Ask Slashdot: Do You Print Too Little? 216
shanen writes: How many of you don't print much these days? What is the best solution to only printing a few pages every once in a while? Here are some dimensions of the problem...
Inexpensive printers: The cost of new printers is quite low, but how long can the printer sit there without printing before it dies? Lexmark and HP used to offer an expensive solution with integrated ink cartridges that also included new print heads, but... Should I just buy a cheap Canon or Epson and plan to throw it away in a couple of years, probably after printing less than a 100 pages?
Printing services: They're mostly focused on photos, but there are companies where you can take your data for printing. My main concerns here are actually with the costs and the tweaks. Each print is expensive because you are covering their overhead way beyond the cost of the printing itself. Also, most of the time my first print or three isn't exactly what I want. It rarely comes out perfectly on paper the first time.
Social printing: For example, are any of you sharing one printer with your neighbors via Wi-Fi? Do you just sneak a bit of personal printing onto a printer at your office? Do you travel across town to borrow your brother-in-law's printer?
Inexpensive printers: The cost of new printers is quite low, but how long can the printer sit there without printing before it dies? Lexmark and HP used to offer an expensive solution with integrated ink cartridges that also included new print heads, but... Should I just buy a cheap Canon or Epson and plan to throw it away in a couple of years, probably after printing less than a 100 pages?
Printing services: They're mostly focused on photos, but there are companies where you can take your data for printing. My main concerns here are actually with the costs and the tweaks. Each print is expensive because you are covering their overhead way beyond the cost of the printing itself. Also, most of the time my first print or three isn't exactly what I want. It rarely comes out perfectly on paper the first time.
Social printing: For example, are any of you sharing one printer with your neighbors via Wi-Fi? Do you just sneak a bit of personal printing onto a printer at your office? Do you travel across town to borrow your brother-in-law's printer?
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Re:What is the solution to printing rarely? (Score:5, Insightful)
and it's useable even 10 years later.
And that's not even just the hardware if you make sure it speaks an industry-standard language like PCL. No worries of the OS dropping support when it's a 5 years old.
Re:What is the solution to printing rarely? (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly this. I manage a business that has a whole fleet of HP LaserJet 2100 printers manufactured between 1998 and 1999. There is still 100% fully supported drivers by HP For Windows 10 in both 32bit and 64bit environments. All of the printers were upgraded with the optional JetDirect network card ($10 or less on eBay usually), so they just connect to the network and just WORK. The toner cartridge and print head are one in the same, so replacing toner is basically replacing the majority of the components within the printer.
Re: What is the solution to printing rarely? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm surprised nobody in China (or even the US, since we're STILL pretty competitive for low-volume manufacturing) has started cranking out laser printers with copies of the 1990s-era LaserJet print engine. The patents have all expired, printing technology has gone basically nowhere in 20 years, and old LaserJet consumables are basically commodities by now. The HOME market for printers like this might be small, but small & medium-sized businesses (especially those who print a LOT) and schools would LOVE printers that cost a few hundred bucks, but had almost zero consumables cost.
Worst-case, they'd have to get ISO to codify the consumables for the print engine & give a non-Trademarked name to PCL or PostScript, so they could advertise their standard-compliance without risking a lawsuit for Trademark-infringement.
They could probably even start by giving the printer a "dumb" framebuffer, then do all the rendering/rasterization logic & printserver in a RasPi. So you'd buy the USB-interfaced dumb-framebuffer printer, and pair it with your own Pi-based printserver running GhostScript.
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that last bit is a total non-starter.
No one is going to make a RasPi science fair project into a shipping product.
That said, the rest of your post is spot on.
reuse the older print tech for the LJ2100 or even the LJ4000 (I *think* that one is out of patent, not sure). Produce the printer for $200-$300 and make the consumables en masse. I think that HPGL is open, and likely a PS implementation would be pretty dang cheap.
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I picked up my Brothers Laser printer for just over $100 brand new for school. I've printed over 200 pages on the original toner and it looks to still be going strong. It does copies, scans, and has WiFi and LAN support. Unlike HP it's always just worked for printing and never required a coin flip over whether or not I'll have to reinstall the drivers (granted that was their OfficeJet ink printers). What are you adding to it that costs another $100-$200?
