Way OT - printer!

[Hank ABAB]

I know that some of you may have a small business (or a big business).
I'm sure a lot of you do printing from your computer.

My Inkjet printer is getting quite old, so I was thinking of getting a Laser printer this time around.
I don't need to print in color, so a monochrome laser would be fine.

I am looking quite seriously at the HP M402DN; its not wireless but that's fine.
What do you experts have to say, and what do you have?

This one is presently on sale at COSTCO. In Canada, we have to pay through the nose for these things.
Thanks kindly for your input/replies.
the one shown here.

 

[paul]

For personal use Brother printers have been well received for several years now. Good value, good long lasting machine.

Cannon was good before that, might still be.

Epsom used to be good, but they out designed and outsmarted themselves to where their good products stopped working. They stopped innovating and tried to protect turns Eve's on ink sakes to the point their printers didn't work right with their own ink and toner cartridges!

Hp was the good early printers, but they took an odd track with their software and became archaic compared to others.

But I don't know what the business sides of the lineups are like. Often the personal and business lineups are very different......

Paul

 

[Dave H (MI)]

You cannot go wrong with a Laserjet. I would not recommend you buy anything else. In the CPA practice these are the only printers we use. Started out back in the late 1980's with the original Laserjet. I have used the Laserjet II and IIP on different occasions. I still keep a stash of Laserjet IV printers in the basement. Just swapped one out this afternoon as it stopped feeding from the tray so I grabbed a different one off the shelf. I keep those around for an older printer that runs a DOS program that we still use here to compile records because of the speed. For tax returns I have been running Laserjet p2055 for the past couple of years. Never had a bad one. I use them commercially and they run for many, many years.

 

[jstpa]

I bought a new printer last march for work. I print 15 to 20 pages a day. I bought a brother mfc-L2740dw and could not be happier. It is a laserjet, just black. I feel like I have a real machine now compared to the hp printers I always had before. jstpa

 

[psimmer]

We switched to a Laser printer a couple years ago. Went with a Brother as it was on sale. Absolutely best decision we ever made. Hardly ever printed in color, and it seemed our ink jet jet printers were constantly needing ink cartridges.

 

[jimlll]

I too am very satisfied with a Brother MFC--- laser printer from Sam's.

 

[4wdtom]

I don't know much about computers but we have two HP ink jet printer/scanner/copier and they only cost about $100 and for a little more you can get fax. One of our printers is maybe 10 years and the other is maybe 2 yrs. old. There is also an old HP printer, the first I had, cost 300 I think and still works but the computer people tell me it it is too old for the computer to know what to do with now.

 

[BobReeves]

We have an HP 3400 that has to be going on 20 years and still working great. It is a wired network printer and so far all we have to do is put a cartridge in it when the printing gets too light. Ink jets cost about 5 times more per page than a laser. Never felt one could go wrong with almost any HP laser printer.

 

[Dick2]

We bought an HP laser printer once. It lived just beyond the warranty. Cost too much to fix so I donated it to a trade-tech school for their techs to work on.

Going on two years ago we dumped all out HP junk and bought a Cannon inkjet printer that is much more reliable and trouble free than the 3 different HP printers that we owned previously.

 

[Steve@Advance]

I've had a Samsung ML2510 for about 10 years now.

Bought it for home use because the powder cartridges don't dry out like the ink, and cost much less to refill.

No color, but that's fine with me. No problem with it at all.

 

[steve_in_mo]

That's a big printer for personal use. We used to have the previous version of that printer. It's a big horse.
I agree with the others. Get a Brother. Less desk space, less cost to buy, way less cost to keep up with supplies.
IF you really need a wireless printer, consider getting one that has a wired network adapter as well. Your wireless
router will provide much more reliable wireless connectivity. I'd also suggest going to one of the big box office
supply stores to buy the printer, and I'd recommend you buy the store's extended warranty. The thing will last forever.

 

[Gchase24]

Check on the price of the replacement ink. HP ink cartridges are not refillable. It cost me over $100 bucks for replacement. HP software will not let you refill or use remanufactured or off brand cartridges. I have a HP8600. Prints well but for this reason I will never own another HP product.

 

[Janicholson]

The printer is reliable. We have 7 of them we use in our curriculum. They work and seem a good value. You will save in the long run. and they do not fail from dried up ink. No use is just fine. Jim

 

[coshoo]

Had a Brother once. Only once. Instead of just a toner cartridge like the HP's, Brother also has a "drum" that you have to replace after 3 or 4 toner cartridges. It was over 200 bucks, so I chucked the printer and got an HP. Have had several of them over the years, and am very satisfied.

 

[huntingreen2day2]

I have a Dell 130CFB and really like it. Cost about $200 and I think I paid about $ 65 for replacement ink that is supposed to print like 2000 pages.

 

[steve_in_mo]

I have had that experience, too, but I am running printers at home that cost $100-$150.
Either way, you replace the printer because it's cheaper.

 

[jimg.allentown]

One thing that I do not see anybody telling you is the cost per page. Laser versus inkjet, you can print much more economically on the laser. The big bite is when you do have to replace the toner or drum. BUT, when you account for how many pages you print with each one, the cost per page goes way down.
Most inkjet replacement cartridges (when I used inkjet) cost me around $30 or so for each one. They would print a few hundred pages.
A laser toner will generally print from 5,000 to 10,000 pages before you need to replace it. And, a replacement will cost around $80 to $100.
So, while nobody likes to have to shell out the big bucks at replacement time, it still turns out to be less costly in the long run.
There are a few other advantages to the laser. You never have to replace a cartridge or print head because the ink dried out. The printed page comes out of the printer dry, and does not smear. If you get a laser printed page wet, the ink will not run or smear.
Ink jets only have the advantage for printing high resolution graphics like photographs. For that, it is cheaper to take your memory card to the local drug store and get better prints for less than you can do them at home.

 

[Lamont in NC]

I recently replaced a very old brother laser with a new brother laser. Low end--cost me $60. It's not wireless.
The good
* it's fast--very fast
* It prints both sides of the paper--wow!
The bad
* when it turns on/starts up the lights flicker fast--it's like something that'd cause an epileptic episode. I thought it was the CFL bulbs but nope it did the same thing to incandescent and LED bulbs. I Googled and it seems this complaint is common on a lot of laser printers. The conclusion it pulls much more current at startup (to heat up so much faster) than my old one and apparently does so in rapid oscillations causing flicker. The recommendation is put it on a circuit by itself--hey I'm not rewiring my house for a printer. It tripped the breaker once.

 

[Leroy]

I have the ink jet printers and they are HP and only use refilled cartriges with no problem. And price is less than half of new ones.