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I bought a color laser printer for a few hundred bucks and despite almost never having to print anything it's one of the better purchases I've made. It just wo

I bought a color laser printer for a few hundred bucks and despite almost never having to print anything it's one of the better purchases I've made. It just works. It's not wasteful. And it won't dry out from lack of use. I figure I'll break even over buying ink-jet printers and cartridges in another year or so. Even if everything costs more in short term, it's so much less wasteful.

EvanAnderson 10y ago
Same here. Purchased a workgroup color laser almost 7 years ago. My printing volume is fairly low (around 500 pages / year) and I'm still on the original set of cartridges. The amortized cost of this printer has been amazing-- under $75 / year. It uses the PCL protocol and has an Ethernet connection, so it's a long way off from practical obsolescence, too. I'll likely be using this printer in another 7 years.
intrasight 10y ago
Don't new color laser printers use cartridges? They just have toner instead of ink.
- wvenable 10y ago
  Yeah they do. But they don't dry out which is one of the big reasons every time I had to print I needed a new cartridge.
brokenmachine 10y ago
I tried to do the same thing but bought a cheap <$100 mono laser. I pretty much never print, maybe a page a month, if that. It's only a year old and now it won't suck up the paper properly. I have to literally stick my hands into it and feed the paper in page-by-page. The thing has successfully printed less than 20 pages and it's already not working. It's 2016 and Samsung can't make a rubber roller that works. And I don't want to buy another just to have the same thing happen.
- wvenable 10y ago
  I spent about $400 -- I figure a sub $100 laser printer is much the same thing as buying a cheap inkjet.
  - brokenmachine 10y ago
    I wrongfully assumed that an appliance manufactured and sold to perform a single task would be able to perform that task. That was a mistake.
    - wvenable 10y ago
      I think this whole thread is about how that's a mistake! You get what you pay for and cheap printers are crap; they're so cheap they're virtually useless.

EvanAnderson 10y ago

Same here. Purchased a workgroup color laser almost 7 years ago. My printing volume is fairly low (around 500 pages / year) and I'm still on the original set of cartridges. The amortized cost of this printer has been amazing-- under $75 / year. It uses the PCL protocol and has an Ethernet connection, so it's a long way off from practical obsolescence, too. I'll likely be using this printer in another 7 years.

intrasight 10y ago

Don't new color laser printers use cartridges? They just have toner instead of ink.

wvenable 10y ago
Yeah they do. But they don't dry out which is one of the big reasons every time I had to print I needed a new cartridge.

brokenmachine 10y ago

I tried to do the same thing but bought a cheap <$100 mono laser. I pretty much never print, maybe a page a month, if that. It's only a year old and now it won't suck up the paper properly. I have to literally stick my hands into it and feed the paper in page-by-page. The thing has successfully printed less than 20 pages and it's already not working. It's 2016 and Samsung can't make a rubber roller that works. And I don't want to buy another just to have the same thing happen.

wvenable 10y ago
I spent about $400 -- I figure a sub $100 laser printer is much the same thing as buying a cheap inkjet.
- brokenmachine 10y ago
  I wrongfully assumed that an appliance manufactured and sold to perform a single task would be able to perform that task. That was a mistake.
  - wvenable 10y ago
    I think this whole thread is about how that's a mistake! You get what you pay for and cheap printers are crap; they're so cheap they're virtually useless.