I am currently using the OKI C5800LDN for the last 6months. Prior to this I had a Minolta 7300.
When purchasing the OKI C5800LDN I did not limit myself to price, or any other limit. I wanted the best picture quality, speed, ease of use, and most improtantly the availability of compatible replacement toner (and ease of refill to keep my printing costs down.)
Pros: DUPLEXING - Especially at the realatively cheap price of this color laser this was a huge plus. I was facing a $450 add on for my Minolta. 75% of what I printed needed to be duplexed and manual duplexing (printing odd then even and alot of thought not to screw up the 100 pages I already half printed by not getting the order right or forgetting to pull out a page on odd numbered books was a waste of time for me) now that the OKI does this for me I actually find I duplex just about everything and use it far more then I ever thought (99.5% of the time) like quick web page printing for later reading etc. and even better there are less pages to mis-place (heck just the cost saving in paper with 4 kids and the wife printing to it has been great.)
VERY GLOSSY TONNER - I print allot of bound photo books for clients and flyers etc. the glossy tonner really adds an aura of professionalism in the look and feel that I was willing to accept the lesser resolution and infact my clients seem to be more pleased with the final product and easilly look past the resolution shortcomings.
NETWORK READY - This was a must for me as there are over 5 computers here and i needed all to easilly print to it from throughout the house and also did not want to dedicate a computer to be constantly on as a printer share and have had issues in the past with dodgy external usb or parralell print servers that were never 100% reliable and at times limited the functionality available of the printer. etwork set-up was a breeze and has been solid with absolutly no complaints.
SPEED - time is everything and I am often very impatient. The last thing I wanted was to go backwards in speed from the minolta and find something fairly comprable. In terms of speed I looked at two things color print speed for the book pages which are close to 85% color photo coverage and no less then 50 pages per print job, and secondly I looked at first print out from sleep mode for personal familly use as kids do not understand having to wait for warm-up:
COST OF CONSUMABLES- refil toner is readilly available online and simple to refill. I have not had issues with the glossy tonner from dubber.com. There are also drum rebuild kits which will reduce this cost as well. (I have printed now well over 10,000 pages most with over 50% coverage and have saved enough in consumables costs over the Minolta to buy another.) The Minolta 7300 there was never refill toner or genaric cartridges available due presumably to the complex fine toner formulation, and name brand toner is expensive.
SIZE - this was important to my wife as the printer sits on a shelf in what was her side of the closet. nice small footprint and no doors etc. for jam removal on the sides or rear.
PAPER HANDLING - This one was important to me not so much the path or the limits on twists and bends but the fact that if I print 10 coppies of something and 10 more tomorrow all 20 will be printed in exactly the same spot on the paper without deviation - especially important for lable printing but also again when I bind my printed books slight differances become very noticeable. (based on my disgust with Lexmark inkjets for this very reason, I may not have given the Lexmark lasers a 100% fair shake in my review)
VALUE - this is a quality printer for the price the menues are smple yet robust the build quality feels alot more sturdy then alot of the ones I looked at and it is feature packed - you really get alot of reliable printer for your money
Cons: Print quality - compared to the high resolution of the Minolta I was not very happy but again the glossy presentation distracts most of my clients from the lack of resolution clarity. I looked at lexmark, brother, samsung, hp, and canon and honestly this one was the best one I found (excluding minolta.) HP which I had high hopes for (due to high availability of toner etc locally, and trouble free printing reputation, and experiance at the office) was the in my opinion the worst of all (in terms of photo print quality) of all the brands with very lack luster color briliance and inability to handle smooth gradients and overall grainieness. when testing I took my laptop to the store and printed the same page on the same paper (both standard and glossy paper) as my real world eyeball test. and again no laser can match a high quality inkjet or let alone a dye sublimation printer but when it comes to speed, reliability, durability, cost to operate nothing comes close. (all it takes is for one to own a epson inkjet ad have the nozzels dry out every few days due to lack of use to move to a laser.) NOTW- some online/magazine reviewers say the OKI is not the best at text quality and i would agree but it is still very clear and far better then a copymachine and text is text think about the quality of text in a paper back book no one has ever complained about that but if a picture in a brochure looks crappy trust me they will compalin. again I have no complaint on text quality yes some lasers were a little more crisp but not by much.)
Color Matching/management - this printer gives you with a wealth of control and the ability to create multiple profiles however no matter how much I tweak and play around I m never 100% satisfied... if you are very picky about color reproduction this may be an issues as with control comes complexity... one of these days I will need to sit down a fine tune a profile to my standards, but on the other hand if you ask my wife or the majority of my clients they are satisfied with the on-tweeked out of the box profile (as my wife would say it's fine nothing is wrong with it quit being so anal)
local availability of supplies - again if this was an HP if I was in a pinch I could ust walk down to the local office supply store and I would be set unfortunately OKI is not as popular around here so all orders must be pre-planed and ordered on-line so they are onhand when needed.
noise - I will admit this is not a quiet machine, when printing I do not mind the noise as after hitting print I can listen for the whirr and no it is printing but the fan while it is idling is alot noisier then most of the newer lasers. (being in the closet right by my bed I am sure does not help.)
handling of thick card stock - when it was new I had no issues ould duplex etc without issues now I can only expect the irst 2 pages a day of thick card stock not to jam if I duplex. and at times now just having the printer grab the thick card stock from the front tray/ draweris is iffy. I defense of the printer all card stock is to be loaded using a rear slot and also the card stock I am using is thicker then the printer is rated for - I use 110lb stock) (the slot in the back is not convenient for me with the printer backed up against the wall in the closet. again I am exceeding the limits of the printer specs but like I said it was fine with the handling of the really thick stock for the first 3 months or so. I have no issues with the
32lb glossy laser paper stock I most commonly use of standard 20lb or 24lb paper. I have also often wondered if the Georgia Pacific glossy paper I use most commonly is possibly to blaim (gloss coating possibly rubbing off on the rubber rollers.)paper/print size limit - The Minolta this one replaced was a wide format printer which was nice but I rarely used this capacity and have since found ways to work around it. Also I am still in a true edge to edge color laser printer with no minimum margins but I cannot have it all.
the included toner cartridges - they were a joke I question if they are trely even 2000 page cartridges as they lasted for onoly about 500 prints (again 75%+ coverage) and have been refilled (to the 5k page capacity) and I have been getting closer to 4000 pages out of them.
Summary - my money is on the OKI and would buy it again. it has been extremely reliable and the gloss on the ouput is just one of a kind head and shoulders above the rest, and I personally love how everyone like the neighbors or the kids teachers etc. feel like they are so special when they see and feel the gloss of the toner because they think we used the special super deluxe professional printer on what we give to them, even if all we printed was the rough draft of a report, or a news story we found on the internet. ( the drawback to this though is the number of familly and friends that will request you to print invitations and presentations for them.) if cost is an issue the c5500 would be my route, but if you can hold out and if necessary save for the few extra bucks the duplexing of the C5800LDN is without a doubt a steal for the price differance, I thought duplexing was going to be a frivolous feaure but now I doubt I could live without it!!!!