9 ms·

There is no good reason to buy an inkjet printer (2016)

90 points by smacktoward 8y ago

timonoko 8y ago
Same is happening with laser printers as inkjet printers. I think I have last laser printer ever, where you can add color powder from an Ebay bottle. Samsung CLP-315 was manufactured in 2007.
- detaro 8y ago
  And you can buy inkjets that officially refill from a bottle again, e.g. from HP: https://www8.hp.com/ph/en/printers/HP-Ink-Tank_System.html https://www8.hp.com/ph/en/printers/HP-Ink-Tank_System.html
bayareanative 8y ago
Laser printers economics: The more expensive the printer, the amortized cheaper the cost per page and the more repairable it is. I worked at nuclear engineering firm and a Pac10 university in IT on the budgetary side. The cheap laser printers were almost always unrepairable. I remember this one laser printer, an HP 5si, that had a page count over 1 million pages. At home, I had an HP LaserJet 4 from mid 90's that worked for around 25 years. I think I changed the toner cartridge once from Laser Monks. People who buy inkjet printers keep throwing them away because they dry up or their cheap displays stop working, and end up buying another cheap throw-away printer and set of cartridges. The razor-blade economy is in the cartridges and almost giving away the printers. And they never last, and people keep throwing the old ones and buying new ones. ProTip: home gamers should buy a repo big name corporate laser printer, preferably black&white or maybe the medium/higher-end color mopiers. Never the entry model because they're cheaply made.
- tomcam 8y ago
  What do gamers do with printers?
  - FigmentEngine 8y ago
    print key guides, maps, cheatsheets
  - jstanley 8y ago
    "Home gamer" is slang for anyone operating on their own at home (even if just in evenings or weekends), as opposed to work done at a company.
  - Max_aaa 8y ago
    Not all games are played on the computer.....
  - clouddrover 8y ago
    They take pictures with their Game Boy Camera: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Camera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Camera And print them out with their Game Boy Printer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Printer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Printer Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z2_af1vfJM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z2_af1vfJM
- Theodores 8y ago
  The detail that people forget is that printers are mechanical and therefore suffer from mechanical wear. With laser printers that go on forever the toner cartridge includes a fair heft of the parts that would wear out. With ink jet printers this is not the same. Also, are you changing just the ink or the nozzles too? Regulation could have rigged this market to have avoided the race to the bottom that went on. The razor blade sales model is okay for razor blades, you are spending tops $10 on the razor and it is clear in the box that you are not getting the full complement of replacement blades that cost $20 and are next to it in the store. With inkjet printers it was a deceptive practice. Only after you were back buying ink did you clock the start pack inks. Some of the printers did not include a black ink. In the EU the regulation of USB power charging worked out well for everyone, we no longer have drawers full of 'wall warts'. Had printers been regulated so that there was a minimum amount of pages that a new printer would print without running out of ink with the ink not running dry during the 2 year warranty period then the market would have been more sensible. Oh, and no proprietary replacement inks. The price of a new printer would have been higher however there would have also been a secondary market in second hand printers. With the razor model there is no secondary market, at best you are giving a printer away rather than charging for it because it costs more to put ink in it than it costs for someone to just buy a new one. The original inkjet printers were a wonder of fine engineering. I particularly liked the way the original ones held the freshly printed page to dry before dropping it into the tray. In 1990 you needed an expensive dye sublimation printer with mega expensive consumables to print colour. The inkjets came along and made colour something to take for granted. This was wonderful. But the razor model made it impossible for the inkjet to keep the awe it truly deserved. In time the printers got nastier and nastier, e.g. the Lexmark efforts that are landfilled rather than cherished. Had there been just the smallest bit of regulation in the EU then that would have affected how these things were sold globally and there wouldn't have been such a wasteful race to the bottom.
  - 0815test 8y ago
    > In 1990 you needed an expensive dye sublimation printer with mega expensive consumables to print colour. Not so, four-color ribbons for impact printers were a thing.
nickgrosvenor 8y ago
I personally print color pages all the time.
londons_explore 8y ago
Inkjet are far better for photographs. Laser-printed photographs lack any kind of vibrancy. Put photo paper through a laser printer and chances are it'll melt into the rollers.
- hydrox24 8y ago
