I need a professional printer to print business cards and flyers.?
I currently do freelance graphic design but i’m tired of outsourcing for printing. What is a good PROFESSIONAL grade printer that i can purchase and use. ( I already know its in the thousands so please dont be shy. Tell me whats the best in the market or the easiest to use or the cheapest) Thank you in advance for the help because i’m having a hard time telling the difference in quality printers.
More than just print quality to consider.
Paper / card weight it can print on, most printers are limited on the weight/thickness of card or paper they can handle because the paper path is not flat.
Duty cycle – number of pages per day/month etc.
Paper size, an A3 printer will cost lots more than an A4, but if you need A3 then not much point in buying an A4 one. A2 A1 and A0 printer almost exponentially expensive.
Printer life, there are THREE replaceable elements with limited life.
Toner carts -generally 25-250 pounds each x 4 (4 colours) – life 1,000-20,000 pages at 10% coverage.
Transfer belt – 200-800 pounds 20,000-100,000 pages life
Fuser – sometimes not user replaceable – 150-1000 pounds generally 60,000 plus pages life.
How they perform on rough paper can also be a factor – posh menu’s, wedding invites etc.
You also need to figure what you get printed and what it costs and how much you could save.
If you do A4 glossie pamphlets – are the really A4, or folded and centre stapled A3′s
Also if the printer can handle custom sizes and if you need them – I see a lot of fancy menu’s on A4 wide card but about 1.5x A4 length
If you are doing commercial printing you will also need a maintenance contract, won’t get your jobs printed if you’ve had to send a bust printer back to the manufacturer for repair, or wait a week for an engineer to fix it on site.
Your best bet might just be to see if you can find an appropriate trade fair. Or maybe have a poke around some proffesional printers print shops on the pretence (or maybe actually) of awarding them work.
Good luck
There are a lot of repos out there, call a few dealers and check into a monthly rental with supplies and maintenance included (usually it doesn’t include paper) get a cost per copy and read the small print about how much they charge for overages. You may end up with more of a printer than you could afford to buy outright plus you are not going into debt. What does your printing company use? Ask them about the company that repairs them, the reason I mentioned this is you can buy the best printer in the world but you can’t get service it useless. (They do break occasionally