New Printer!

[Getback]

My old printer gave up the ghost after performing admirably for 8 years. I think that is a pretty good run for an ink jet. It was a cannon s500. I'm a bit poor these days so I looked on newegg and found this, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16828102472

Well that was 90 bucks cheaper than my old printer. So I was hesitant and I wasn't necessarily looking for a all-in-one. Still though it seemed reasonable. I received it in 3 days, ordered on the 3rd and received it on the 6th (Yesterday). Hooked it and installed the software. Now for some reason, I assume because of all the features, the software took a bit of time to install. After getting all the network sharing configured I printed a test page. Now on my old printer I would hit print, go grab a cola, then come back to watch it finish. Holy cow, that test page ran through that thing in laser fashion and looked marvelous. Plus it has all those cool buttons and a mini led screen. Now I don't know what they do yet but hey it's shiny and sparkles.

[Krusty]

Inkjets are a money pit, and the companies making them earn more profits on selling refills than selling the printers themselves.

Invest in a small-end laser. Hp laserjet 1300 here. Cost about $240 (about 7 years back) but it withstood heavy use and many many reams of paper (multiple college students sharing it) and the first toner cartridge lasted over a year. Refills are a bit more expensive (say maybe $50-$60 a pop) but last 6-12 months, whereas you get an inkjet refill from 30-60 dollars a pop depending on color/BW, and you have to refill it after every 1-2 reams.

Cost effectively, much cheaper and better to save up the initial capital to buy a laser than to get an inkjet.


P.S. It prints way faster too, so for term papers and whatnot it's easier to print stuff on your way out the door.

[gyrene81]

Can't print color on that laser printer, unless you want to shell out 300-1000 on a color laser.

Inkjets are good if you're going to print photos and stuff, but for every day use, as Krusty pointed out laser is more cost effective.

[Getback]

I agree about the inkjet money pit. However, I don't print a whole lot but when I need it I need it. Frankly I don't have much money right now. This works for me.

[BaldEagl]

I print about one, maybe two reams of paper a year.  Inkjet seems pretty cost effective to me.  I end up replacing the black cartridge every two to three years... maybe longer.  Color's good for five or so.

My point is it's hard to make cost judgements in a vacume.

[Getback]

I'm looking at $20 per ink cartridge online. I've seen worse. I was thinking about getting a Dell once and they had a free inkjet printer with the deal. I looked up the cartridge costs and they were around 60 bucks a pop. Mom's printer's cartridges were/are about 36 bucks. So not so bad.

[Tigger29]

Assuming you don't need color printing (most people don't) and if you don't print a whole lot, then keep your eyes open for the Brother HL-2140 laser printer.  It can often be found brand new for $50-60 with free shipping (Newegg loves to do this every once in a while) and it truly is a great printer.

My problem with inkjets is that the cartridges seem to dry up after several weeks of non-use, but since laser printers use dry 'toner' then this isn't an issue.  Also the toner cartridge that comes with this printer is good for 500-1000 pages, and if you need to buy a new one you can get a high capacity one for about $40 which will print about 3000-4000 pages.  I don't know about you, but that sets me up for a long time.

[cattb]

I use a refill kit from Office Depot, so far so good and saves money. The refill kit is not messy, no rubber gloves, I refill in a safe location just in case something does happen. Need to make sure to refill before the cartridge runs out and dries up.

I have a Canon MP470 thats 3 years old that replaced my aging HP 612.

[gyrene81]

My problem with inkjets is that the cartridges seem to dry up after several weeks of non-use, but since laser printers use dry 'toner' then this isn't an issue.  Also the toner cartridge that comes with this printer is good for 500-1000 pages, and if you need to buy a new one you can get a high capacity one for about $40 which will print about 3000-4000 pages.  I don't know about you, but that sets me up for a long time.

