Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Color Laser Printer Advice

I have ink all over me, the counter, a couple bowls and my desk. I've had it with the damn disposable HP ink jet printers. I swear they're nothing but a scam. The ink cartridges cost more than the printer, and OH-NO, they just can't use the same damn cartridges from year to year.... So now I have a shoe box filled with a multitude of HP ink cartridges... ggrrrrr

Rant over... I think I need to just suck it up and buy a laser printer. I have absolutely no idea which one to get.

I have a scanner/fax/copier already... And yes, it's another cheap assed HP POS. And of course, none of the ink cartridges I have in the shoe box fit it.... OK, so maybe I'm not done ranting...

Any advise would be most appreciated.

Cannon ML-2010
Bought new $80 few years ago. 3000 pages per toner cartridge. New cartridge 80$.

Not sure what the modern equivalent is.

Highly recommend changing to laser printer. I dont miss color prints. Saves me lots of $. Know what you mean about the color printers. Had and epson and HP in the closet collecting dust, cause it was cheaper to buy a new one than get new ink refills..... never going back.

I bought this Brother HL-2270DW a while back, also around $80 at the time of purchase, and it's been serving me well. I figure if I ever want color prints, I'll get them done somewhere. The need hasn't arisen yet.

I keep a spare high-yield cartridge, and after needing to swap one out, I just wait until the price drops to below $40 and snag one. Not saving a ton, since it usually overs around $45, like right now, but hey, $5 is $5.

Oh, and I suppose you actually want a color laser printer, so I wasn't very helpful.

LOL... Ya, I would like a color printer. I was surfing Amazon, and they have really came down in price. I was thinking I'd have to spend a grand, but there's a bunch for under $300. I also found a fairly recent review. http://www.ezvid.com/toptencolorlaserprinters

The #1 is an HP 200. $200

I'll wait a couple days to see if anyone has any input before ordering one.

We have Xerox at the office and they perform very well.

Mike, in the December issue of Consumer Reports 91 printers were tested and 39 are shown as recommended. In the color "laser" category the Dell C1660w was top ranked. Laser was put in quotes because LED lit units such as the Dell have no laser but operate on a very similar principle and are typically grouped with them. The LED units are similar in performance but are simpler mechanically, which may result in better reliability. Dell discusses the differences here .

The C1660w is available at low cost from several sources such as here

Any problems with the toner cartridges for a laser printer having issues from long periods of no use, like the ink jets cartridges? I'm thinking not because if they are like thier industrial counterparts, the toner is a powder vs. a liquid, but I've never looked into it.

I haven't used my home ink-jet in years because I got tired of having to throw out expensive color cartridges that were still 1/2 to 3/4 full.

Logically, I obviously just don't need color. But if I didn't waste cartridges, it's nice to have, now and then.

Thanks for the info on the Dell John. Interesting to hear about LED. I had taken Dell off my list because they were not laser. I better reconsider.

Murph I don't think there is am many issues with toners as ink cartridges. All the laser printers at work just go and go...

Thanks Michael.
Although it is the "lack of go" that I find creates the problem. If your not using them, the cartridges gum up over time. You can clean & correct it early on but if you leave them long enough with zero usage, it seems to harden up in deep enough that you throw out a cartridge that still has lots of ink left in it. This would likely never happen in a work environment where it is being used regularly.

I probably could have Googled the answer to this in the time it took to write the post but I suspect the powder toner of the laser printer verses liquid ink allows it to last much longer without clogging.

An interesting wiki note when I looked up the above during coffee.

"Each brand new toner cartridge requires the burning of over 2 quarts of petroleum in the manufacturing process. "

Cool!!!! I need to support the industry that I work in.

Hilarious.

Update: I ended up buying a Samsung C460FW. It's an all in one jobber. http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-SL-C460FW-...=Samsung+C460FW

So far, I'm pretty impressed. Both b/w and color prints look excellent. It's fast, easy to set up and no messy ink. Time will tell if it develops an attitude, or how long the toners last.

Well if the description on the Amazon site is accurate, i would say you are going to hate the longevity of the toners:

Polymerized Toner for enhanced professional printout with up to 19 pages in in Black & 4 pages in Color


On a related note, i sold our Canon ink jet on eBay recently.
http://www.canon.ca/inetCA/products?m=gp&pid=1174
I loved the quality. I hated the massive ink depletion and by ridiculous, i mean outright stupid.
I never used the printer more than three times in 3 months. Bought it, got inks, set it up, ran a test page. After that, the next time i used it, i printed off a one page recipe in greyscale to save on colour. After that page, i noticed the inks were down about 1/4. In another two weeks i printed off two B&W pages for the spouse. The inks had dropped to 1/3.
The next month i printed off another recipe, again in greyscale, the inks were at 1/2.
I used the printer at this rate, for two years, once a month or less printing all B&W pages because i was seeing these ink tanks drain. Quite obviously the pre-printing clean procedure coded in the Canon was sucking the life out of the cartridges and there isn't a damn thing i can do about that.
I bought 2 sets of inks replacements in two years and i guarantee i printed less than 25 sheets in total.

So i said screw it. Sell it, get some money back, put towards new printer.

Now i purchased an all in one photo Epson.
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/jsp/Product.do?sku=C11CD28201
So far i quite like it. Reduced footprint on my desk (no need for a separate scanner anymore). The scanning is great, quiet printing, definitely better on inks, BUT, i have yet to print a picture, text or graphics that looks nearly as sharp as the Canon.
[sigh]
I should have considered a colour laser as well, but i have a need for printing 11x17 which is the sticking part. I guess i'll just have to keep trying out paper types and printer settings to see if i can improve the picture quality.

Well I've printed about 100 sheets in B/W so far. No sign of needing a new toner. I will have to say that this IS NOT a photo printer. Pics look OK on regular paper, but I would not consider it for printing glossy prints. I rarely print photos anymore, so I don't care. I have a big asses Canon photo printer (iPF5000) if I need it. Ink is probably all dried up as I having used it in over a year. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/printers/canon-ipf5000.shtml

Anyone have a recommendation for a all in one network printer, preferably with an Ethernet connection. 500$ or less range.

right now I've got an hp "wireless" that's. Pretty much a piece of crap...

Most i looked at in my search were very capable wireless units. Although i presently have this Epson hooked up via usb, the first option during setup was to connect to a wireless hub.
Although i haven't checked specifically, the features on the Epson page state:
Interface:

Hi-Speed USB
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n5
Wi-Fi Direct
Ethernet (10 / 100)

I do have two other computers in the house that print to this unit and i found the setup to be extraordinarily easy compared to previous printers.

Cheese, your link didn't come through. I'm guessing your referring to the small photo printer?

I'd like to get a machine that can scan to PDF, that aren't huge file sizes... The current hp scans to a 50 meg PDF... Not realistic to email...

The Samsung laser I just bought has both ethernet and wireless. You can print from your phone as well. It's about $300.

I have not tried the wireless option, yet.

I linked to the Epson we bought earlier in this thread.
Seems to work fine for me.

I haven't yet tried scanning to pdf but it does provide the option as well as settings for dpi.

Mmmm. Cheddar.

Gr, stupid typo.. Thats what i get for posting on my phone.... Sorry chesseroo.

Just bought the HP 200 series, the 277 to be exact, a couple months ago which Michael mentioned earlier and it works great, easy setup and the print quality is very good. I have only printed a couple pics but they look as good as any I have done on my inkjets. Other than it is quite noisy when it fires up, I would recommend this all in one laser.