From rodsmith@indiana.edu Tue Dec 10 09:56:05 1996 Path: stc06.ctd.ornl.gov!news.he.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!howland.erols.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!news.indiana.edu!news From: rodsmith@indiana.edu Newsgroups: comp.periphs.printers Subject: Re: New Laser recommendations? Date: 9 Dec 1996 15:29:57 GMT Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington Lines: 86 Message-ID: <58hb9l$s73@dismay.ucs.indiana.edu> References: Reply-To: rodsmith@indiana.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: medora.psych.indiana.edu X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 2.0 In , rtuchler@ecentral.com (Robert E.Tuchler) writes: >I'm in the market for a SOHO laser and considering >these: > >NEC 860 > >Panasonic KX-6500 > >HP 5LXtra Of those three, I'd probably go for the HP, rather reluctantly. The problem with the NEC and the Panasonic is that neither uses a standard page-description language. The Panasonic, the last I'd heard, was a Windows GDI printer. These things work OK in Windows, provided you don't mind giving up most of your CPU power whenever you want to print something (a situation that I'd find intolerable in and of itself), but they're near to useless in other OSes. The NEC is a step above that; it just uses a non-standard page description language, so you don't get the CPU slowdown, but you'll still get only limited functionality outside of Windows. A couple of points here: 1) Both printers, if I'm not mistaken, do support earlier versions of HP's de-facto standard PCL page description language, and so can be made to work in other OSes; however, this works only at 300 dpi, and may require a memory upgrade (I don't recall how much memory the NEC includes, but the Panasonic has some pathetic little amount of RAM). 2) Even if you use Windows, I'd advise caution with these GDI printers, for a couple of reasons. First, you may find that you want to switch OSes, or at least try something new, within the lifetime of the printer (which SHOULD be measured in years). Second, it's conceivable that the manufacturer will abandon support for the model and not provide updated drivers for future versions of Windows, and with a proprietary system, you're 100% at the mercy of the manufacturer. In terms of the HP, it gets good print quality and supplies should be easy to find; but it's skimpy on the supplied RAM for PCL 5e (600 dpi from non-Windows OSes), so you may need to upgrade, and I've seen complaints about the printer's paper feed mechanism and the quality of the Windows 95 drivers. It's also only 4ppm, which should be fine for light use, but not if you regularly print lots of stuff. The last I looked seriously at the printer market was six months ago, and at that time, there was a roughly even split among the inexpensive lasers between GDI and PCL (rev. 5e for 600 dpi; lower values for 300 dpi) models. Other PCL 5e models at that time included the Epson AL-1400, the Brother HL-660, and slightly higher-line models from Xerox and Lexmark, as well as even more expensive models from various manufacturers. Since then, I know that the Brother has been discontinued (and good riddance) and replaced by the HL-700 series, which has a twist: "PCL 5e*", the "*" being an indication in the ads of a footnote that explains this is implemented in a driver for DOS use only. In other words, it's another proprietary-only model. I don't know if the Epson is still available, but if it is, it's worth considering, though it's only 4ppm. The Xerox and Lexmark models may be worth looking into if you're willing to drag yourself out of the price basement and onto the first floor. Note that I'm pretty well restricting my discussion to 600x600 dpi models, since I see little point in saving $100 or so to get a 300 dpi model. Okidata has a line of printers that are 300x 1200 dpi, which looks similar in quality. The OL-610e can use PCL 5e, and I believe also has a proprietary Windows mode. The OL-600e has only the proprietary mode. There's also an OL-800 series, though I don't recall the precise model numbers. Those get 600x1200 from Win95. The OL-610e reportedly translates PCL 5e's 600x600 into 300x1200, but I've not seen the results of this myself, so I don't know how well it works; but I'm sure you'd lose SOME quality that way. It'd probably be better to go with a conventional 600x600 printer. >rtuchler@ecentral.com +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Rod Smith Author of: | | rodsmith@indiana.edu "Should I Buy OS/2" FAQ | | http://ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu/~rodsmith "OS/2 Soundcard Summary" | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+