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Printer! Help me choose one.

EshEsh Tending bar. FFXIV. Motorcycles.Portland, ORRegistered User regular
edited October 2009 in Help / Advice Forum
So I need a printer for school. It doesn't have to do anything more than print text documents. No need for fancy colors, faxing, scanning, photocopying. Just a basic B&W printer.

Thanks!

Esh on

Posts

  • ImprovoloneImprovolone Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    If you print a lot, look into laser printers. They'll be cheaper in the long run plus they print nice crisp stuff.

    Improvolone on
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  • PeregrineFalconPeregrineFalcon Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    +1 to the consumer monochrome laser idea. I got a $50 Samsung for my wife's college use - fucker churned out over a thousand pages on the "starter toner" and only started to lighten at the end of it.

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  • ImprovoloneImprovolone Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Holy shit have they dropped in price. It might be worth it for me to own two printers...

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  • saltinesssaltiness Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    If you want to be really savvy about it and you live in a city you may be able to just go for a walk and find one on the sidewalk and buy some generic ink for it online if it still works. Seriously, in SF people just throw them out when they run out of ink. I found an Epson 1270 13" wide photo printer on the sidewalk that still had a bunch of ink in it, I just had to run the head cleaning utility like 10 times before it really got clean.

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  • Dark MoonDark Moon Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Laser is the way to go. I have a Brother 2170W that I love to pieces. It hooked up to my wifi effortlessly for wireless printing from every one of the computers in the house and was under $100. Up to around a thousand pages on the "starter" toner cartridge (not a full capacity cartridge) and a brand new, full capacity one is $35.

    Dark Moon on
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  • EshEsh Tending bar. FFXIV. Motorcycles. Portland, ORRegistered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Dark Moon wrote: »
    Laser is the way to go. I have a Brother 2170W that I love to pieces. It hooked up to my wifi effortlessly for wireless printing from every one of the computers in the house and was under $100. Up to around a thousand pages on the "starter" toner cartridge (not a full capacity cartridge) and a brand new, full capacity one is $35.

    That's the exact printer I got. Had the best/most reviews on Amazon. Glad to know someone on here likes it.

    Esh on
  • illigillig Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    avoid HP network printers.... the software is atrocious, and although i love my HP multifunction when it works, i want to stab the author of the drivers/software in the eyes most of the time

    illig on
  • MagicToasterMagicToaster JapanRegistered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Go to the store and see which one uses the cheapest ink.

    MagicToaster on
  • DaenrisDaenris Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    MagicToaster wrote: »
    Go to the store and see which one uses the cheapest ink.

    This is equally true if you go with a laser printer (which you should if you're just printing black and white all the time). Research what toner each printer you're considering uses, because they have widely varying costs. At my last job they bought a small desktop laser printer for my supervisor to use in her office without checking toner prices. Toner cartridges for it ended up being like $175 each.

    I have what is probably a 15 year old HP LaserJet (4MP) and the thing is built like a tank. Toner cartridges are about $75 for the brand name, or I can get off-brand stuff for like $35-40. In the past 6 years of moderate use, I've only gone through like 2.5 of them.

    Daenris on
  • PussyPussy Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    I'm going to add myself to the list of people promoting laser printers. A lot of people here seem to be recommending expensive photo printers with expensive ink, which is all right if you think you might want to print photos off of it even so, but going by what you said in the original post, a laser would be much, much cheaper both for initial purchase price and long term cost of ownership.

    Pussy on
  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    I'm curious, do they make lasers that do have the scanning/copying bit? Our 3-in-1 job is going downhill and we're not particularly in love with printing in color, but we do use the scanner quite a bit.

    KalTorak on
  • PeregrineFalconPeregrineFalcon Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    KalTorak wrote: »
    I'm curious, do they make lasers that do have the scanning/copying bit? Our 3-in-1 job is going downhill and we're not particularly in love with printing in color, but we do use the scanner quite a bit.

    Absolutely. If you're not needing the desk space or the convergence, you could probably get away with just a basic laser and keep the old inkjet for scanner purposes only.

    Failing that, a 3-in-1 B&W laser should be, offhand, maybe $200 for a decent unit.

    PeregrineFalcon on
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