Comparing New vs Refubished Printers? 40
GraWil asks: "Does anyone have advice on purchasing a color laser printer? I'm trying to decide between getting a new small 'personal' color laser or a used/refurbished workhorse. For the roughly the same money, I can either buy a Xerox 6100 or a refurbished Tektronix 740/750 or even a tabloid sized 790. I've had mixed luck with color HP and Lexmark printers but I'm open to any suggestions at this point. There are a fair number of reviews but none of them ever compare new with the old."
Refubished? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Refubished? (Score:3, Funny)
Toner cost (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Toner cost (Score:3, Informative)
New cartridges cost $220 or something like that.
I bought a LaserJet 1300xi at Sam's Club for about $320. It's not quite as fast, and you have to load it twice to print 500 pages, but cost per page is miniscule.
Re:Toner cost (Score:3)
Re:Toner cost (Score:1)
Re:Toner cost (Score:1, Insightful)
Also check what they say for coverage when estimating how many 'pages' a cartridge can print. You, like us, will be unpleasantly suprised just how little one of those toner cartridges lasts when the boss is printing off pictures of his family on it.
Re:Toner cost (Score:3, Informative)
While toner cost does make a difference, for a refurb you can generally find toner on Ebay or the like for cheap. You can also find recharged toner cartridges from most printing companies for cheaper than the original, though you'll have to be a bit m
It depends (Score:2, Insightful)
What do you want it for?
How long does it need to last?
How much are you willing to pay for disposables?
(mainly ink & paper)
Interface? USB vs. lpt vs. Ethernet?
Re:It depends (Score:1)
Printing text and color figures for a text book I'm writing.
Assuming you'd leave the actual publishing to a commercial printing facility, I'd say go with a new one - it sounds like you'll be using it as a heavy duty inkjet.
How long does it need to last?
Is forever an option?
Its possible, but as with most tech hardware, wait a while and better ones are released. Maybe not as quickly as, say, processors, but things still get old. You can, however keep a new one for a solid
I use two printers (Score:2, Informative)
I print about 40-100 pag
Refurbished isn't that great (Score:5, Informative)
Printers have a fixed lifespan. Gears grind down, aerosol builds up, capacitors burn out, internal memory has limited write cycles. Generally, a printer is rated for x number of pages. A cheap 50 buck one is maybe 10-15K, a 120 would give you 30K+. There's a large difference between a refurbished printer that someone used once a day for 3 years, and one someone printed 5-10 pages a day on (and as much as it surprised me, some people do print more than that). The second will have a high chance of breaking in the next 3 years, the first probably won't. Of course, this data is for inkjets so multiple by a factor of 3 to get better numbers.
I'm not saying that refurbished can't work. But with the price of lasers still fairly high, I think you get a better deal buying a new one rather than risking it breaking early.
Also, make sure to look into cost per page. Thats the cost of toner, divided by the number of pages printed per cartridge. This differs vastly between printers, and for heavy users can dwarf unit cost.
Internal memory has limited write cycles? (Score:2)
I actually design printer firmware for a living... internal memory has limited write cycles.
Care to expound?
Re:Internal memory has limited write cycles? (Score:3, Interesting)
All memory has limited lifetime. RAM has a very long one. Permanent memory, however, has much more limited. All printers have some small amount of permanent memory, to store configuration settings, code updates, internal states, data on pen problems (so you can correct for them) etc. These have much more limited number of times they can be written before they fail. Its a failure of all memory, those nice little USB storage devices and memor
Re:Internal memory has limited write cycles? (Score:1)
The *only* sector of memory that I could see failing is the page counter. A good desgin would allow the printer to continue to function despite a broken EPROM sector containing the page counter. A cheap and nasty design would simply store the settings in capacitor backed RAM.
I can say this: I have seen laserjet IIs, which use EPROMs from circa 1992, with greater than 1 million page count that *still* function. And the
Re:Internal memory has limited write cycles? (Score:1)
Don't do it (Score:2, Interesting)
The Phasers look like a good idea, but they're really not.
