printer for home use

Costco has $100 off on HP Color Laserjet and Best Buy has $50 off Canon Color Laserjet. I prefer Canon.
 
you guys are hilarious. These things at the residential end are priced as loss leaders. They are cheap for you to buy so they can sell you consumables. You pay for one or the other. If you dont want higher priced consumables, then you end up in the commercial space - higher volume printing at lower costs with signicantly more expensive printers with larger ink options (which are even more expensive, but they come in much larger volumes). So pick your poison. Yeah, there are some companies with much smaller market share that try and pinch in the options (namely brother, etc). But the big guys - epson, canon, and HP make their money on consumables on the home/consumer side and less so on the larger business printers.
 
I wish HP still wanted to make money on toner cartridges for the HP 4050 and HP 4100. :-(
 
asicer said:
And the drum is also an expensive wear item with a finite lifespan. Those two factors combined can make it more expensive than inkjets.
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Uuh, the HP printers, the drum is part of the toner cartridge and gets replaced. If you use refilled toner cartridges, yes, you are typically getting a used drum
 
Another vote for an Epson Ecotank. When our old Canon printer finally needed to be replaced, I checked out a bunch. HP was out of the question due to their focus on gouging for ink. Our local Costco had an Epson multifunction duplex color Ecotank printer. My wife has been beating that thing like a rented mule printing quilting patterns. I don’t thing we’re down to the halfway mark on the ink tanks yet. I’ve been impressed with the performance and ease of use, especially scanning multi page documents.
 
DaleB said:
Another vote for an Epson Ecotank. When our old Canon printer finally needed to be replaced, I checked out a bunch. HP was out of the question due to their focus on gouging for ink. Our local Costco had an Epson multifunction duplex color Ecotank printer. My wife has been beating that thing like a rented mule printing quilting patterns. I don’t thing we’re down to the halfway mark on the ink tanks yet. I’ve been impressed with the performance and ease of use, especially scanning multi page documents.
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on sale at costco until feb 26
 
Anthem said:
you guys are hilarious. These things at the residential end are priced as loss leaders. They are cheap for you to buy so they can sell you consumables. You pay for one or the other. If you dont want higher priced consumables, then you end up in the commercial space - higher volume printing at lower costs with signicantly more expensive printers with larger ink options (which are even more expensive, but they come in much larger volumes). So pick your poison. Yeah, there are some companies with much smaller market share that try and pinch in the options (namely brother, etc). But the big guys - epson, canon, and HP make their money on consumables on the home/consumer side and less so on the larger business printers.
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I think your information is dated, or you're referring to really low end laser printers - say sub $200. The commercial printer space is very competitive, and entry level models are very inexpensive for lasers. They're pretty much commodities, and anyone that can afford to fly an airplane can afford a commercial laser printer. Commercial printers are made by HP, Xerox, Cannon, and Lexmark. All four make money selling printers, but that's not all they want to do, for corporate users as well. They want to sell "printing services" and talk the execs into buying a contract to cover the printer, supplies, and maintenance. They want the revenue stream. That's been going on forever. Not sure if it's still true, but some high end printers Xerox wouldn't sell. They would only lease them, with a service contract.

The cost per page, in terms of consumables, between the sub $400 home lasers and the commercial printers isn't that much. Maybe $.05 vs $.02/page or something, for black and white. Yes, some toners are $100 for low end printers, and easily $150-250+ for larger printers, but the toners have comparable page costs. The difference is that the commercial printers are rated to print at something like 100k+ pages/month, which means they'll reliably do 10k, and they'll last forever for the average home office user. You're paying more money for higher reliability mechanicals. Even some of the $200 lasers seem pretty well built, particularly to me Xerox and Canon.

Thinking about this again, the advantage for the people reading this is probably just the convenience. If you have a little laser printer, you leave it off most of the time, once a week you print something. You turn it on, it warms up and in 20 seconds you have the paper in your hand. With an inkjet, there's an X% chance that you have to f**k around with it to get it to go. For me, X is about 20. And I'm speaking of anything from $100 home printers to $5k HP plotters. The technology around ink is just to be a PITA.
 
I have a Canon at home (laser) but the cartridges aren't cheap either.

Several years ago I bought a $40 Epson at the Walmart in Oshkosh to use in the Vintage ops building. I figured by the time it ran out of ink, the thing would die anyhow (it's left in the unheated building all winter). Oddly, the little thing is still chugging away. I actually, had to buy more ink for it (though it's not unreasonable).
 
Albany Tom said:
I think your information is dated, or you're referring to really low end laser printers - say sub $200. The commercial printer space is very competitive, and entry level models are very inexpensive for lasers. They're pretty much commodities, and anyone that can afford to fly an airplane can afford a commercial laser printer. Commercial printers are made by HP, Xerox, Cannon, and Lexmark. All four make money selling printers, but that's not all they want to do, for corporate users as well. They want to sell "printing services" and talk the execs into buying a contract to cover the printer, supplies, and maintenance. They want the revenue stream. That's been going on forever. Not sure if it's still true, but some high end printers Xerox wouldn't sell. They would only lease them, with a service contract.