My friend has the previous generation of the same p
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That's like a day in the life of an office LJ4000. GP poster did say the home market would be limited, but there's still a strong market for workgroup printers.
And those old laserjets don't really have any driver issues like other posters have mentioned. They aren't some crappy $79 special home inkjet printers.
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The problem is a print engine consists of two pieces - there's the mechanical bits that handle the paper and the drum and the other little things involve
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Re: What is the solution to printing rarely? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm surprised nobody in China (or even the US, since we're STILL pretty competitive for low-volume manufacturing) has started cranking out laser printers with copies of the 1990s-era LaserJet print engine.
Yeah... those things never actually die, as far as I can tell. I used to work for a school that had some HP LJ 6MPs in the lab. By the time I got there, they'd already done 17 squillion pages, but were perfectly fine - just slow. The slowness led to them getting replaced (in about 2004), at which time I offered to buy one to take home. They said "just take it." I still have it, and it works perfectly, with the same toner cartridge that was in there when it was retired from the lab at school. It will still be printing come doomsday.
Only problems I've ever had with it are that it only has a parallel port, which is getting really damn inconvenient to deal with, and it's short on memory, which leads to the occasional inability to print something.
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Only problems I've ever had with it are that it only has a parallel port, which is getting really damn inconvenient to deal with, and it's short on memory, which leads to the occasional inability to print something.
I had a Borther knock-off that had similar issues (combined with a 50MHz MIPS processor, which made page rendering very slow. It was a lot faster if you printed PCL than PostScript (though not always very fast, for complex PCL). I eventually solved both problems by connecting it to an old machine to act as a print server and configuring lpd to turn everything submitted into simple pre-rasterised PCL. These days, a cheap SBC with a USB to parallel adaptor would be able to do the same thing for a much lowe
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I'm surprised nobody in China (or even the US, since we're STILL pretty competitive for low-volume manufacturing) has started cranking out laser printers with copies of the 1990s-era LaserJet print engine.
I do't think there'd be any point. The thing is those printers were EXPENSIVE.
You can buy a more expensive printer today and get excellent performance and reliability. I went through several cheap printers and almost abandoned printers in disgust.
No affiliation except for a happy customer: I scoured review
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Not really. A $10 raspberry pi zero W runs Ghostscript just fine.
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Wait. When did laser printers start using a print head?
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The "drum" if that makes you happy - the part that touches the paper and wears out or gets fouled.
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Same too, i print occasionally and use a laserjet 4100 bought on ebay with a full toner cartridge for less than what a single new toner costs.
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I was going to say all the same things, but I guess just "me too" will suffice.
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Re:What is the solution to printing rarely? (Score:4, Interesting)
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My first laser was a xerox. I finally tossed it when I couldn't get it to play nice with a USB to parallel port converter. Bought it in 96? Never had a single issue, no matter how much or little I printed, nor how long between prints.
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This is what I thought. Unfortunately after five years of sitting around the one of the colours stopped working completely, the other three printed with a lot of specks (HP Laserjet Color PC1515n). Now, after another five years of not using it I can either buy new cartridges (refill won't do because apparently the drums have suffered from all the accumulated dust) or I can buy a new printer.
So while a laser printer is certainly better than a inkjet for this use case, it is not nearly as perfect as you think
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if it's not going to be used for that long between prints then a dust cover is a must.
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I have an HP LJ 4L printer which I bought new in 1992. I put a new cartridge in it ($10) every year or two and it just keeps printing as good as the day it was new.
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I have an HP LJ 4L printer which I bought new in 1992. I put a new cartridge in it ($10) every year or two and it just keeps printing as good as the day it was new.
The entire range of Laserjet 4 printers from HP was awesome. I used to "repair" them back in the day when printers weren't considered to be below my paygrade, and that pretty much consisted of fuser and pickup roller replacements.
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Agreed; and he said LASER Printer. Not Laserjet nor inkjet wannabes.
