While I'm on the subject of hardware, might as well talk about my experiences so far with the Dell M5200N Laser Printer.
Pretty nice boxes really. I now have 6 of them in service here. Started out getting one as a letterhead printer to replace a dead HP LJ 3Si.
They are actually Dell branded Lexmark printers. 35 ppm, optional envelope feeder, duplexer, etc (the usual stuff). Our letterhead printers are purchased with 192 megs of memory, Envelope feeder, 3 years of onsite next day service and an extra 500 sheet paper tray. Printer comes with one 500 sheet tray built in and you can add 4 more, built in ethernet and 64 megs of memory. Max resolution is 1200x1200dpi.
They are pretty fast too, when they say 35ppm they mean it.
The envelope feeder is great since our secretaries print out a lot of addressed envelopes throughout the day and now they don't have to stand next to the printer and feed in envelopes as needed. A stack of 75 is put into the feeder and then just filled up as needed.
I'm sure the big question that is on your mind right now is why I didn't go with an HP 4000 series. Cost. Dell keeps giving us deals on these printers to the point where they are more than $1000 less than a comparable HP. Cost per print is also less. Remains to be seen whether maintenance costs over the life of the printer will eat up the difference, but that will only happen after year 3 since the printers all have 3 year onsite service contract with Dell. I'm not expecting problems with them any time soon though, so far they've run great and I would highly recommend these printers to anyone who asked me for my opinion on a good workgroup printer.
Cost for each printer was around $1700 with 128MB of extra memory, 3 year support, extra 500 sheet tray, envelope feeder and toner cartridge.
If you need a tabloid size (11x17) printer though, HP or Lexmark are still your only choices. Neither the M5200N or the slightly newer and faster M5300N handle tabloid. Since this is a law firm, tabloid printing isn't much in need, however and we do have some Ricoh networked copiers that can handle that larger size if needed (for network diagrams for instance).
Oh and did I mention that the printers are a nice charcoal grey with some gunmetal plastic trim? Kind of like the stealth bomber of printers :D.
Again, if I have any issues with the printers I will update you on this site.
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