The older cartridges used to dry up pretty bad unless you used the printer more than once a week. Even then the print heads would gum up. I think Epson, Brother and Lexmark had the worst record for that, but HP was close behind, especially in their econo "free with purchase" units. I bought a new HP C-4599 all-in-one inkjet for the wife last year from BestBuy, and it's almost as fast as my big HP laser printer. We use the laser printer for everyday printing and the inkjet for scanning and printing photos.

As far as cost, the inkjet cartridges are $32 for brand new full black and color and yields about 160 pages in full color max settings. The laser toner is $100 for brand new standard capacity and yeilds about ~5000 pages in black and white. Refills do not ever print the same number of pages as new.

[TequilaChaser]

regarding printers and people's reviews or opinions...... TC's thoughts on the matter......

I would agree that

there is good, average and bad economy type printers, ( both ink jet, thermal ink jet & Lazer models whether they are b&w or color)

there is good, average and bad mid-line everyday type printers, ( both ink jet, thermal ink jet & Lazer models whether they are b&w or color)

there is good, average and bad top-line everyday type printers, ( both ink jet, thermal ink jet & Lazer models whether they are b&w or color)

there is good, average and bad Business Class everyday type printers, ( both ink jet, thermal ink jet & Lazer models whether they are b&w or color)

regardless if they are for home use, home office, business office , corporate etc.....

I started out with epson & brother type printers and a sheet fed brother fax ( wait I had an old Dot Matrix to begin with ), these worked 1/2 way ok , then I moved on to HP printers..I have trashed/dumpsterfied at least 6 to 8  of these crapola printers including (2) b&w office laser printers....then I switched to Canon with the bublejet/ink jet variety and trashed 2 of these as well....

now for the last 6 years I have used a Business edition Lexmark X7170 for my home office, that in some places gets very bad reviews, while in other places it gets very high reviews...while in others it is a mix between 5 star and 0 star reviews....... but this Thermal Ink Jet color printer/color copier/4800 dpi scanner/colored fax with stand alone fax capability and 33.6 modem and the ability to work on a server network, print pictures from pictbridge or other USB hook ups.........has yet to fail me.... I make sure I maintenance it every 2 to 4 weeks..... it has a 5000 page monthly duty cycle..... while having an office depot discount card and being a member of the Lexmark community, I get very nice discounts for my ink cartridges..... going thru about 1 color and 2 black cartridges a year ( can make ink last longer if I print using the "draft" setting )( I make sure to buy the High Yield cartridges, those 1/2 yield types is just throwing away your money )

It is all in how a person cares for their specific printer, how they use it, keep drivers up todate, "CLEAN the Heads", clean the Printer, maybe even uses a Printer Dust Cover when not in use???

I would say my worst printer experiences coming from an office environment would have to be the HP's ( both ink jet & Lazer ) with 2nd worst going to Canon...... those early epsons & brothers were not that bad starting out... and the old Dot Matrix printer.well it lasted forever....

knowing that my specific printer having both some of the best as well as the worst review ratings....... I believe it is all in what a person wants in a printer or in a AIO.....

funny thing was, just checking the internet now on the cost of my "Out of production/out of date" Lexmark, the thing is still selling "NEW" in places for over $200+ dollars...... think I paid nearly $480 for mine, 6+ years ago...... so if it was so crappy why is it still being sold, and sold for so much???

now....... my Plotter, that thing is an expensive one purpose only type of printer and the toner for it is outrageously expensive..... but I am not in to printing blue prints anymore... so I don't have to worry about that anymore these days......

our Office printer we used back when I was in Florida cost over $60 grand and could do everything from printing  all sides, folding , stapling brochures, magazines, make post cards, make leaflets, print reduced sized blue prints ( 24" x 36" )..... ad infinium.... we ran off over 50,000 prints every month....... and it was costing something like 14 cents to 32 cents for every print or copy it made ( depending on the size of the copy/print )


I would hate to have to foot that printing bill.......   

sorry if I bored any of you.....

