I've decided to force my dad to buy me a new printer.

I went to plot some plans the other day and they had this super awesome photocopier machine that was laser and the quality was REALLY good.

So, ever since then I have been with the idea that I want a laser printer.
The thing is that I kinda need it to print sizes bigger than A4, letter or that 8.5 x 14 in size.

I'll be requiring a printer (not really requiring but I want one) that is able to print stuff in double letter size sheets or A3.
Besides this I'd like to know what should I pick if a laser printer or an ink one?
I really liked the laser I saw because it left my plan like if it was a photograph-like material and it was printed in bond paper. I don't know if this is how laser quality printer looks like but I liked it and if it does I'm all in for laser. If it does not I'd like to know which kind of printer should I get that gives me this quality.
The ink printer, well, I just think it's time to evolve from the ink that can be spilled and ruin my plots specially when I print in vegetable paper.

I'd like to know also, which costs more to mantain? An ink printer, I know that you have to buy ink everytime it rans out. I have no clue, though, how laser ones work.

Right now I just started my own search on printers and I'll post some of my options I find. This topic is for you to provide me with your experiences and for you to give me some prospects or recommendations. I'll be more than grateful.
Things to consider, though:
- If possible to be able on a bigger size than A4.
- Would a inkjet or laserjet be better for me?
- Keep in my I often use them to plot plans, and sometimes I plot them in a poorly absorbent, transparent vegetal/sketch paper. Ink printer sometimes ruins them cause it requires the ink to dry.
- Good quality, k? I don't want a cheap printer that will last only for a couple of months.
- If possible, it can be one of those awesome scanner/printer/photocopier thingies.
- MUST be color printer.
- I'll come up with moar things, k.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 13 2008, 3:34 am by Corbo.

You won't find many ink printers which print this size, I don't think. Non-standard printing sizes tend to be expensive, though A3 is small enough to still be affordable.Laser is much better quality.Toner is very expensive but lasts much longer.Color laser printers are huge, take a lot of time to warm up, and are quite expensive. The cheap ones (off a quick search) are somewhere around $400. The good ones are around three times that.

I would look into more advanced ink printers, since they are significantly cheaper and smaller.

They sell some color lasers at office depot in here at around $229 - $299. It isn't that much.

The ones that I looked that printed A3 were like 2700 - 4500 Euros. So yeah, I'm going to office depot tomorrow and buy a nice small one :C I'll probably get an scanner too.

Those are cheap, fyi. They also probably come with "starter" toner packages, meaning you'll have to buy new toner very soon.

I just bought an inkjet.
The toner price was USD$ 110 and it was almost the same price of the multi functional I bought.

I bought a nice EPSON multi-functional. It scans, prints, has the ability to be used without a computer (for printing Photographs) it has a nice screenie that you can use to preview whatever you're printing and to select which photographs to print. It has USB slots as well as SD Card and SD mini <3.
It is also a photocopier and um.... does stuff. It's pretty kewl and I got it for USD $129 (compare to the price of the toner price, although the laser printer itself wasn't that expensive) I also got a free USB memory stick (4GB) and 2 cartdriges of ink (total).

So in the end I spent like less than USD $100 on that printer. Hope there's no traps in it, like, it breaks the next day or the quality is really poor.