We're talking laser here, newbies. As in
Bond: Do you expect me to talk?
Goldfinger: No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!
*THAT* kind of "up-his-crown jewels" death ray laser.
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Not Laserjet nor inkjet wannabes.
"Laserjet" [wikipedia.org] is HP's brand name for laser printers. I don't know where you got the idea it was otherwise. And any one of those with mostly square corners in its case ought to be a workhorse.
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Same here. Laser (or rather usually LED these days) is the solution. Reliable, fast and does not mind sitting idle or off for long periods of time.
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Depends on how often you print. Personally, I print so little that it's not worth even dedicating storage space to personally owning one.
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Spend the extra few bucks on a laser.
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Note that if it sits too long without printing (years), the drum in the toner cartridge exposed to the toner will change and you can end up with faint horizontal banding as well as darker vertical streaks. This has happened to my Xerox XP12, but would be solved by purchasing a new cartridge, rather than sticking with the one I have/using toner refill kits on such a low-use device.
Frankly though, walking to the UPS store is less of a hassle.
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Mod parent up. I've had an HP LaserJet 6p for a decade now, and it was used for who knows how long when I got it. I've put one toner cartridge for it in that time and it just works.
I would have paid for the full retail cost of this printer at three times over in ink cartridges in that same time period.
If you don't use an inkjet a lot the cartridges rot. Laser printer master race.
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Laser printers, even color ones, are cheap enough these days for anyone who needs good professional output without having to go through the inkjet cycle of cursing/running the Clean utility/cursing/running the Deep Clean utility every time you want a few pages.
If your needs are more plebeian and monochrome only and you don't mind Snapfishing all your photos, there's the HP 1102W. It even supports Apple AirPrint. The only downside for this application is that occasional pages randomly take fifteen minutes of
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Yes, if you must have a printer, its laser printer FTW.
One of the alleged features of my old Epson inkjet printers was 6 individual ink cartridges. In theory, you only replace the colors you need. In reality, even if you never print anything other than plain black text, your color cartridges will still go empty because, guess what, all colors mixed together equals black.
Usually you can go into the printer driver and tick "B&W Only" and the printer will just use the black cartridge. However I'm also a proud B&W laser printer owner.
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My recent AIO Samsung color laser was $700 on sale (normally $1k).
Full CMYK toner refresh was $450. I print 20mm dungeon tiles often and get pretty decent output counts per toner refill.
Bit steep for a home user to be sure, but it is also a scanner (which I use way more often than I print) and a fax (a what now?)
For a SOHO it's a slam dunk.
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B&W Laser (Score:3)
If you only print once or twice a month, the printhead will dry out. And buying anything with printheads built into the cartridge will still cost almost as much to resolve when dried out as a new printer. Go for a black and white laser. Printing services for anything else.
I print just enough with my inkjet to be OK.
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B&W laser for most printing, and anything that needs to be colour send it out to be printed.
Second this (Score:2)
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I have been using Brother workgroup printers for years. I will go long times without printing, and then print 60 page double sided docs. The printers are relatively cheap - and fast. And they are cheap to run. My current version eats full reams of paper. Even the Brother cartridges work out to about $.01 per side of print, and the no-name cartridges are far cheaper.
Laser printers can sit a long time (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, inkjet printers are fantastic for some purposes--but they are rather expensive to maintain.
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I think this is the best summary I've seen of the overall discussion. Or at least it seems to capture my sense of the reading (halfway so far, but I'm continuing). The main thing I'd add is that I'm still a bit concerned about how a laser printer will handle thicker paper, such as business card stock. (If I ever got a mod point, I'd mod you [Megane (eyeglasses in Japanese?)] up.
I read part of the discussion before leaving this morning, and stopped by an electronics store on my way home. They did have two lo
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What about in colors? ;)
Laser, all the way (Score:3)
Seriously, just get a cheap laser printer, throw it in a corner somewhere, and don't worry about it. They even make small cheap ones.
Ink jets dry out over time, and the ink costs more than the printer itself.
