<p>Dear CCers, does anyone have a favorite laser printer that fits these criteria: compact, not very expensive when it comes to cartridge replacement (yeah, wishful thinking! :)), possibly with scanning options, and NOT HP? Color is not a must, but would be nice to have. The main use will be printing B&W business documents and homework (for profs who still live in the past century).
Many thanks in advance!</p>
<p>I don’t have a specific recommendation, but I understand that B&W laser printers are the way to go for economical printing. I boasted on another geek-filled forum that when my inkjet printer ran out of ink I went out and bought a new printer (for $40) which was cheaper than buying new ink. The geeks were all over me, telling me that for true economy the B&W laser was a better option. Apparently the cartridges last a long time.</p>
<p>We have a Brother Laser printer suggested to us years ago by a techie (we had HP and got fed up with the expense of ink!) Still going strong. the cartridges are expensive when replaced ($50-70) (but last a LONG time so cheaper in the long run) We buy cartridges off the internet. We don’t print photos (actually cheaper to go through Sam’s Club or another discount house since they eat up enormous amounts of ink). For simple printing, it’s been great (knock on wood!).
HP ink (and one reason it’s expensive) is one of the best archival inks around–so if the purpose is photos and you want to keep them a long time, it may be best even though expensive.
Careful though (this may have changed I don’t know)–printing a B&W photo may actually be eating up your color cartridges to produce black rather than using the black ink to produce a picture.</p>
<p>^ ^</p>
<p>Yeah…inkjet printer manufacturers deliberately sell their printers at extremely low prices or even gratis precisely because they’re really making the lion’s share of their money off the ink cartridges. At one startup I worked at…we were going through one cartridge per month which was $30 a pop. Most friends tend to replace theirs once every 2-3 months due to running out of ink or because the ink dried out. </p>
<p>Contrast that with my HP 4L laserjet printer which is not only still running reliably to this day…but I’ve only had to replace the cartridge once in nearly 20 years of usage. Granted…new HP cartridges go for around $70…but they will last at least a decade of medium to heavy use IME. </p>
<p>For B & W printing…it’s much more economical in the long run to go with a laser printer over an inkjet. </p>
<p>Not to mention that laser printers tend to have much better build quality because they tend to target businesses.</p>
<p>^^Ditto gouf on the Brother laser printer. We bought a B/W for under $100 for S1 when he was in college. Footprint is small & the printer is wifi. Liked it so much that we bought one for ourselves. Ink cartridges run $60-70 (less if you purchase online) but last for 1-2 years. We don’t print photos - it’s less expensive to upload & have them printed at COSTCO or Snapfish/Kodak/Shutterfly.</p>
<p>Another vote for Brother. That’s what my tech geek has as well. Ours is very compact and it’s compatible with wireless, so we actually have it stashed away on another floor of the house since our desks are in the living room.</p>
<p>Ours doesn’t have scanning capability, not sure what the options are. If none of the models have it and you need it, I would probably just get something like this: [Amazon.com:</a> Canon CanoScan LiDE110 Color Image Scanner (4507B002): Electronics](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Canon-CanoScan-LiDE110-Scanner-4507B002/dp/B003VQR1UC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334159421&sr=8-1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Canon-CanoScan-LiDE110-Scanner-4507B002/dp/B003VQR1UC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334159421&sr=8-1) The amount you’ll save on ink with the brother will pay for the scanner. :)</p>
<p>Thank you all! Looks like Brother is the way to go. We have a very perfectly working older HP B&W laser printer, but HP did not bother to come up with a driver for Win 7, so we can only use the old, slow XP machine for printing. We are not exactly dummies when it comes to PC stuff, but we could not solve the driver problem. Grrr… No wonder I do not want to give HP more of my business.</p>
<p>Costco has a few nice Brother printers with pretty good reviews. I think I might get one and see how it works. Costco’s return policy is superb, so if it does not work, off to Costco it will go. :)</p>
<p>We purchased a Brother HL-2270DW from Costco last fall. It has been great.</p>
<p>Costco has it online right now for $89.</p>
<p>[Costco</a> - Brother HL-2270DW Wireless Monochrome Laser Printer with Duplexing](<a href=“http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11619745&whse=BC&Ne=4000000&eCat=BC|84|54023&N=4015995&Mo=19&No=19&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&cat=50102&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDesc1&lang=en-US&Sp=C&topnav=]Costco”>http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11619745&whse=BC&Ne=4000000&eCat=BC|84|54023&N=4015995&Mo=19&No=19&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&cat=50102&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDesc1&lang=en-US&Sp=C&topnav=)</p>
