Best Printers for Tabloid & Ledger Size Printing

Although ConsumerSearch.com, one of my favorite sites, does an excellent job reviewing the reviews for most types of printers, none of their picks are adequate for someone who needs to print tabloid/ledger-size documents. PC Magazine has reviewed only nine such printers since 2006.* In summary, if you are just starting out, you can't go wrong with the all-in-one Brother MFC-6490CW, though if you are really strapped for cash, you could probably get by with the Kodak EasyShare 5300. Either the HP Photosmart Pro B8850 or the Epson Stylus Photo R1900 should do the trick if you want a high quality photo printer. If you are printing thousands of copies over the course of a year, either the Konica Minolta 7450 or HP LaserJet 9050DN is the best laser printer option. Finally, one printer stands out as an interesting compromise: the Ricoh Aficio G7500. The rest of this post provides more details on these choice options.

All-in-Ones: If you are just starting with printing your own work, then the convenience of an affordable all-in-one printer that can scan your art and print it at relatively low cost probably the quality of photo printers and large-scale cost efficiencies of laser printers.

• Brother MFC-6490CW: An Editor's Choice on PC Magazine, this all-in-one Brother printer seems to have it all, and can do it tabloid size. Built-in fax, scan feeder, wifi networking, and memory card readers all come with the Brother. Although 2.8 cents per page is the most expensive cost per page of any of the printers noted here, it is still relatively low compared to other inkjet printers; the Kodak EasyShare (below) undercuts this by only a tenth of a cent. $280 on Amazon.com
  
• Kodak EasyShare 5300: This all-in-one printer garners a relatively glowing 3-star review from PC Magazine. Though "light" on office features (no fax or autofeed scan) and print quality, it is loaded with photo sharing features. 2.7 cents per page, 3 stars

Photo Printers: Is printing black and white comics more like printing black and white text, for which a monochrome laser printer is best, or full color photos, for which a color inkjet photo printer is clearly best? Without knowing enough, I'm going to guess that the inkjet is the better option, even though most reviews note issues with printing black and white images. With this in mind, these specialized photo printers will produce images superior to the all-in-ones above, albeit at a moderately higher initial cost for the machine. PC Magazine likes both but rates the Photosmart a little higher.

• HP Photosmart Pro B8850: Making this HP printer their Editor's Choice for low-end "prosumer" photo printers, PC Magazine praises its superb image quality above all else. If comics are best printed on photo printers, then this is probably the way to go. At 2.9 cents per mono page, it is not much more than the Brother MFC-6490CW (below), but significantly more than HP LaserJet above. $390 on Amazon.com
• Epson Stylus Photo R1900: This Epson Stylus earned a 4-star review from PC Magazine, which praises it for the high quality and speed of its photo and graphic prints. The Stylus is also notable for being able to handle a wide variety of paper types and thicknesses. Cost per page information was not available, but it is probably about the same as the comparable HP Photosmart (2.9 cents per page). Although it gets a half star less than the Photosmart, the Stylus was being compared to the Photosmart higher-end version (B9180), whereas the Photosmart B8850 earns its rating in comparison to lower end printers. $420 on Amazon.com

Laser Printers: Will you be printing enough copies to justify the cost of a more expensive machine? With the most efficient high-end printer producing prints at 0.9 cents per page for an up-front cost of $1900 and the most efficient low-end printer printing at 2.7 cents per page for an initial outlay of only $100, you'd have to make 100,000 prints to pay off the higher cost of the first printer. That's a good sweet spot for someone producing a full-length (32-page) comic regularly (every month or two) for a small but sizeable audience of a couple hundred; anything more would call for professional printing.

• Konica Minolta 7450: If photo printing really is better for printing black and white comics, then the Konica Minolta Magicolor 7450 is the best choice in this category, as it has made a name for itself by making inkjet-quality photo prints. Of course, you pay for this superior quality, as this printer is slightly more expensive than other laser printers, both up-front and ongoing (1.8 cents per page). PC Magazine gives the Magicolor 4 stars. $2000 on Compare Master
  
• HP LaserJet 9050DN: Earning 4.5 stars from PC Magazine, this black and white LaserJet gets rave reviews for efficiency and print quality, culminating in an Editor's Choice. At only 0.9 cents per page, this printer has the lowest cost of maintenance of any of the printers on this list and is hands-down the best laser printer available for text print quality. If it turns out that printing comics is more like printing black and white text and you don't need to print in color, then this is clearly the better choice than the Magicolor above. $1900 at LA Computer Center

Interesting Compromise Option

• Ricoh Aficio G7500: With a 4-star review in 2006, PC Magazine praises this Ricoh printer for aptly bridging the gap between inkjet and laser printers. Smaller and lighter than a laser printer of comparable capabilities but producing higher quality images at lower per page cost (2 cents) than an inkjet, the Aficio might be the perfect "in between" printer for comic book art, which seems to exist somewhere in between black and white text printing and color photo printing. Although it is slightly more expensive than the all-in-one options, it does save money with a lower cost per page. $400 from eWorldSale.com

The other two printers reviewed by PC Magazine do not compare well with the options above. The OKI C8800n laser printer ($1600 on Great Printer Deals) gets 3.5 stars from PC Magazine and is a little cheaper than the HP LaserJet and the Konica Minolta Magicolor, but is also siginificantly slower and produces lower quality prints. It also costs 1.7 cents per page, so the HP LaserJet will pay off the difference in price relatively quickly. The other printer is the Lexmark C920n, which PC Magazine gives 3 stars, saying it does well for print quality and speed but is not so good for paper handling. Again, there's no reason to pick this over the HP or the Konica.

* A quick glance at older models ($2500 Xerox Phaser 7400N, $250 HP DeskJet 9800d) did not reveal anything competitive with the newer options above.