The cost per page, in terms of consumables, between the sub $400 home lasers and the commercial printers isn't that much. Maybe $.05 vs $.02/page or something, for black and white. Yes, some toners are $100 for low end printers, and easily $150-250+ for larger printers, but the toners have comparable page costs. The difference is that the commercial printers are rated to print at something like 100k+ pages/month, which means they'll reliably do 10k, and they'll last forever for the average home office user. You're paying more money for higher reliability mechanicals. Even some of the $200 lasers seem pretty well built, particularly to me Xerox and Canon.

Thinking about this again, the advantage for the people reading this is probably just the convenience. If you have a little laser printer, you leave it off most of the time, once a week you print something. You turn it on, it warms up and in 20 seconds you have the paper in your hand. With an inkjet, there's an X% chance that you have to f**k around with it to get it to go. For me, X is about 20. And I'm speaking of anything from $100 home printers to $5k HP plotters. The technology around ink is just to be a PITA.
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Thats exactly my point. Yes they want to sell contracts (usually the office supply company as thats their bread and butter). But the printers themselves - usually the more industrial/commercial - read : higher use, the cheaper per page. And those are the higher end printers. You state that they range from $0.05 to $0.02 - that is exactly my point. The difference between $0.05 and $0.02 is massive. We run 36 packing list stations. Each printer does 1000+ pages a day. So $0.02 is $20/day in toner supply, $0.05 is $50/day. . That is $600 vs $1500 per month in toner supply . . . guess which printer we are getting to run these ? Yeah, we are paying more for the printer with cheaper toner refills (usually the M6xx from HP).
 
Albany Tom said:
I think your information is dated, or you're referring to really low end laser printers - say sub $200. The commercial printer space is very competitive, and entry level models are very inexpensive for lasers. They're pretty much commodities, and anyone that can afford to fly an airplane can afford a commercial laser printer. Commercial printers are made by HP, Xerox, Cannon, and Lexmark. All four make money selling printers, but that's not all they want to do, for corporate users as well. They want to sell "printing services" and talk the execs into buying a contract to cover the printer, supplies, and maintenance. They want the revenue stream. That's been going on forever. Not sure if it's still true, but some high end printers Xerox wouldn't sell. They would only lease them, with a service contract.

The cost per page, in terms of consumables, between the sub $400 home lasers and the commercial printers isn't that much. Maybe $.05 vs $.02/page or something, for black and white. Yes, some toners are $100 for low end printers, and easily $150-250+ for larger printers, but the toners have comparable page costs. The difference is that the commercial printers are rated to print at something like 100k+ pages/month, which means they'll reliably do 10k, and they'll last forever for the average home office user. You're paying more money for higher reliability mechanicals. Even some of the $200 lasers seem pretty well built, particularly to me Xerox and Canon.

Thinking about this again, the advantage for the people reading this is probably just the convenience. If you have a little laser printer, you leave it off most of the time, once a week you print something. You turn it on, it warms up and in 20 seconds you have the paper in your hand. With an inkjet, there's an X% chance that you have to f**k around with it to get it to go. For me, X is about 20. And I'm speaking of anything from $100 home printers to $5k HP plotters. The technology around ink is just to be a PITA.
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I certainly agree with your last paragraph. I bought an "All in One" HP Inkjet - and it preformed very well for a number of years. However, as time went on it became more and more of a problem. I always had to do
something to make it work properly. I always succeeded (until the very end) - but it got to be more trouble than it was worth. Finally it came to "Ink System Failure" . There was apparently no way out of that one - so
I forthwith hauled it off to the recycle place and started looking for a replacement. I found it in the form of an HP Laserjet for $35 on Craigslist. The guy demoed it and it worked fine so I bought it. Of course the
toner cartridge was nearly empty so a new one cost about the same. But I ended up with what I was looking for - a printer that is always ready and works as expected every time. It is B&W only - but I don't really need
color anyway.

Not all inkjet printers are terrible. I was given a used Canon Bubbljet portable at work - and used it for many years. It worked every time (until it finally didn't) in spite of lengthy intervals between uses. I also remember
another Canon in a different job that was another workhorse - reliable after numerous other problematical attempts with other brands.

Dave
 
I have a HP color laserjet cp1215. I have had it for at least 15 years. I buy off-brand toner cartridges for around $10 each. I usually get at least 5k pages out of each cartridge.
 
Pinecone said:
I worked for Xerox back in the day where we polished the drum as part of a PM visit.
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Brings back memories of dumping a bag of rice into a 9700 toner separator to clean it out. Good times.
 
MooneyDriver78 said:
You want a Brother laser wireless printer capable of double sided printing as a minimum, after that it’s just bells and whistles.
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YES!
I am right next to a Brother MFC-L2750DW laser B&W printer that does that ^^ but also Double Sided Scanning (awesome feature).
The toner lasts forever and it's a daily user.

