What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

[Spork Schivago]

Hello,

My wife and I are looking at purchasing a colour laser printer. I honestly have to say I don't know a lot about them. Haven't worked on one since 2005 or so and everything I learned in college about them went out of the window. We'd like to purchase one where the drum is built into the toner. I've been looking at some of the local places that carry coloured laser printers (ie, staples) and we found a few but I had a question.

Almost all of the ones we looked at have a DPI of 600x600. However, some of the HP LaserJets say stuff like this:

Black Print Quality
600 x 600 dpi
Up to 38,400 x 600 enhanced dpi

Color Print Quality
600 x 600 dpi
Up to 38,400 x 600 enhanced dpi

This is for the HP M477fnw Color LaserJet Pro MFP. It's also the same for the HP Color LaserJet Pro M452dw. My question is what exactly is enhanced DPI? I've tried searching the net but couldn't really find much on it. I'm sure the HP manuals explain it but I'm a little weary on finding the answer through them. I'm afraid it might just be B.S., trying to get people to purchase them, when in reality, it's just still 600 x 600 dpi. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Spork Schivago]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

Also, I found a site a while back (can't seem to find it now) that sold generic toner for laser printers. Has anyone actually tried using generic toner with a brand name laser printer? Is it safe to do or should we stick with the brand name stuff? Thanks!

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

u might also wanna do your research on how long the ink tanks actually last on a particular printer model. there are hp printers out there that are ink guzzlers. dont wanna be paying and paying and tearing through ink cartridges like a squid ink drunkard.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

Thanks ChaosLegionnaire! 2,300 for normal toner, 5,000 pages for the colour high capacity ones and 6,500 pages for the black high capacity. We'll more than likely go for the high capacity ones because there's no shelf life with toner, right? Are these good numbers for a laser printer? Thanks for the help.

[comptek]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

DPI = dots per inch ..... enhanced i guess means more dots per inch !

i used to have a laserjet 5 what brilliant bit of kit that was you could shrink down a letter for example to an inch square and you could still read it .. no bleeding either

[comptek]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

http://www.vsellis.com/understanding...vs-web-images/

[diif]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

Best thing i did was buy a second hand colour laser printer. No more clean cycles and blocked nozzles.

What do you intend to print Spork and how much. I'd want to see the output on paper not the numbers manufacturers publish. Drums and fusers should last far more than 6500 prints, if you're buying a drum with the toner each time that seems a waste/con to me.

Have a look at Brother, can't fault the one i bought.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

Thanks ChaosLegionnaire! 2,300 for normal toner, 5,000 pages for the colour high capacity ones and 6,500 pages for the black high capacity. We'll more than likely go for the high capacity ones because there's no shelf life with toner, right? Are these good numbers for a laser printer? Thanks for the help.

do note that if those quotes are from the manufacturer, those paper specs are highly unreliable. just like how junk cap brands bullshit their way through the cap datasheets.

they can quote hundreds or thousands of pages but those vary with how much ink a page requires to print whatever is on it. was quoted a few thousand sheets for a certain printer but after printing less than a hundred of *ahem* "colorful" sheets of paper, the ink ran out, leaving me "high" and "dry", pun fully intended...

[rhomanski]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

I just got my first, a xerox color laser printer, Phaser 6022, they said 500 pages with the original toner and 1000 with the rest. I ordered a set from LP products. The original told me to replace the toner at 68 pages. The next set is telling me to replace the toner at 48 pages. At 1000 pages for a set of toner it would have been almost as efficient as my Brother printer. At 68 pages per set of toner that's outrageous. Even Chinese toner is twenty dollars each. Sixty dollars to print 48pages.

[Compgeke]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

I'd personally recommend a Brother over an HP anymore. HP's cheapened everything down to being crap, we're at a point now where a Brother is going to be the same build quality but cheaper. Toner is generally cheaper for 'em too.

When it comes to the DPI, I'd assume it's something similar to interpolation and mostly useless since 300 is normal print quality anyways for publication\photo use.

I just got my first, a xerox color laser printer, Phaser 6022, they said 500 pages with the original toner and 1000 with the rest.

That's just a tad odd. I know someone with a Phaser 7300 and he gets around 4000 sheets a cart. The big problem with them is it doesn't give a drum full warning and as such if you don't replace it'll dump toner everywhere inside the printer. Easy for me to fix with enough paper towels but a headache for the owners.

I personally got a Phaser 8550DP wax printer and so far it's been fine, just uses a bit of wax at startup (aka don't turn it off).

[stj]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

for black&white, HP5 forever!

for colour, not so easy.
i was looking into this a while back and all the reviews of cheap (<300€) colour lasers said the colour rendering was poor and no good for foto's
ended up getting a Brother inkjet in the end with 4 seperate tanks and A3 manual feeder.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

DPI = dots per inch ..... enhanced i guess means more dots per inch !

i used to have a laserjet 5 what brilliant bit of kit that was you could shrink down a letter for example to an inch square and you could still read it .. no bleeding either

Yeah, I know what dots per inch is but that's where I'm getting confused. 600 x 600 DPI, but 38,400 x 600 enhanced DPI. And 38,400 x 600, that's a lot of dots per inch!

[Spork Schivago]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

http://www.vsellis.com/understanding...vs-web-images/

Thanks for the article but it doesn't seem to clear up my confusion as to what enhanced DPI is and how it differs from normal DPI. I should of been a bit more clear with my question. Sorry about that.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

Best thing i did was buy a second hand colour laser printer. No more clean cycles and blocked nozzles.

What do you intend to print Spork and how much. I'd want to see the output on paper not the numbers manufacturers publish. Drums and fusers should last far more than 6500 prints, if you're buying a drum with the toner each time that seems a waste/con to me.

