Laserjets and Toner Cartridges

Mugenmidget

I'd love to get a laserjet printer (no need for color) to make it easier to print off documents quickly. Am I mistaken in thinking this? The world of inkjet printers has left a bad taste in my mouth and I'm not looking to print photos.

Allow me to reveal my limited knowledge on the subject and some questions I have so you can help guide me:

-I know that you need a toner cartridge and that they are usually really expensive. Supermediastore.com is the only good place I know of to buy them in bulk for cheap. The store also mentions toner refills but I don't know what this entails nor do I know a good place to buy them (maybe on their site, but I couldn't find it).

-I've read on their site that refills are usually good for 2-3 fills before a new cartridge is needed. Why is this? I heard something about fixing/replacing the "drum", what does that entail?

-What other issues or concerns can you tell me about laserjets? What are good brands and good stores to start shopping for them?

Thanks for any and all help!

Moe Fwacky

laser printers use an electrostatic drum for printing. I won't get into the technicals unless you ask me to, but the drums are only good for so long before they require replacing. In copy machines they can be replaced independent of toner and developer, but in smaller, home use printers all three are packaged together

taliosfalcon

Even with the more expensive toner replacement and drums, most lasers are still cheaper per page printed than inkjets (at least for black and white lasers, it becomes murkier/closer comparing color lasers to inkjets)

Rendon

I purchased a laser printer almost 4 years ago now. I don't print a ton, but after the starter toner that came with it (which needed to be replaced after around 6 months) I have not had to replace my toner yet. Sure the toner cart was around a hundred bucks, but 3 and a half years of printing trouble free for me.

Usage wise I would say I have gone through around 2 reams of paper... so 1000 pages or some thing.

Ego

If you print a lot, you're better off with a laser printer because it's cheaper. If you print things rarely, you're better off with a laser printer because they (both the printers and toner vs ink) are more durable.

Ink-jets are nice because you can get some small ones that work really well for notebooks (Canon BJ series) ... and because you can't walk out of a store carrying a 25$ disposable laser printer.

The Dell 1110 / Samsung ML-1610 (same printer but the dell is underclocked --I shit you not-- and so prints out about 10% slower) is a good place to start if you're looking for decent B&W's for the cost. Toner cartridges are also interchangeable.

Mugenmidget

Nice, definitely sounds worth looking into, guys. And thanks Ego for that specific recommendation, I'll look into it (and LOL at that anecdote about the Dell printer).

And thanks Moe, it sounds like I wouldn't be capable of doing much to the drum (by myself at least) except replacing it, which is just the kind of answer I was after. Very appreciated, and thanks in advance for any other contributions.

Kris

This is a fantastic topic, since I've been thinking of replacing my inkjet with a laser. Any recommendations as far as color laser printers go?

OremLK

I got a Samsung ML-2510 (black and white) laser printer on sale at NewEgg a couple months ago for about $50. It's ridiculously fast compared to most inkjets I've used and the starter toner cartridge can print like triple the amount of pages one inkjet cartridge was capable of.

EggyToast

My wife and I switched over to color laser once we had our inkjet "dry up." While it makes logical sense that wet ink would eventually become, err, less wet, it's bullshit that if you don't print every day they inevitably fail with such expensive ink.

Toner is expensive too but it lasts a hell of a lot longer. The problem is that for most home-use laser printers, the same problem occurs -- the toner costs as much as buying the printer over again. Still, the toner will last a lot longer.

ArcSyn

Check the prices of the toners for whatever printers you are looking at in your price range too.

I've seen the cost per page of a color laser be CHEAPER than running a small black only laser. I forget what model it was, but it was a small "personal" black laser printer from HP that cost about 4c a page when most cost around 1c or less per page. Decent color laser machines cost around 3c a page though if you are a willing to spend a bit more for a larger or better machine, you can bring that down to 2c a page.

So check the price of the toners (and any other supplies it may need, drums, maintenance kits, etc and factor those in as well) for how many pages they expect to print (usually at 5% coverage) to really see how much it's going to cost you.


Anyone have any experience with the XEROX Phaser line? It uses a solid ink wax thing instead of ink or toner and is supposedly cheaper to operate, but I haven't really researched them at all.

tsmvengy

If you are only looking to print in black & white, then a laser printer is a no-brainer. Especially since they're so much cheaper now (I think you can get a good laser printer for $200 or less, I haven't bought one in years so I'm not sure what the best out there is) and they last much longer than your throwaway $50 inkjet. My parents still use the laser they bought 10+ years ago.

