I bought a laser printer about five years ago, color laser printers were kind a new thing then, they were not worth the price they were selling for.
I don't print much, and haven't changed the starter toner cartridge. If I had an ink jet, I would have had to buy new cartridges every time I needed to print something.
I bought a laser printer about five years ago, color laser printers were kind a new thing then
Um, what? Color laser printers have been around since the 1990s. HP introduced their first color laser printer, the Color LaserJet, in 1991. I bought my first color laser printer in 2000 for less than $500. That was over twenty years ago. How is that "kind [of] a new thing"?
I don't think thats factual. Apple and HP developed their first color laser printers in 94/95, and they cost around $7000.
Still, they weren't new a few years ago apparently.. maybe the multifunction variety was new? I don't know.. if color laser printers were around for that long then it doesn't make sense why we put up with the costs of ink jet cartridges for so long. I know I could not find an acceptable color laser printer when I was looking, but I also very likely avoided HP from prior experience with their shitty products.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_LaserJet
Key innovations Spring 1984 – First HP LaserJet Autumn 1991 – First HP Color LaserJet
In September 1994 HP introduced the Color LaserJet, the corporation's first color laser printer. The printer had an average cost per page of less than 10 cents. The Color LaserJet offered 2 ppm color printing and 10 ppm for black text, 8MB of memory, 45 built-in fonts, a 1,250-sheet paper tray and enhanced PCL 5 with color. It was priced at $7,295.
When I bought my Konica-Minolta MagiColor 2400W, it cost me $489 at Office Depot. I also bought a Konica-Minolta 1350 monochrome laser printer for $149 the next day. That was about twenty years ago. I still have both printers although I don't use either of them anymore.
Don't think they were rare, then. Just a little on the expensive side maybe.
My step dad had a copy and shirt printing business. He had the first color lasers I ever saw. They were huge and expensive and usually little bitches when they didn't like the environment, they were placed in. They were also 2nd hand because he couldn't afford new hardware when he started out. All that happened like 15 years ago. Am I off by much?
It sounds like your talking about one of those large multifunction commercial type printers. I don't know when the smaller printers actually hit the shelves, but when I was shopping for a printer there weren't many color models. That was back in 2016.
I call them 'malfunction' printers. Too complex for their own good. Or very good for the dealers service dept.
Confession: I really don't, but that's how I like to imagine things.
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