[Getback]

I wasn't board TQ.

In my studying for the cpa exam you cannot imagine how many times they use office equipment as examples of leasing/depreciation etc. and believe it or not they use the 60k plus figures quite a bit. So your post added some reality to those questions.

I paid 60 bucks for mine and so far it has been an excellent experience. Used the scanner the other day. It came out beautiful. Scanned a picture of my 3 year old great niece and sent it to my brother.

[Fulmar]

Inkjets are a money pit, and the companies making them earn more profits on selling refills than selling the printers themselves.

Invest in a small-end laser. Hp laserjet 1300 here. Cost about $240 (about 7 years back) but it withstood heavy use and many many reams of paper (multiple college students sharing it) and the first toner cartridge lasted over a year. Refills are a bit more expensive (say maybe $50-$60 a pop) but last 6-12 months, whereas you get an inkjet refill from 30-60 dollars a pop depending on color/BW, and you have to refill it after every 1-2 reams.

Cost effectively, much cheaper and better to save up the initial capital to buy a laser than to get an inkjet.


P.S. It prints way faster too, so for term papers and whatnot it's easier to print stuff on your way out the door.

IMO, I'm with Krusty on this.  When I've need color in the past, depending on what it was, I always took it somewhere.  Usually took me a while to find a place I found I liked their service and quality, but its a lot less headaches I think.

To be honest, unless you have some heavy needs for color printing as it was part of your daily job, you'd more than likely shell out some big bucks for a fine color printer, either laser or inkjet.

When I was a sophmore in college about 7 years ago I bought a Samsung laser printer for about $150.  I printed quote a few term paper etc on it and got almost 2 years out of the starter toner.  Replaced the toner once and it finally pooped after it failed to feed papers by itself (very annoying at the end).

Bought a Newegg Special on a Brother HL-2070N for $93 after shipping.  Another laser that offered a little better specs, more compact and had a LAN port.  I thought for that money it was worth the gamble.  Been very happen with it for the last 4 years.  Just replaced the starter toner after about 3 years.  Hadn't really printed quite as much as I did in college but my wife uses it a big.

I haven't had an inkjet in years and I can remember some doosies.  At least on the low end.  Do they still do the "No USB cable" trick in their packaging?  From friends and family I know, I can hands down say that I do more printing than they do and I've guarantee they've flush more money away in ink than I have in the last two toners I bought (about $120 total).

Consumer reports just did a article this month on home printers, here's the jiff....recommendations were really across the board for them on brands etc.  But most all in ones at least will get you from 4-8 ppm on text and about 3-8 cents per page.  The two lasers they did, both Brother models (also both got recommended) will do about 13.6 to 16.7 ppm and run about 1.3 to 1.5 cents per page. 

The Brother HL-2170W would be my pick.  $140, I've seen Newegg specials on this for sub $100.  Wifi connectivity.  My current one is LAN, but a network printer is so much easier in a multi computer household.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16828113291&cm_re=hl-2170w-_-28-113-291-_-Product

[Tigger29]

The Brother HL-2170W would be my pick.  $140, I've seen Newegg specials on this for sub $100.  Wifi connectivity.  My current one is LAN, but a network printer is so much easier in a multi computer household.  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16828113291&cm_re=hl-2170w-_-28-113-291-_-Product

Newegg very often has a $50-60 special on the Brother 2140.  I just got mine a few weeks ago for $62 with shipping (brand new) and my dad got his about a year ago for $49.99 with free shipping from newegg (also new).  We've used one at work almost nonstop for the last several months with no issues whatsoever.  They come with a starter toner cartridge, but if you use it all up, you can get a high yield cartridge for $40 or so which holds about 3-4 times the toner.

The 2140 is nearly identical to the 2170W, except uses a USB cable to connect and doesn't have a network port or wireless connectivity.  If those are necessary, you need to look for the 2170w for about $90-100 on sale.