Laser toner basically lasts forever, and can print far more pages. As a bonus, its easier to find laser printers with longer-lived interface protocols.
Why buy? (Score:5, Funny)
That's what the office printer is for.
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That's what the office printer is for.
I agree, if you're the kind of person who really prints so rarely your ink printer is clogged up every time then I'd say any boss that doesn't let you do that is a fool. If you have an absolute zero tolerance policy on using any company equipment for any non-job related duty whatsoever you're probably pissing away tenfold in productivity trying to save a few cents here and there. I mean I have heard rumors of places where office supply theft is rampant, but every time I think like "Your employees are malcon
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Some companies explicitly allow personal printing. It's environmentally responsible, as it means fewer printers and wasted ink/toner.
laser is what (Score:2)
Get laser, toner does not have this problem.
i got a b/w laser printer for $30 on sale once.
for about $150 - 250 you can get a color laser.
the ink savings alone are worth it.
No I print just the right amount (Score:2)
My solution (Score:2)
I had this problem, not printing enough. I scan more often than printing. After the last in a series of color HP inkjet printers died, I had enough. Enough of the exorbitant ink prices, "expiring" cartridges, clogged printheads, inability to print in black if some stupid "light cyan" is too low, having to clear error messages all the time about the ink is too old or too low or whatever....
I bought a multifunction Brother MFC-L2740DW and have not looked back. Laser printer, black and white. It just work
Inactivity ink waste (Score:2)
Inexpensive printers: The cost of new printers is quite low, but how long can the printer sit there without printing before it dies? Most every inkjet printer has a function which will flush a little ink to keep the head from clogging when not used regularly. You just must remember to not leave it powered off accidentally. According to tests Lexmark and HP use up quite a bit of ink for this process. Brother printers wasted the least ink during periods of inactivity
Yup I print too little... (Score:2)
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My joke along these lines was that there hasn't been a good printer since Benjamin Franklin died. Today's printers are spawn of Satan and only exist to mangle as much paper as you can feed them.
Having said that, there seems to be a strong consensus in the discussion in favor of a laser printer. I didn't mention that I definitely want color, and I should also have mentioned that I print on various kinds and sizes of paper, but the overall discussion has definitely convinced me to take a close look at the cur
Buy a cheap B&W laser (Score:2)
I bought an HP LaserJet P1102w mid-2014, which sits on my desk and is rarely ever used, for about $150
I just went to see how much it cost today and they've doubled in price. I wonder if it's because sales volume have dropped so much?
Anyway with the laser it's a powder not a liquid like inkjet so it doesn't dry out over time if left unused.
I've replace the toner once in the time I've had it (which was roughly 3/4 the cost of the printer itself)
I'm struggling to remember what I use it for. Mostly things my ki
The office (Score:2)
I print about 3 or 4 pages a year, in a big year. Not worth owning a printer. In an emergency, I'll go to FedEx.
Linux Supported Laser Models? (Score:2)
I am running Linux Mint 17.2 (i.e. the lastest), anyone know if there are driver problems with these cheap laser printers?
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Running both Ubuntu 16.04 and Mageia 5. Zero problems with my Brother HL-2270DW
Why not do both? (Score:2)
Get a small mono laser printer for the occasional job at home. I'm not sure why the submitter seems to have forgotten that these exist--the "drying out" problem is unique to inkjets. There are several lasers under $100 USD (e.g., the Brother HL-L2300D) and even the starter toner will probably last years if you print so infrequently. (Though I'd probably opt for an MFD myself so I can get a scanner, too--comes in handy.)
Then, if you do want to print photos or fancy color, etc., use a service. Maybe even test
Last printed something (Score:2)
About 2 years ago. I went to the library with a memory stick. Cost about $,.50 for all my printing needs.
Back in the day, paper was cheaper than storage, Now I just copy things to my phone or tablet or laptop I don't use paper unless I'm starting a fire...
Brother Laser printer (Score:2)
I have the HL-L2300D or whatever the equivalent was from 8 years ago. I've run ~1500 pages of boarding passes, tickets, tax forms and whatnot through it. haul it out of the closet, plug it in to any computer, and it will have drivers, it will print what you want and not bother you.