Have a look at Brother, can't fault the one i bought.

Okay, so we would want one that has a seperate drum? I don't remember what the fuser was but I take it those wear out and need to be replaced as well or are they built into the drum? The drums without the built in toner seems to be a good amount cheaper than the ones that have the toner / drum together. I didn't realize the drums lasted for so long.

We intend to print on laser printable transparencies to make circuit boards. We print a lot of text based stuff. It's easier for me to read stuff on paper for some reason than in digital form, when it comes to me trying to learn something, like a new programming language or how to build circuits. So I usually print them but with an ink jet, that gets real expensive real quick. The wife likes to print pictures for her family as well.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

do note that if those quotes are from the manufacturer, those paper specs are highly unreliable. just like how junk cap brands bullshit their way through the cap datasheets.

they can quote hundreds or thousands of pages but those vary with how much ink a page requires to print whatever is on it. was quoted a few thousand sheets for a certain printer but after printing less than a hundred of *ahem* "colorful" sheets of paper, the ink ran out, leaving me "high" and "dry", pun fully intended...

No shit? Yeah, they were from the manufacturer and then the sites selling them also listed the same numbers (I'm sure they got from the manufacturer). I knew there was no way for them to tell exactly how many sheets I was going to be able to print because of the reasons you listed, but I didn't think it'd be off real bad. I was thinking maybe plus or minus 250 sheets. So how much can I reasonable expect to get from a high-yield toner cartridge or does it vary from manufacturer to manufacturer?

[Spork Schivago]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

I'd personally recommend a Brother over an HP anymore. HP's cheapened everything down to being crap, we're at a point now where a Brother is going to be the same build quality but cheaper. Toner is generally cheaper for 'em too.

When it comes to the DPI, I'd assume it's something similar to interpolation and mostly useless since 300 is normal print quality anyways for publication\photo use.



That's just a tad odd. I know someone with a Phaser 7300 and he gets around 4000 sheets a cart. The big problem with them is it doesn't give a drum full warning and as such if you don't replace it'll dump toner everywhere inside the printer. Easy for me to fix with enough paper towels but a headache for the owners.

I personally got a Phaser 8550DP wax printer and so far it's been fine, just uses a bit of wax at startup (aka don't turn it off).

Thanks for the info on HP! When I used to have access to laser printers, HP was a great name but that was a long time ago. So is everyone suggesting a Brother laser printer for me? Can anyone suggest a good model? We would like wireless networking (at least up to N) (but I guess we could settle for wired networking), full automatic duplex printing, scanner would be nice but isn't required, and a resolution of at least 600 dpi x 600 dpi. I want to be able to print real fine traces with it and 600x600 dpi seems to do a real nice job. We didn't really want to go over 500$ or so for it. Someone is helping us pay for it as a Christmas gift. A fax is alright but we definitely don't need one. Just if there's a model that has one, it's okay.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

I just got my first, a xerox color laser printer, Phaser 6022, they said 500 pages with the original toner and 1000 with the rest. I ordered a set from LP products. The original told me to replace the toner at 68 pages. The next set is telling me to replace the toner at 48 pages. At 1000 pages for a set of toner it would have been almost as efficient as my Brother printer. At 68 pages per set of toner that's outrageous. Even Chinese toner is twenty dollars each. Sixty dollars to print 48pages.

Was that because it was generic toner or wasn't it generic? I'm not familiar with LP Products.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

for black&white, HP5 forever!

for colour, not so easy.
i was looking into this a while back and all the reviews of cheap (<300€) colour lasers said the colour rendering was poor and no good for foto's
ended up getting a Brother inkjet in the end with 4 seperate tanks and A3 manual feeder.

Yeah, I want to say the HP's I used where HP5's. I also remember an older model that wasn't too bad. The 4E I think it was or something. Only black and white but they held up pretty well. That was back in 99 or so though.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

159.99$ for this one and it's an LED laser printer!!!

http://www.brother-usa.com/Printer/M...w#.VlirovmrTIU

It's normally 279.99$. Think that's a good one to buy?

[Compgeke]

Re: What's enhanced DPI with Laser printers?

It varies. On something like my P3005 I get an insane amount of prints, over 10,000 per cartridge. On a cheap brother B&W (HL-5140) I've done over 1000 pages off a TN-570 cart - it's rated for 6700. It is a real Brother one however, not a 3rd party.

For Colour, most of my experience is with a Phaser 7300 and the colour carts in those last around 4000 sheets, printing pages with graphics and such (rather than just colour text). This is of course a far bigger and higher end unit than anything you'll find at a store.

Okay, so we would want one that has a seperate drum? I don't remember what the fuser was but I take it those wear out and need to be replaced as well or are they built into the drum? The drums without the built in toner seems to be a good amount cheaper than the ones that have the toner / drum together. I didn't realize the drums lasted for so long

Fuser is what "burns" the toner onto the page. Basically a heater, it's what makes sure the toner sticks to the page rather than being a messy powder. They tend to last nearly forever, usually well over 150,000 sheets. Odds are you'll replace the printer before replacing the fuser unless you print 10,000 pages a month - many older printers like the LJ4000 I have are on the original 1998 fuser. My Laserjet P3005 has done a bit over 51,000 pages and is still on the original fuser and such.

Separate drum really doesn't matter. You'll find it on some like Brother, Xerox and Minolta however a lot like HP have moved to drum-in-cart setup. On ones that have separate drums I've found they'll last around 20,000 pages before needing replaced.

Edit:

159.99$ for this one and it's an LED laser printer!!!

http://www.brother-usa.com/Printer/M...w#.VlirovmrTIU

It's normally 279.99$. Think that's a good one to buy?

Looks decent enough. Cheaper on Newegg though.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16828113832