DJ Cam Cam

You can get HP black and white monochrome lasers cheap off newegg.com. I'm talking around the $170 range. The extra toners are not that bad, and in the long run you are most likely saving money if you are printing a lot of paper. Color lasers can get a little expensive, and the better you want the color to look, the more the price is going to jack up.

I really only have exp with HP laser printer though. Someone here at works uses a Lexmark laser and I have had nothing but trouble with it.

Basticle

I bought a HP LJ1016 for like $90 off of newegg a year and half ago and am still using the starter cartridge.

I sell printers for a living but I think everythings been covered already in this thread.

wunderbar

yea, I wouldn't really buy an ink-jet anymore, unless the only printing I do is occasional photos. But I can't remember the last time I actually needed to print something.

Fun fact: based on what a standard ink cartridge sells for, at the equivalent weight printer ink is more expensive than gold. And no, I'm not kidding. Wish I was.

Basticle

at least 20 times a day I get a customer bitching at me about the price of ink. hey its not my fault that they did one of the following:


- dont know how to use draft mode
- bought an epson
- only use their printer every 10 months so their ink dries out
- bought a brother
- bought a $30 printer at wal-mart and expect to get a good deal out of it
- bought a lexmark
- have a 12 year old DeskJet that uses 15 and 78 which are like $70 for a combo pack

Mr_Rose

ArcSyn wrote: »

Anyone have any experience with the XEROX Phaser line? It uses a solid ink wax thing instead of ink or toner and is supposedly cheaper to operate, but I haven't really researched them at all.

Unreasonably awesome. The ink is literally a solid wax block, so there's no toner dust to spill everywhere and give you asbestosis, or toner cartridges to try to get recycled somewhere. Also you can jam a bunch of blocks in the hopper at once so you only have to actually open the thing up every other quarter.

As for the ¤/page, I was looking them up and I could barely believe my eyes; sites keep quoting pages/block equivalent to a toner cart then selling a "refill pack" of three blocks for only slightly more than the price of a single toner refill...

Basticle

my store uses a phaser and it jams all the time

jackal

I bought an hp laserjet 1012 many years ago, and I've only replaced the starter cartridge. It was out of commission for almost a year because it took them forever to put out vista drivers, but other than that it has been super reliable and cheap.

edit: what the heck? Feb 2009? Why was this on the front page... eh.

LuvTheMonkey

God help you if anything related to image formation on a solid ink printer breaks, especially once it's out of warranty. I'd rather fix dot matrix printers in perpetuity.

If you're not doing high volume stick with B&W laser. Brother and HP make pretty competent models. I am not enamored with Lexmark currently, would avoid them.

Feral

I'm a fan of Brother printers. My home printer is an HL-2170 and at work we use HL-5370DWs. Both are small black and white laser printers.

The list price for high-capacity toner is around $100/cartridge but you can get them for much cheaper from NewEgg.

These printers also have removable drums which last about 10k pages for the 2170 and 25k pages for the 5370. Those cost $70 to replace.

Even after factoring in the drum cost, the per-page cost is much cheaper than an inkjet.

Feral

Mr_Rose wrote:

ArcSyn wrote: »

Anyone have any experience with the XEROX Phaser line? It uses a solid ink wax thing instead of ink or toner and is supposedly cheaper to operate, but I haven't really researched them at all.

Unreasonably awesome. The ink is literally a solid wax block, so there's no toner dust to spill everywhere and give you asbestosis, or toner cartridges to try to get recycled somewhere. Also you can jam a bunch of blocks in the hopper at once so you only have to actually open the thing up every other quarter.

As for the ¤/page, I was looking them up and I could barely believe my eyes; sites keep quoting pages/block equivalent to a toner cart then selling a "refill pack" of three blocks for only slightly more than the price of a single toner refill...

I've used Xerox Phasers in a production environment and I've found that the printers themselves aren't as reliable as a good color laser printer. They break down frequently.

This isn't a big deal if you buy it under contract. Xerox's usual business model is to give you the printer for free in exchange for a monthly maintenance & supply contract. But if you're a home user and you don't want to pay a monthly fee to Xerox or one of their partners? Pass.

The output was spectacular, though.