I suspect it will last forever. Oh, and it was $45 when I bought it. keep an eye out for sales.
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I second the Brother laser printer.
I bought one. It had the lowest specs for the highest price in the class.
It's uncanny, though. Every time I tell it to print, it prints. No problems ever. This is an experience that I find kind of creepy becaue it seems so unusual.
But seriously, get a PS Brother laser printer. And don't cheap out, it's not worth it. The thing that swung me was the lack of negative reviews. No one ever seemed to complain that Brother's break.
Brother laser printers (Score:2)
I got one of these
https://www.which.co.uk/review... [which.co.uk]
It's a laser so the it doesn't have the problem of the ink drying out like my old HP multifunction color inkjet. It prints and scans with my Windows 7 machine, my Mac and my Android devices. The toner cartridges are cheap and last 1000 pages.
The only downside is that, unlike my old HP inkjet it doesn't do color. But, realistically, how many times do you need that? And if I did I could get printed somewhere else.
Basically don't buy an inkjet - they cost a fo
Dot matrix all the way (Score:5, Interesting)
My dad has a side business, and he uses a dot matrix printer for the invoices. He's been using the same printer for over 25 years, and I believe he's on his second printer ribbon. The printing isn't very dark, but it's perfectly readable.
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Oddly enough, the purchase price on a dot-matrix like the classic Okidata 320 is likely to be higher than a cheapo monochrome laser printer. If you keep it long enough, the dot-matrix might be cheaper to run overall. For minimum hassle with connectivity, drivers, etc I'd go with the cheap laser.
For very infrequent usage, inkjets are a non-starter.
UPS Store. Kinkos. Etc. (Score:2)
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Yup, this is the perfect solution for "low volume" I've done this for a "few" books.
Also, _why_ print when I have a 3840 x 2160 monitor in Portrait mode for reading (PDFs) ?
I only do hard-copy for the really important stuff.
toner (Score:2)
e waste (Score:2, Insightful)
e waste i.e. throw away printers, monitor and the like end up in dumps in Asia where people melt them down for gold and poison themselves. Just create a cron job or calendar event remind you to 'exercise' your printer once a month. I have three and use one on a regular basis. The other two are an office application, scanner, fax copier, and color printer and one that prints well on CD and DVDs. I exercise them also.
$2/page (Score:3, Informative)
If you're spending $200 on a printer every couple of years, and only printing 100 or so pages during its lifetime, that's $2/page. Kinkos is probably looking like a cheaper alternative.
Laser printer (Score:2)
As others have pointed out, inkjet printers have issues with infrequent use. Laser printer toner doesn't have this problem.
Laser printers are also a lot faster. When you are in a hurry, the inkjet printers are way too slow. You don't have to worry about moisture causing your printouts to run. It's great for UPS labels, concert tickets, and boarding passes.
When pricing printers, remember to look at the cost of replacing ink/toner cartridges.
No need for a printer (Score:2)
Anything I need I can either photo with my phone and send or get printed at FedEx Office from Washington State to New York to Florida to Southern California. A printer is a waste of money and space, unless you are a business.
According to Betteridge, the answer is no. (Score:2)
n/t
I use Staples (Score:2)
It's within walking distance of my place, costs $0.13 cents a page to print black and white. A printer would be more than $100, so that's about 700 pages before it ceases to be cost effective. I print less than 100 pages a year. If I bought a printer it would take 7 years to recoup my investment. Not including paper and ink costs.
If I ever have to print more than 100 pages at one time, then I would buy a printer. But as long as I am printing on average 20 pages a month, I use staples.
buy an old laser printer (Score:2)
I currently have a laserjet 4050 and print 5 or less pages a day. I haven't changed the toner since at least 2010.
None (Score:2)
Social printing:
Printing services:
I involves getting up from the couch and putting something on other than underwear, so no.
Inexpensive printers:
Get a refurbished iPad (if you haven't one already) and print to a PDF.
This is the 3. millennium after all.
