[disturbed]

Guys I am thinking of buying a new printer. Now the thing is I print a lot both for myself and my small company (Direct mailing, newsletters).

I was hoping to get a printer which can both print color (will include graphics and text) and plain black text. The problem? Is mainly price.

Would a laser color be more economical? For both color and black text printing. Or would a laserjet black toner? be more economical for plain text?

Or better yet do I get a inkjet printer for my color and black text jobs?

 

[Pepsione1]

Laser is probably better. Check out the Okidata printers. They are as good as HP for far less the price.

 

[guzzler]

i read something couple of days ago you might find interesting:

Quote:

an unnamed companies (*cough* Epson *cough*) refill cartridges contain 21ml of ink, each one costs £23... this means each millilitre costs £1.24!! by comparison, top notch champagne costs around 17p per millilitre

inkjet still seem worth it?? that said, it depends how much you print, if you print a reasonable amount, laser will certainly be cheaper!

g

 

[disturbed]

Ok I've narrowed down what I want.
I just want to print a lot of black text. So laser seems like a good option ... any suggestions on which brand model?

 

[CaptBubba]

Text=laser. Injets are too damned expensive. Cockeyed.com did a thing about injet cartridges, and figured it cost about 22cents a page to print black

My family has a 9 year old HP Laserjet 4L which still functions flawlessly. If there current lasers are like the old ones, they will serve you well.

 

[minya]

I have a Brother laser printer (black only) that works wonderfully. It only cost about $200, too - and it beats the **** out of every inkjet I've ever used. I hate inkjets.

- Chris

 

[enak]

Im using the Samsung ML-1450 and have had absolutely no problems with it. It's an entry level laser, but still can produce quite a bit, i think 3000 pages per toner, and 6000 on toner save mode, its got a 500pg tray. Im pretty sure it's intended for SOHO, small business' which requires a fair amount of printing, but not enough to justify a much more expensive one.

Oh ye, this cost me $500AUD so im guessing $250-$300USD? and toner is about $200AUD so probably $100-$150USD.

So printing works out to be quite cheap

 

[wallijonn]

HPLJ1000 is going for under $200, new.

did you check the local newspapers and going out of business sales?

i have the HP6P. i hate inkjets. since this is Arizona, everything dries up - even pens left on the shelf. inkjet cartridges (especially the multi-coloured ones) are too expensive. i bought a new toner for under $90. that may seem expensive - but I have had it for over 2 years now, and it still prints fine. even if i did not print with the inkjets - i would still have to replace them because they dry up. if i buy 3 inkjets, i will have paid as much as my toner. inkjets make no sense if all you are doing is text and b/2 graphics and pics.

if i had to, i would buy a colour laser printer for $800 before i paid $300 for a colour inkjet.

 

[zoboomofo]

I've just bought a new printer with the same things in mind as you: price, price, and price

. I need to print a lot of text, and I want to have the versatility of graphics. I wanted a printer that was cheap to maintain (ie. cartridges), and fast, and of good quality. Laser printers have too narrow a use for me so I stuck with inkjet.

The Canon i550 was a great buy. The main thing about it for me was the low cost of replacement cartridges ( $0.04 Cdn per page = about 1/3 that of my old HP). Cartridges are so *******ed expensive. It would have cost me more to buy replacement ink for the HP than it did to buy the machine new.

I would like to have gone for the i850 or even the i950, but I'm broke from feeding this headphone habit

.

 

[acs236]

I've had two Brother printers that have been nothing but problems for me. I bought them because they were cheap for the price and features, but they both crapped out within two years. This is just my experience, a lot of people seem to like them.

 

[vwap]

While my printer has long since been discontinued, it was once CNet's Editor's Choice for "budget" laser printers. I've got the NEC Superscript 870... Bought it for about $300 back in the day, but it can now be found on eBay for a little under $100.

Great, fast printer.. I can't complain much about it.

 

[Pepsione1]

Yes a quality black/white laser printer will serve you well. I also have a HP LaserJet 4ML lasted me 6 years and still kicking. A good laser printer will last you a lot longer but with regular maintence. Once in a while you might need a new drum/toner, fuser, roller assembly and such. But in the end it will be all worth it.

 

[wallijonn]

Office Max has the Hp DeskJet 3320 for $39.95 this week.

Replacement inkjet cartridges will cost you more. It would be easier to buy 3 or 4 (just have friends buy them with you) and then store them away. (provided that they come with cartridges, of course, and you live where there is a lot of humidity).

 

[KJ869]

Brother 1240 has worked decently, getting HL-1250 would have solved all probles, the cartridges for borther are pretty cheap if you use the 6000 or the 20 000 pages drum.

 

[stuartr]

Quote:

Originally posted by wallijonn HP1000 is going for under $200, new.

Careful where you say that on this site -- you might inadvertantly start a British-style football stampede. As for printing text, I suggest a laser printer. As a graduate student, I print out vast quantities of documents (I think each history department in the US is responsible for rainforest destruction equal in size to, say, Uraguay). The laser jet is faster, more econmical and looks better for text than an inkjet. I have an HP 1300 and it works very well for me. It is quick, rarely jams and prints very quickly after sending the job to the queue (except for some larger PDF files like the PDF high quality articles from JSTOR). That said, the graphics printed are not spectacular, but passable. For what I use it for -- text, text, text -- it is great. SO much better than the inkjet I had. They totally rip you off with the cartridges. The only inkjet I would consider buying would be a high-quality photo printer, but I don't really have the desire to drop a couple thousand on that since I live right next to some excellent photo labs. Anyway, perhaps that helps. BTW, the 1300 is about 400 bucks I think -- I got it for 350 or so...