Refine search for Printers

Canon i-SENSYS LBP5050 Colour Laser Review

Author	Simon Williams
Published	9th Jan 2009
Manufacturer	Canon
Price	£120.77 (Exc VAT)
as reviewed	£141.90 (Inc VAT)
Latest Price	Click here

Features
Print Quality
Print Speed
Value
Overall

4 comments Email

TrustedReviews Newsletters

The quality of text print from this machine is good, with little spatter and clean, well-defined text at all sizes. Colours are very brightly reproduced though greens and blues are much darker than the originals and there's some problem with black text registration over some colours as there's obvious haloing.

Photo reproduction shows a slightly better colour gamut than with some colour lasers though colours once again are darker than they should be and reds look a little over-emphasised.

Both the Canon and HP versions of this machine claim noise levels of 47dBA but the only way we can believe these figures is without the peaks when paper is fed from the input trays. At these points, noise reaches around 10dBA higher, which makes these printers quiet in comparison with large workgroup machines but noisy if the alternative is a colour inkjet.

The fourth toner cartridges are rated at 1,500 pages for colour and 2,300 pages for black. Both these capacities are 100 pages higher than their HP equivalents, but it's not clear whether that's because they contain more toner or just that they're measured differently.

Canon offers all four cartridges in a Value Pack at a slightly lower cost than the individual consumables, so we used this figure for calculating the colour page cost, but stuck to the individual cost for the black cartridge, which is lower than a quarter of the Value Pack price. Using this formula gives a page cost for black of 2.66p, including 0.7p for plain paper, and 11.5p for colour, applying the same 0.7p paper cost.

Again, these figures are lower than the costs for the HP machine, but not by much, and there's obviously some allowance being made for the low purchase price of the Canon printer itself, by way of the relatively high cost of its consumables.

Verdict

If you're considering a colour laser printer for personal use and have both this Canon i-SENSYS LBP5050 and the HP LaserJet CP1515n on your shortlist, you should see slightly quicker and slightly cheaper prints from the Canon machine, but marginally better print quality from the HP, which also provides network capability for a fiver or so more than USB-only LBP5050.

Latest 4 of 4 Comments

Have your say: Leave a comment below about this article.

bizk said on 3rd April 2009

Utterly useless for a modern Mac unless you already have a copy of Windows running via emulation software! The PC interface is ok. Can only get this lovely printer (it is!) to prin... more

Catherine Hogan said on 4th April 2009

The cartridges for this printer will print approx 500 colour pages at 50% coverage and then need replacing! The running costs are astronomical. I run a home based business, printin... more

sailes said on 30th August 2009

bought this printer in mar 09
printed only about 400 pages in black and white and shocked to find that black toner has run out
prior to this i had hP2550- bought this... more

Marcus said on 30th September 2009

regarding "Sailes" & "Catherine Hogan's" comments on the short life of their toner cartridges, I wonder if they are commenting on the cartridges that ship w... more

See all 4 comments on this article.

Add your comment

You must be logged in to comment. Login or register here.