The 750/740's are the worst of them.
They weigh something like 100lbs. They only print 8.5x11" or smaller. They don't take many different types of paper well, like cardstock. The ink rubs off the paper if folded, scratched, or smeared. The ink comes off in fax machines and on copier glass. Certain colors look really bad.
They have a really long warm up time. Every time it cools down/warms up they eat a TON of ink. The black ink is free (all you pay
Re:Don't do it (Score:3, Informative)
Anybody have experience.. (Score:2)
The Used Looks Nice, It Has PostScript (Score:4, Informative)
I wrote a comment [slashdot.org] on PS a little while ago in the "printing on Linux" article.
Also, given the choice, get a printer with a built in network server (you know, ethernet). If you have a desktop, it might not seem important. But since I've gotten more computers and started to use my laptop as my main computer, having the printer seperate from any computer is great. I don't have to keep one computer on. Even if I only had a laptop, I could plug the printer into my network and print from anywhere in the house thanks to WiFi. I can keep my printer next to my computer, in the basement where my cable modem is, in a bedroom that has an ethernet jack, or in a bathroom (if I added a ethernet jack). And with a little ethernet->wireless adaptor, I could put the printer in the attic if I wanted. It's actually very handy.
Also, as a /. special, if you have both ethernet and PS on your printer, it's AMAZINGLY easy to configure with Linux, Windows, or OS X. Windows is a little weird (a network printer that's not attached to a computer is considered "local" when adding a printer. Huh?). But no messing with GhostScript or anything under Linux. The printer already speaks PS, and if it's like mine ACTUALLY RUNS LPD, so you just forward jobs.
I hope others can help you better with the which is best, as I said I've no experiance with color lasers, but PS and ethernet are fantastic features that you should be looking for.
Re:The Used Looks Nice, It Has PostScript (Score:2)
Later my brother got a Mac so we got a PostScript cartrdige (really a DIMM) for it, which made printing even better. I love
Re:The Used Looks Nice, It Has PostScript (Score:2)
A Linksys solution (the Etherfast 10/100 server, model PPSX1) is $98 bucks on CDW. A HP JetDirect card (model J3113A) is about $80 on eBay after a quick search. J3110A is my model according to the status page, but I can't find any.
I'd get the Jet
Re:The Used Looks Nice, It Has PostScript (Score:2)
Re:The Used Looks Nice, It Has PostScript (Score:3, Funny)
Great idea - any time you need some toilet paper just print up a few Slashdot stories
Re:The Used Looks Nice, It Has PostScript (Score:2)
This is actually pretty easy to understand. When you setup a LPD or CUPS printer, it makes a virtual port (like TCP0:) or something. Same as a local usb (USB0:) or parport (PAR0: or somesuch).
A "network" printer means SMB printer sharing, so no virtual port, but you can make it emulate a local parport for compatibility.
It's all about the warranty (Score:2)
For example, when I was last shopping for a laser printer (several years ago now), Panasonic was the only manufacturer who offered the same warranty for refurbished printers as for new printers (in my price range with my desired features) while the others had warranties between 30 and 90 days on refurbished printers.
While I normally wouldn't purchase extended warranty plans, the one case when they are worthwhile is if you can buy ref
Real World Experience: Color LaserJet 3500 (Score:3, Informative)
I work for a company that remanufacturers toner cartridges. One major disadvantage of buying a new model printer is that if your company doesn't make cartridges for your printer, it won't be able to give you free ones
That being said, since remanufacturered toner cartridges are a big help to anyone on a budget, you should bear this in mind when considering what to buy. I'd give the nod to HP because with the highest market share they also have a bigger remanufacturing industry. Lexmark has a lawsuit going that is trying to prevent remanufacturing entirely for copyright issues. As a result, I would strongly recommend going with HP if you want a shot at cheaper cartridges.
