Laser Printers....Thoughts ??

[twich54]

My 'ole HP 8600 (ink Jet) is dying, thinking about going to a B&W Laser printer. I have no real need for color printing and I hear the per paper copy expense is much less with the Lasers.

Looking at some the Brother brands, thoughts ? other recommendations ?

 

[Robert D]

I've had a brother for about 5 years and its been great. It is color. You can just print in black and white if you want.

Only bad thing about laser printers is the high cost of the toner cartridges. I just had to replace all 4, and the cost is about the same as when you bought the whole printer. I always but OEM parts, if you buy aftermarket cartridges you could do it for much less. Im leery of the quality. Some reviews on the aftermarket parts is pretty bad. The brother cartridges are great. I get high yield too.

 

[Len44]

Also very satisfied with our Brother MFC-9130CW. We've had it far a couple of years now, first time we tried this brand. We like it -- a lot. Just completed a round of cartridge replacements for first time, and we also did the genuine Brother toner cartridges, and that was a bit pricey. But I don't think we'd ever go back to the ink-jet printers, which seemed to need replacement cartridges often.

 

[twich54]

Thanks guys, I see there are high volume offerings for toner replacement($70-80), how many copies are you getting on avg ?

 

[Robert D]

Thanks guys, I see there are high volume offerings for toner replacement($70-80), how many copies are you getting on avg ?

I dont really know, but ours lasted probably 4 years almost. We weren't using it a lot though, and its getting more use now since covid-19 has my wife working out of the house. Get the high yield replacements.

I too won't go back to ink. This is our second laser printer. Our first one broke down after about 8 to 10 years.

 

[Robert D]

This is the one I have and its been the best printer Ive ever had, Hasnt jammed once since I bought it 4 or 5 years ago.
https://www.brother-usa.com/products/hl3170cdw?ef_id=Xx@ibAAABQLYQiLB:20200826170401:s If you look at the bottom of the page they show the toner for it and you can see the prices for the regular and high yield. I think if you do the math, the high yield is more economic even though it costs more. there is a black, red, blue, and yellow. High yield gets you 2200 pages on the colored. The black gets 2500 on the regular.

You can shop the models on their site.

 

[amey01]

Whatever you get, don't forget to set aside enough budget for one of those Lush USB cables (and maybe even a Nordost Valhalla power cable if you're really serious)......otherwise you'll never get all that print quality you are paying for

You can report back what configuration on the Lush cable produces the best print quality.

 

[twich54]

Thanks Robert !

Adam, I knew I could count on you !!!

BTW, wife and I are currently watching on Netflix the series 'Wanted', seems like a take off of 'Thelma & Louise' combined with Harrison Ford's 'The Fugitive'

 

[JonFo]

Hi Dave, just here to add a shout-out to HP printers, as I've had good luck over the years with them.
This looks like a decent choice, as it has duplexing (less paper waste): HP LaserJet Pro M404dn

Note that it is the wired model, which is recommended (and cheaper) than the one with wireless. Almost all Wifi-connected printers are a pain.
And that's from experience, as I have an HP 1102W B&W wifi-connected printer and two HP 425dn color printers (wired).

 

[Nuri58]

Hmm my experience is WiFi have no more issues than hardwired having used both ever since the pc became popular. Just much more convenient. But still it does not feature the membrane of an ELS

 

[Robert D]

Hi Dave, just here to add a shout-out to HP printers, as I've had good luck over the years with them.
This looks like a decent choice, as it has duplexing (less paper waste): HP LaserJet Pro M404dn

Note that it is the wired model, which is recommended (and cheaper) than the one with wireless. Almost all Wifi-connected printers are a pain.
And that's from experience, as I have an HP 1102W B&W wifi-connected printer and two HP 425dn color printers (wired).

I agree about being wired. Mine is wired with ethernet and works well. I try to avoid wireless with everything I can.
I run ethernet to all of my audio equipment, use a switch to plug it all in.

 

[Nuri58]

Agree that wired is always the preferable choice when possible. But I have the same amount of issues the printer wired or not. Since the low bandwidth required and where it's located I prefer this wireless.

 

[Robert D]

Luckily we built this house 12 years ago and I had them put ethernet or phone jacks in many rooms. Of course now we only need one land line for the whole house because of the new phones, so i changed many of the phone jacks over to ethernet by changing them out. Not too hard to do. So ive got ethernet ports all over the house. All the wires are CAT 5 e.

Hoping to build a new ranch in the next 5 years and do a dedicated home theater in the basement. Hopefully I get everything wired right for that. Id like to get things perfect. Been learning on here that getting enough power circuits run to the home theater room is an important thing. I plan on having a place here in town take charge of the planning. I figure the walls of the room should be constructed correctly too. I have read about the construction of walls to stop vibrations and it doesnt look too complicated.