Ink is very last year - I am so glad I never mess with ink cartridges any more.

Oh and the last time I bought an HP was when they had this 'feature' (time bomb) that would have it connect to the internet and download something that blocked the use of non-OEM ink.
F. U. No More Brother.
 
DaleB said:
Brings back memories of dumping a bag of rice into a 9700 toner separator to clean it out. Good times.
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I worked on the 3600/7000/7700 line.

Good times.
 
Pinecone said:
I worked on the 3600/7000/7700 line.

Good times.
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I had a customer who bought a well used 9700. No Xerox maintenance. That fell to me. Learned a lot from that. Later on we signed a contract to maintain a couple hundred little Xerox lasers. It’s been so long I don’t even remember the model, but it fused the toner with a quartz lamp, no fused roller. Produced a kind of sorta raised print. We serviced those with zero support and outright hostility from Xerox, who would not sell us parts or tools.

Good times.
 
Albany Tom said:
...Laser printers have some disadvantages. They're not really portable. Moving them after the toner has been installed isn't a great idea. They're also not great in dusty environments, especially if the dust is conductive. They're pretty crappy for photos, generally speaking.

Old HP laserjets, 4 or earlier, are great, but I don't know if anyone still makes consumables for them. I wouldn't buy a newer HP. I did buy a new color Xerox, and so far it's been great. My last inkjet was a Canon, and it was great. Color photos were beautiful.
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If you have a stock of inkjet consumables (Avery labels, for example) at best they won't survive the heat of a laser printer. At worst you may damage the laser printer.
 
papaechogolf said:
If you have a stock of inkjet consumables (Avery labels, for example) at best they won't survive the heat of a laser printer. At worst you may damage the laser printer.
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I run labels through my Brother HL-L6200DW with no problems.

Perhaps the problem you personally observed has to do with the specific labels or the specific printer you were using.
 
I have three Brother MFPs. If you use it regularly it’ll work fine. Intermittent use allows the ink to dry up. It gets expensive to buy new ink for a handful of copies. I’ll never buy another ink jet machine.
 
DaleB said:
I had a customer who bought a well used 9700. No Xerox maintenance. That fell to me. Learned a lot from that. Later on we signed a contract to maintain a couple hundred little Xerox lasers. It’s been so long I don’t even remember the model, but it fused the toner with a quartz lamp, no fused roller. Produced a kind of sorta raised print. We serviced those with zero support and outright hostility from Xerox, who would not sell us parts or tools.

Good times.
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The machines I worked on had a roller, that was heated by a quartz lamp inside it.
 
Mongoose Aviator said:
I run labels through my Brother HL-L6200DW with no problems.

Perhaps the problem you personally observed has to do with the specific labels or the specific printer you were using.
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yup - some people don't pay attention to the fact that some labels aren't ok with a laser printer.
 
DaleB said:
I had a customer who bought a well used 9700. No Xerox maintenance. That fell to me. Learned a lot from that. Later on we signed a contract to maintain a couple hundred little Xerox lasers. It’s been so long I don’t even remember the model, but it fused the toner with a quartz lamp, no fused roller. Produced a kind of sorta raised print. We serviced those with zero support and outright hostility from Xerox, who would not sell us parts or tools.

Good times.
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a friend at my club recently retired from years of being hardware support (Dec, Compaq, HP) Early on he learned to completely avoid printer maintenance, instead only doing screens, drives, power supplies, etc.
 
papaechogolf said:
If you have a stock of inkjet consumables (Avery labels, for example) at best they won't survive the heat of a laser printer. At worst you may damage the laser printer.
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Agree, but as Bob Noel points out, I wouldn't run anything though a laser that wasn't meant for it, and I don't like running labels through them at all. If I do, they're Avery and in pristine condition. Labels wrapped around a fuser is annoying at best.

Lasers are more sensitive to improper things run through them. To that end, I still don't run double sided, even if the printer supports it. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I don't like toner transfer to the other side of the paper feed path. It's probably been said before, but lasers aren't portable, at least none I've ever seen.
 
Pinecone said:
The machines I worked on had a roller, that was heated by a quartz lamp inside it.
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Ah. Found it. Xerox 4045. Printer/scanner/copier. I swear there is no fuser roller. Don’t know what they were thinking.

Bob Noel said:
a friend at my club recently retired from years of being hardware support (Dec, Compaq, HP) Early on he learned to completely avoid printer maintenance, instead only doing screens, drives, power supplies, etc.
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The printers were fairly lucrative, and I’d been maintaining printers since the IBM 1403 N1. The lasers were the absolute worst though. EVERYTHING was caked with toner. Every tool, every pair of jeans. The coolest I worked on was a couple of Siemens cold fusion lasers. They used HCFC solvent vapor instead of heat for fusing.
 
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