I've had many conversations with the guy who runs the factory about what to buy. I said "Gee, used color LaserJet 4500s are getting pretty cheap, maybe I should buy one". He talked me out of it saying there are all sorts of problems with those old printers, and the technology is much better refined in newer models. His opinion is that anything older than the 4600 is not worth getting, and he's not doing that to try to sell cartridges since at the time we made cartridges for the 4500 not the 4600.
I think his advice was sound, since I like the quality of the 3500 quite a bit better than what I've seen of the 4500.
Color lasers do not print as beautiful photographs as inkjets do, and you should be aware of this. At the same time, it might cost you $0.50 a page to saturate a laser-printed image with ink, while it costs about $2 a page (including special $0.50 a page ink) to print your photos on a typical colour inkjet. My actual printing cost has been a hair under $ 0.10 a page including a good mix of text and photographs.
Judging by the listings on eBay, you will get a Color LaserJet 4500 for about $450 or so but it may not include the toner cartridges, or it may include used-up ones. You're still going to have to buy about $400 to fill it up. That seems to imply that you're not spending much more to get a brand new 3500 with brand new full-life toner cartridges. I paid $999 for my 3500N (with the networking). Since the new cartridges are $130 each just about everywhere, that means most of the value is in the cartridges, not the printer!
Looks like my six months of printing has cost me around $54 a month for around 500 pages. Not bad considering how much I've used it.
In conclusion, I've been extremely pleased by my Color LaserJet. The photos aren't perfect, but nobody who has looked at them has complained. And the text printing is, as the C|Net review says, darn near perfect. I can say that printing in colour is downright addictive and I would never want to go back to the spattery inkjet or the boring monochrome LaserJet.
Hope this helps.
D
It's the same thing as buying a used car (Score:2)
Re:It's the same thing as buying a used car (Score:1)
This is true in a car too, but the aftermarket parts supply is much more prevelant. I can think of at least 3 auto-parts stores within about a mile of my house, this doesn't count dealerships.
And speaking of dealerships, I can go into my dealership, walk to the parts counter, and tell them I have a model year X car, and I need a new widget, and they will pull up the scematic on their com
You can get a great deal... (Score:2)
But, I'd been looking off and on for a long time. Make sure you look at the cost to run, and how much expected lifetime it has left in it.
Mine has 19,000 pages printed total, and the printer is rated for 35,000 / month, so that's pretty good
But, of course, you don't get any warranty coverage or anything.
On mine, it might be the case that the alignment is off or something. I don't know if that'
LaserJet 4050N (Score:2)
Refurbished is fine (Score:3, Interesting)
I refurbish laserjets all the time.
I acquired three HP 4500n's and am very pleased with them. One was dropped and is parts only, one has minor problems and I'll get around to it one of these days, and one works great, I use it several times a week. I had to disassemble it completely and clean it up and do some minor repairs but it's great.
Only thing that scares me is what they refer to as "The consumables" and I don't mean toner..
There are a lot of user replaceable components in the 4500 that have a limited lifespan. And the price of those "consumables" is HIGH... One replacement part could cost as much as an entire used printer on ebay would cost.
Other brands may have similar practices, I don't know, I only do HP.. But be aware of it.
I also refill the toner carts myself. I have a large supply of color toner stockpiled and I'm covered for the next 20 years there..
One other thing to be aware of.
The NEW laserjets are all made in China and they are CHEAPLY MADE.. The frames are made of plastic or of very low grade Chinese steel that bends and warps very easily. They are NOT designed and built to last for years of heavy use, they are designed and built to fall apart after a year or two so you have to buy expensive parts or just buy a whole new printer.
The OLDER refurbished printers are usually made in the US with Japanese made engines are are much more sturdy, designed and built to take serious, heavy use and abuse. I have a lot of Laserjet III's and IIISI's that are in perfectly good working order and will give many more years of use because they were designed and built to last.
I'll take OLD refurbished stuff over new stuff just about everytime...
Xerox Phaser 6100 (Score:1)