Colour laser printer ftw (Score:2)
A few years ago I bought a colour laser network Brother printer.
Prints good
Hasn't broken down
No ink to dry out
Cheap printer
Cheap toner
Full-duplex printing
Builtin network
Drivers for windows, mac, linux. Apparently it works on Android and iPhones too.
Toner/wax printer (Score:2)
These days there are plenty of options. There are "laser" printers (these days it's just LED) and there are a few Xerox wax printers. They run forever, have really cheap toner ($20/5000 pages for off-brand cartridges), often networked and really high quality prints both in text and photos. For the occasion you still want a printed photo, go to your local Walmart or any number of online printing services.
All-in-all though, I don't print very much anymore. I print perhaps some coloring pages for the kids and
A couple times a year (Score:2)
I need to print something a couple of times a year. What I do is email the document to my local copy shop, then pick it up at my convenience.
Paper-feed rubber rollers fail (Score:2)
I only print (Score:2)
Print Daily (Score:2)
Since I sell a lot of stuff on Etsy and eBay (2017 has been a great year for sales of various collectibles and other miscellany I deal in), I print stuff daily, except usually on the weekends when I let sales accumulate and then do my packaging and shipping on Monday. I use a networked HP LaserJet 4100 that my little brother gave me (along with enough refilled toner cartridges to last me a lifetime. I think I have only had to replace the cartridge once during the past decade I have had the printer...At le
Ask your friends. (Score:2)
I haven't bought a printer in forever, I think the last one I bought was in the early '90s. I have been handed dozens over the years, I've managed to give most of them away, but I've still got quite a few. Ask around, somebody you know probably has a stack of color lasers. I know I do.
Every time I've tried to talk somebody into taking one lately, they've turned down a free printer. And we're not talking junk, the inkjets go straight to recycling, I don't even bother. Brother MFC-9840s, HP 4000s, that s
I too use a laser printer (Score:2)
That's what the shirt says (Score:2)
Thanx and a tip of the hat. In conclusion... (Score:3)
Very enlightening discussion. Basically I had ignored the laser printer option because I thought the upfront cost was too high and also wanted the option to print photos.
Wait, I almost never print a photo, but just send the link. Given that the low-end laser printers are so low, now I'm pretty sure I can find a really good value on a laser printer if I keep my eyes open for a few months... No rush that I know of.
Minor concerns do remain. WiFi printing from Windows 10, Mac OS, and Linux was not mentioned much. Also, not sure how much I should worry about the cartridge refill costs and long-term availability.
However, all in all there was a lot of useful information and many interesting testimonials here. My thanks to all the contributors, for what little that's worth. Gratitude and a couple of bucks can still get you a cup of coffee?
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An Epson MX-80 is what he wants - the ribbons take years to dry out.
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I'd give you the funny mod if I ever got a mod point. However, my first printer beats your Epson MX-80. I can't remember the brand name, but it was a dot-matrix thermal paper printer.
My second or third printer was a Brother with two daisy wheels. One was for the italic font, and I think it was so fancy as to have a red ribbon for two colors, too. Good experience with that one, but my second Brother printer (after a long gap filled with various other printers) was a huge disappointment. This discussion has m
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I bought a $200 color laser almost a decade ago. Most of what I do is black-and-white, shipping labels and such (bonus: toner doesn't smear when it gets damp), but it's also great for occasional flyers, reference charts, and other items that benefit from color. I've replaced the black cartridge once, I'm on the original CMY cartridges, and it's just a quiet little box that sits in the corner, unplugged until I need it to reduce standby power consumption.
The drivers situation is a little stupid, given that i
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United States, too. At home I just opted for an old, HP Laserjet 2300n and I expect it to outlive me. Whenever I travel, or am visiting my parents, I just go to the library with a USB drive and print.
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Except this is an article about people who don't print enough to stop an inkjet printer from drying out.
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Those HP beasts are real workhorses. Got enough refilled toner cartridges for mine to last the rest of my life (unless I meet my objective of at least 108 so I can say I experienced both the U.S. Bicentennial and Tricentennial)