Kyocera 2160 B

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

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 value 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 make its way into the color market.

The company’s color models are respectable,but break-

through offerings 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 two-tiered computer equipment channel: national

distributors and value-added resellers (VARs). While

Brother 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 Profiles

Brother HL-2700CN

8ppm full color

31ppm black & white

Sum-up: A good bargain 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

Ethernet-ready(the CN suffix stands for “Color,

Networked”) 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

analysis 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

4Resolution is not an issue for the majority of offices; it

should not determine your choice.

4Take 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.

4The 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.

4Cost per page is based on an industrystandard cov-

erage of 5%.If you use lots of graphics, shaded boxes,

and/or small type, your costs will be higher.

4List prices are what the dealer starts negotiating with;

you should be able to settle for one-third off that price.

4PostScript is a must if you use Illustration or page lay-

out programs. For other office uses, PCL or host-

based printing is fine.

4Extra memory is a big plus if you use PostScript;good

if you run multipage and multicopy jobs (electronic col-

lation); it adds nothing to host-based printing.

4Most users don’t need hard disks on their printers. An

exception is for high-security printing, often-used

forms, or truly enormous electronically collated jobs.

4It’s great to have thousands of pages of input, but not

if you have only a 250-sheet exit tray.

4Toner saver and automatic duplexing can be money

savers — but only if you get people to use them.