Primary Colors

Color always catches the eye. If you need to rev up tired marketing materials, or even your letterhead, consider buying a color laser printer.

Is a color laser printer a luxury item? It depends. These machines can produce the highest-quality color and black-and-white printing available. That's nothing to sneeze at if you're concerned about your business's image and are eager to present a crisp, professional impression.

You may feel your office budget can't stretch that high since list prices for these machines average $6,000. But when you realize just one advantage is reducing the money you spend to have commercial designers and printers create your color ads, training guides, graphics, newsletters, charts, letterhead and other promotional materials, the investment makes a lot of sense.

The lowest-priced printer featured in our chart, the Tektronix Phaser 350 bills itself as a "laser-class color printer" because it uses a unique, solid ink technology combined with offset-drum printer technology that is used in laser printers. The result is a fast printer whose continuous tone quality is comparable to that of color laser printers. We've included it because its price and function are geared specifically to the small-business owner looking for a high-quality, low-cost model.

Convenience and design control are two more reasons to purchase a color laser printer. Besides giving you control over printed materials by allowing you to do them in-office, you can make last-minute changes in graphics, text and colors without incurring the wrath--and extra fees--of an outside printer.

The newest models are network-ready for group sharing. Another feature on most new models is compatibility with Macintosh, PC and Unix operating systems.

One advantage of the laBODY machines is that you can produce multiple originals instead of printing one color original and having to duplicate it on a color copier. You'll enjoy considerable cost savings by being able to produce a small volume of color documents in your office, avoiding the high-volume minimum press runs usually required by commercial printers.

Consider these features when shopping for a color laser printer:

• Speed: Faster than last year's models, new color laser printers spit out an average of four color pages per minute and as many as 14 pages per minute in monochrome. True, higher speed means higher prices, but the time saved may be worth the extra bucks.

• Memory: Just like your computer, a printer has memory (RAM) to enable the printer to retain information about the document you are working on. If you print dense-color or extra-large documents, you'll probably want to add extra RAM; some machines are upgradeable to 72MB RAM.

• Resolution: The sharpness and clarity of an image is measured in dots (or pixels) per inch (dpi). The higher the number of dots, the sharper the picture or text. Most black-and-white
  laser printers have a 300 dpi resolution; the resolution on color laser printers can range from 600 to 2400 dpi, but 300 dpi can also produce high-quality color printing if enough colors are used, giving an illusion of intensity. Some printers produce millions of different colors, mixing them to produce custom-color documents.

• Paper sizes and capacities: Most new color laser printers handle letter- and legal-sized documents and transparencies. Some models also print 11-x-17-inch documents, 5¹|2-x-8¹|2-inch notepad-sized sheets, labels on letter-sized sheets, and envelopes. Most color laser printers have trays that hold 250 sheets of paper; some models offer a second, optional 250-sheet tray.

• Standby mode: This energy-saving feature lets you leave your printer turned on, and, if it's not being used, it will "sleep" until you need it, then power up when you click on the print command. The standby mode is useful for network printing; the machine can print documents at the command of someone in the next room or even in another country whose daytime may be your nighttime.

• Costs per page: Printing in several colors costs more than printing in black and white. It's difficult to gauge costs per page because you must take into account color density, number of colors used and paper size. However, a black-and-white page on the Xerox XPrint costs approximately 13 cents to print; a color page 32 cents; and a color transparency about 91 cents.

• Maintenance: Laser printers periodically need toner and developer cartridges and, less frequently, drum replacements. Warranties on most color laser printers are for one year.

One final word: It's wise to review actual color samples that are printed as you watch so you can judge the print quality, speed, color smoothness and balance, color matching and clarity.

Shopping List

Manufacturer / Model / Toll-Free Number / Manufacturer's List Price

Speed (Pages per minute) / Resolution / Memory (in RAM)

Paper Sizes

Major Features

Apple / Color LaserWriter 12/660 PS / (800) 776-2333 / $5,999

3 color pages, 12 monochrome pages, 1 transparency / 600 dpi / 16MB

Letter, legal, notepad, transparencies

Upgradeable memory, 250-sheet paper tray, PC-compatible, standby mode, single-button installation of printing software and fonts, starter kit, free setup and installation.

Hewlett Packard / Enhanced Color LaserJet 5/LaserJet 5M / (800) 752-0900 / $4,999-$6,350

2-3 color pages, 10 monochrome pages, 1 transparency / 1200 dpi / 20MB-36MB

Color: Letter, notepad; Monochrome: letter, notepad, legal, 11-x-17-inch

Upgradeable memory, 250-sheet paper tray, control-panel display in 11 different languages, separate toner containers, optional paper trays, energy-saving mode, network-ready for PC, Macintosh or mixed equipment.

Lexmark International / Optra C / (800) 358-5835 / $6,849

3 color pages, 12 monochrome pages, 1.2 transparencies / 600dpi / 8MB

Letter, legal notepad, transparencies

Upgradeable memory, network-ready, 250-sheet paper tray, easy-to-install toner cartridges, compatible with Macintosh, PC and Unix.

Panasonic / KX-P8475 / (800) 742-8086 / $6,995

5 color pages, 14 monochrome pages, 1.2 transparencies / 600 dpi / 8MB

Letter; notepad; transparencies; manually fed labels, envelopes, single letter-sized sheets and transparencies

Upgradeable memory, upgradeable dpi, network-ready Macintosh- and PC-compatible, 250-sheet tray, two optional paper trays, 100-sheet optional cassette for transparencies.

QMS / Magicolor WX / (800) 523-2696 / $3,999

3-6 color pages, 12 monochrome pages, 1.2 transparencies / 600 dpi / 4MB

Letter, legal, notepad, transparencies, labels, envelopes

Upgradeable memory, 250-sheet paper tray, geared specifically for Windows 95 and small groups using Windows 95, energy saving mode

Tektronix / Phaser 350/Phaser 550 / (800) 835-6100 / $3,495-$6,995

350: 6 color pages or monochrome pages, 2 transparencies; 550: 4.7 color pages, 14 monochrome pages, 1.5 transparencies / 300 dpi/600 dpi / 8MB

Letter, legal, notepad, transparencies

Upgradeable memory, built-in Web technology interface, Macintosh- and PC- compatible, 250-sheet paper tray, optional paper trays

Xerox / Xprint Plus series 4915, 4920, 4925 / (800) 34-XEROX / $4,995/$7,295/$8,995

3 color pages, 12 monochrome pages, 12 monochrome transparencies, 3 color transparencies / 4915: 1200 dpi; 4920 and 4925: 600 dpi / 4915 and 4920: 16MB; 4925: 24MB

4915: Letter, legal (monochrome only), notepad, labels, envelopes, transparencies, special textiles; 4920 also accepts legal and 11-x-17-inch for color printing

Upgradeable memory, automatic jam recovery, 250-sheet or 75-transparency paper tray, network-ready, Macintosh- or PC- and Unix-compatible

Jill Amadio is a writer in Newport Beach, California.