 

[twich54]

Hi Dave, just here to add a shout-out to HP printers, as I've had good luck over the years with them.
This looks like a decent choice, as it has duplexing (less paper waste): HP LaserJet Pro M404dn

Note that it is the wired model, which is recommended (and cheaper) than the one with wireless. Almost all Wifi-connected printers are a pain.
And that's from experience, as I have an HP 1102W B&W wifi-connected printer and two HP 425dn color printers (wired).

Jonathan, thanks but it's a 'printer only', from what I've read and been told the Brother offers more at a better price. i need scanner / copier capability

 

[Robert D]

Ive got a separate scanner too. Scanners are dirt cheap and I think the ones that are stand alone scanners might actually have a better image quality.

https://www.thebestscanners.com/scanner-vs-all-in-one-printer.html

 

[AuBrisbane]

Oh, NO, Twich54!!!!

Never expected to discus printing issue at Logan Martin owners forum?
And since you've asked, here is humble advice from a XEROX man of 32 years.
In today's world you would most likely find yourself using scanner more often than printer.
I presume you are after A4 laser MFD ( copy, print, scan and maybe fax) device in Black & White.
Small Home Office A4 laser B&W printers normally comes with Color Scan option, as standard.
Printing rule is simple: You pay more for printer - less you pay for toner cartridge and vice-versa.
Someone already suggested to go with high yield toner cartridges.
How long do toner cartridges last, all information provided as reference for cartridge life (2000, 3000 or 4000 pages) are calculated on 5% toner coverage on sheet of paper, so if your coverage of toner on the sheet of the paper is more than 5% you will get less sheets of paper printed before it asks for cartridge replacement.
Today's small MFD printers also comes with automatic duplex printing/copying and automatic duplex scanning, very useful options.
Xerox is most definitely biggest name in USA when printing is in question and I am sure they do provide best service support available.

Kind regards from Australia,
Zoran

 

[RCHeliGuy]

My wife has 3 of these. She rotates between 3 locations and didn't want to leave anything expensive at any of these locations. These lasers are dirt cheap. $120
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0763WDSYZ
We have been using these cheapo $17.50 replacement cartridges.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079X5PVDK
They have a quick connect by Apple or Windows laptop wifi and I think BT. So far she's had them about 18 months and they have been working well and print a LOT more per cartridge than the ink jets she used to use. They were a complete rip off.

I personally have a high large volume color networked printer in my office that I've had for years. I put a new cartridge in it about every 3 years, but it was fairly expensive.

 

[MHzTweaker]

I will NEVER buy another injet printer again. I've owned a few in the past 10 years and their fate has always been the same. They're a pain in the ass to keep running with their streaks of ink, uneven print, maintenance battles and EXPENSIVE INK!!! My last Epson Workforce printer cost me $300 and died just after a year of use. I had over $100 of new unopened ink. Now get this. I repair and service computer systems and networks for a living. I could not fix this POS printer after full disassembly and cleaning. $400 wasted!!! The Epson and Ink went to the landfill. I bought Brother HL-L8360CDW color dual tray laser printer to replace it. That was 3+ years ago. I have not had a single issue with it!!! It still has 80% of its orginal color toner and 90% on its black. For my computer repair shop, I use B&W laser printers to print invoices. A laser is by FAR a better way for me to operate.

 

[mentorron]

I have only owned InkJet printers at home. During my career, at my work and my wife's, they of course used expensive lasers. I started with Epson Inkjet printers when I bought my first computer, a Pentium 60. (You can guess when that was ;-). I found that since I used cartridges infrequently, they gelled up (as did the internal print heads) and needed extensive cleaning in the sink (a messy job). Then eventually I had problems with the mechanisms. I learned that Brother and HP placed the print heads in the cartridge, so you got new print heads every time you swapped the cartridge out. Our local retail outlet had a sale on, so I switched to an HP Deskjet F4480, the cheapest printer/scanner on sale at the time. That was in 2009. It is still running just fine after 13,607 pages (per the self-diagnostics), although the XL cartridges are a tad expensive (they've been $66.99 Cdn recently). We only print in black (documents) now, but used it initially for printing 8x10" photos on photo paper which came out really well. (P.S.: It was our cat Wilbur that figured out how to do the self-diagnosis by sitting on the printer while it was powered on ;-) ).

 

[Go2Fast]

My 'ole HP 8600 (ink Jet) is dying, thinking about going to a B&W Laser printer. I have no real need for color printing and I hear the per paper copy expense is much less with the Lasers.

Looking at some the Brother brands, thoughts ? other recommendations ?

I've had a brother 2270dw black and white printer for about 12+ years. People say toner is expensive but I get thousands of prints out a cartridge and buy generic ones to replace it. Toner doesn't dry up and when you think you are out of toner, take out the cartridge and give it a really good shake. I got another two years out of it that way. But the cartridge is only $40. At my office we like the Dell color lasers (the multi function devices).