Laser Printing Without the Hassles?

yeremein asks: "After yet another black ink cartridge has fizzled out, I've decided that it's time to stop giving money to a known DMCA abuser and buy a new printer. Since I'm fed up with the clogged jets and drifting print head misalignment, not to mention the exorbitant cost of ink cartridges, I'd like to go with a laser printer this time around. It doesn't have to be a high duty cycle one, since it's for home use and I only print maybe 100 pages per month. And black only is fine. Any suggestions for an inexpensive laser that is Linux friendly, and does not employ any 'smart chip' technology that would prevent the toner cartridge from being refilled or cause it to 'expire' and stop working at a certain date regardless of the toner level?"

HP LasterJet II

[RealityMogul]

Bought it at a yard sale for $15. Worked fine for 3 years, using the same cartridge that was in it when I bought it.

Just shows Error 50 now though and has been retired to the attic. The things are tanks though. It's gotta be 50 pounds. It's kinda like an IBM XT case.

Much better than the current crop of HP printers in my opinion. We use the 4400s at the office, and they're ok, but the speed isn't any better and the increased resolution isn't a big deal for text. But they start reading "low toner" 3 weeks after a new cartridge is put in though, even though they'll last for 6 months after that warning first shows up. A little suspicious.

Re:postscript is your friend

[yog]

How is the paper handling on your E310? My Optra E312 is prone to jams and multi-feeds. Lexmark tech support denies it's a problem and will supply a long document on how to properly feed paper, what kind of paper to use, how to tighten the guides and then loosen them to the exact paper width, not to ever add an extra sheet to an existing stack, don't use used paper, etc. In fact it comes off as one long excuse for their sucky paper feed mechanism.

The only real solution I have found is to feed one page at a time. It works pretty well with Linux, but I'd never buy another one just based on this multi-feed problem and Lexmark's unwillingness to fix it.

Postscript for sure, don't forget about ethernet

[smoon]

Whatever you get, make sure it's postscript. Although you can 'make it work' when it's not, it's nice to have it supported out of the box. The biggest reason for this is cross-platform compatability -- if you've got postscript it's easy to print from Windows, Mac, Linux, *BSD, Solaris, HPUX, etc. If you don't, then its an exersize in finding drivers and setting up lpr filters. Postscript adds a lot of functionality to a printer. For example, one feature I like is to print 2 pages on one sheet. This is really easy to do if you've got a postscript printer since it's part of the 'page setup' when you print. Although it's possible to render 2 pages per sheet on a non-postscript printer, it's not nearly as easy to set up or use.

Another point -- make sure you plan for an ethernet lpd style connection. Right now you might just have it hooked up to one machine, but long-term you will likely have 2 or more machines to print from and it's a lot cleaner to just have the printer 'on the network' than shared from another computer. Many printers have ethernet 10baseT or 100baseT ports as options, or as part of a slightly more expensive model. You can also get 3rd party connections as well, from companies like Lantronix or Castelle. Built-in ethernet is a lot faster for printing than an ethernet adapter plugged into a parallel port.

I finally bit the bullet and got an HP LaserJet 6MP about 7 years ago. At the time it was around $1,000 -- and as far as I'm concerned it was worth every penny. Still prints great, cartridges last 2-3 years (and I print 300+ sheets a month).

I got a color inkjet last year and have already spend more on ink in one year than I spent on toner in 7.

Re:LaserJet 1300

[trmatthe]

Seconded. I bought one of these a few months back and they are smashing. It is super quick printing, has USB and an EIO (comes with parallel adapter plugin, but you can buy Ethernet) and the initial cart seems good for a few thousand pages.

Did have an LJ4+, but it was causing the house to subside.

Tim