well as general documents.
A colour laser isn't going to be as good as a colour inkjet. At least that's true unless you spend a very large amount of money and even then I'm not sure that a colour laser does as well as even a much, much cheaper inkjet.
I know that any Postscript printer should work with Linux but I remember seeing someone on ALUG say don't get one which uses Postscript as a layer over the printer's native language because it makes printing slow.
A number of printers describe 'Postscript emulation' or 'Postscript simulation' - is there any difference? Are these the slow ones? Very often it is not clear whether a particular printer is true Postscript or not.
What would I have to spend to get a true Postscript printer? Which ones should I avoid?
Some of the cheaper colour lasers have specific Linux drivers I think so you don't necessarily need postscript. If I remember right the it's either the Samsung or the Kyocera printers that have Linux drivers. You've got a fairly good chance of getting Linux drivers with HP printers too.
Remember that colour laser running costs can be very high, just as bad as colour inkjet in many cases.
Personally I'd go for a cheap[ish] colour inkjet and a cheap[ish] mono laser, unless you are short of space.