Need color printer for house with 3 young and overactive kids

I have a friend with 3 kids aged 7-15 that destroyed the $100 Epson
inket he bought for the house network.  It is always jammed or offline
or something, and he had to spend countless hours on that thing.

Is there something he can buy that will be solid, network capable
(Ethernet) and have a print server built in, and in industrial enough
to last with 3 kids around.

The price can be anywhere from $800 to $1500.

It needs to be color, but will probably be used for b/w most of the time.

It will be used by windows machines only, no Macs.

It should have USB, and Ethernet.




thanx in advnce,

sherpaj-ga:

Given the requirements you mention in your question, the first machine
I will suggest your friend consider is the Okidata C5100n, the base
model from their Digital LED Color Printer line. It is designed for
small business environments, meaning that it can handle print job
levels that are higher than any $100 Epson inkjet printer can handle.
It has built-in Ethernet and USB2.0 support. Plus, it sells for as
little as $700US. Here is a link to the page on the Office Depot
online store website:

http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do?level=SK&id=953038&location_info=_SK_953038

And here is a link to the Froogle search for other vendors:

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=okidata+c5100n&tiled=1


While the C5100n would be my personal choice given the price and
performance, other printers that would fit the needs include (links to
CDW for info only, the Froogle links will lead you to prices):

Okidata C5300n (the bigger brother)
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=454442
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=okidata+c5300n&tiled=1

Samsung CLP-500N
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=565193
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=samsung+CLP-500N&tiled=1

 - the CLP-500N is notable for having parallel/USB/Ethernet connectivity built-in

I hope these help!

Regards,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher