Dell 2135cn Multi-tasking Color Laser Printer review

[CrispyQ]

My 17 year old laser printer finally bit the dust. I've kind of been looking forward to this day, because for the past few years I've had to hand feed the paper, page by page, because the paper feed doesn't work properly.

I was going to get a deskjet - who wouldn't want a color printer for less than $100? But I just landed a contract job where I will be printing large documents & I need a sharp & crisp image, so I decided to go with a laser. I was going to go with a B&W laser because I didn't think a color laser would be within my price range. But when I went searching, I found the Dell 2135cn & it was on sale for $380 w/free shipping - less than the B&W Panasonic that I was originally considering. (I paid over $500 for my old B&W laser!)

This is a great printer! The footprint is only a little bigger than most lasers, but it stands two feet tall & weighs in at about 60 pounds. It prints, copies, scans & faxes. It has four cartridges, black, cyan, yellow & magenta. The print quality is sharp & crisp & the color is vibrant & true. I used to work at a place that had a Xerox Phaser color laser & while the print quality was good, the colors were muted & grayish, so I'm very happy with the color of this printer!

The cartridges run about $90 each & yield about 2500 pages. I like that when you've used all of one color you only have to replace that one color cartridge. Also, the install was very easy. Even getting it out of the box was easy. They designed the box so you turn some plastic 'keys' at the bottom & then lift the whole box off.

I realize this is a lot more printer than most people need, but if you're looking for a multi-tasking color laser printer, this is a great printer for the price! (I see the price has gone up from the $380 that I got it for.)

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/All_Printers/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=19&sku=224-0638