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IME the cartridges that come with the printer typically have only half the ink of the replacement cartridges. So you might not actually be saving anything.</p>
<p>sedluhs - thanks!!! Awesome deal. That printer costs 1/2 of the HP cartridge. :)</p>
<p>notrichenough: We got about 600 pages out of the cartridge that came with the $89 Brother laser printer … pretty close to half of what the replacement cartridges claim. Going forward is where the costs really drop. Ink prices for my inkjet are about 5x the cost of laser toner.</p>
<p>I use a HP 4100 at home. It’s fast, prints around 5000 pages for a $80 cartridge, and is very reliable. Mine cost about $250 used off of eBay.</p>
<p>I don’t print that much anymore, sadly.</p>
<p>I’ve been using a rather compact Konica Minolta Page Pro for about 6 years. Reasonably priced. Good output. Only drawback is that the toner ink cartridge is more expensive than the ink for similar HP models. Tried to use a third-party cartridge but kept getting error messages. Incidentally, some HP models also have a reputation for not working well with third party inks and toners.</p>
<p>I would never ever use an inkjet for everyday business or personal printing. The ink costs are prohibitive, and keeping them on hand is a pain. For 25 years I’ve had HP laserjets for my small business which prints large quantities.</p>
<p>My H and S have small Lexmark laserjets that do a very good job. They aren’t as sturdy as my HP, but “fold” up rather compactly, do a good job printing, and have a small footprint. </p>
<p>S had the same cartridge throughout 4 years of college. Be aware that they often come with “starter” cartridges which don’t print as much as the regular ones. In addition to the ink savings, I highly prefer the quality of laser printing over that of inkjet.</p>
<p>We also bought the Brother 2270 B&W wireless laser printer. It works fine. </p>
<p>The wireless networking aspect is great since (assuming you have a wireless network at home) you can locate the printer wherever you want, it doesn’t have to be right next to the computer, and access it from any computer in the house.</p>
<p>I am also in the market for a printer but do need a color one.</p>
<p>I want an all in one with wireless. I have a 20 year old HP Laser Jet 4P still going strong for anything typed that I want to print in strict B&W.</p>
<p>I am replacing a Dell AIO that must drink ink-I have had little luck buying the replacement ink cartridges.</p>
<p>My research is pointing towards an Epson or Brother for the best price per printed page.</p>
<p>I won’t be printing enough to justify the cost of a laser printer-at least I don’t think so.</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>I mostly print to my 15 year old HP B&W Laser printer. Runs great, cheap toner etc. </p>
<p>On the house network, I also have a nice epson ink jet color printer. Since it is not in my home office, I don’t think about it - and with the kids away at school it doesn’t get used very often. As a result, ink jet cartridges dry up well before they are empty - raising the cost per page to something insane. </p>
<p>At this point, I am ready to get rid of the color ink jet and replace it with a color laser. Still won’t get used much - but won’t dry out either. Any thoughts or suggestions on a color laser?</p>
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<p>The only situation that favors an inkjet printer over laser from a price/quality standpoint is if you print a lot of photographs…especially those in color. This is where a good inkjet will shine. </p>
<p>However, if most/all you’re printing are b & w documents…laser printers are much more cost effective overall. Also, laser toner doesn’t have the nasty tendency to dry out or even leak after long periods of non-usage(matter of weeks).</p>
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<p>I’d try to do test prints of color prints in laser to see if the quality is up to snuff…especially if you print color photographs. </p>
<p>Most photographers I’ve talked with strongly preferred good inkjet printers for quality of color photographic prints. Then again, maybe the technology for color laser has improved within the last few years. </p>
<p>When I saw some examples of color laser prints from a corporate printer 3-5 years ago…I wasn’t terribly impressed.</p>
<p>The only photos I print are snapshots - for higher quality archival type images, I either send the file to my brother (who has a really good photo printer) or send them an internet printer (if I want larger than 8x10). So printing photos really not a requirement.</p>
<p>We have two Brother HL-2270DW printers. H has one for his office and we also have one for home use. We have been very happy with them. We have a separate color printer for when the kids need to print color things for school.</p>