  The article did not address this use case enough, but it was addressed in part. > Reproducing colors in photographs accurately demands a lot more than just some barrels of color ink; it demands a high-resolution printer and special, treated paper that can hold colors better than plain old printer paper can. You can buy that stuff too, of course, but doing so expensive and complicated, which makes it hard to recommend when you could alternately just send your photos to a photo printing service and get much better results than you’d get at home for a fraction of the price.
  - muro 8y ago
    I don't think you get both higher quality and lower price. I like large prints (A2) of my photos. I print them at home, after disappointing results from a service. I bought a Canon imageprograf 1000 - the cartridges are very big and the print costs are somewhat reasonable. When using expensive paper, the quality is impressive. It's not a cheap hobby, whenever I change cartridges, it's about 500, which hurts. Luckily they last a while. At larger sizes, I still send them to a printing service, those printers would be too expensive and used very rarely.
londons_explore 8y ago
I disagree. Many home users print less than a page a week on average. Just the occasional concert ticket or homemade sign/postcard. If you print a page a week, that means a $25 cheapest Inkjet, plus $20 of fake inks will let you have a working printer for 4 years for $45. Always turn the printer off to prevent ink drying up. No laser solution can give me the ability to print for $11/year.
- tinus_hn 8y ago
  Printing a ticket on an inkjet is fun when it starts to rain.
  - rcarmo 8y ago
    You must be using some very odd inkjets. I’ve had printed pages get wet but not blurry.
  - derekp7 8y ago
    There's only been a couple times recently that I've bought an online ticket for something, but in each case I'd have the gate agent at the venue just scan the QR code on my phone. Are online tickets that must be printed a common thing, and I just haven't run across it yet?
    - londons_explore 8y ago
      Bus and train tickets often seem to require the driver tear part of the ticket off and keep it. I guess they're too cheap or to encumbered by beauracracy to issue the drivers with a smartphone app.
- dazc 8y ago
  'Many home users print less than a page a week on average.' I am a one-man business and home user, printing on average less than this. I've used the sama canon inkjet printer for several years and changed the ink maybe twice in this time. Recently though, while staying with my dad, I bought another cheap inkjet partly because he needed a printer too and it would be useful for when ever I was there. I made the mistake of buying a 'Google Cloud-print' compatible printer since my dad uses a Chromebook. I have to say that thing has put us both through hell and is the worst purchase I have ever made.
bleh123 8y ago
Pardon the rage, but this blog is simply a rant masquerading as technical opinion. Laser printers do NOT have better quality to a comparable inkjet printer. This is what happens when individuals with expertise in a specialized area (such as programming), think that gives them some right to pass off opinion as fact in other fields, such as printing economics or procurement. For those curious about the details, the industry has been more or less disrupted with the new generation of tank printers. Epson and HP even have begun offering printers with massive ink tanks that bring down the cost of prints to much lower than a US cent. You can do even better than that with bulk buys or sourcing the ink from discount stores, better sources than open retail. Also, you “absolutely don’t” need to print every page in color, but it makes it a whole lot better if you do. Once you’re used to the difference in quality, there’s very little else that will feel as good. This is personal preference of course and if your requirements at present are only black and white documents, those will look a lot better with the higher dpi prints too. There’s another thing to be said about titles such as “no good reason to ever do x” ; Just because one person in a narrow minded existence sees no reason to, that doesn’t mean there’s never a good reason to. This toxic BS is what makes the tech industry so hard to have constructive conversations in.
- nmstoker 8y ago
  I think you're overblowing things here. It's not "toxic BS", it's just a piece he put out on his blog with his opinion. Your mention of tank printers is helpful but given his article is from 2016 the trend may not have been so obvious back then as it is now (to you; I don't bother following the printer market).
  - bleh123 8y ago
    Interesting. You're saying that one mustn't take the writings in a blog seriously, because . . its a blog? Here are a few choice quotes from the blog: > Which gives me, as your nerd friend who gets asked about this stuff all the time, an opportunity to pre-emptively pass along to you a little bit of purchasing advice. > because literally the only thing that inkjets had going for them was the fact that they were massively cheaper than lasers. They lose on every other front. > And then there is the big problem with inkjets, which is that ink for them is just ludicrously expensive. 1. There's no premise of "hey, i might be wrong here, this is what i think", in fact the first quote begins with the premise that, as a "nerd friend who gets asked about this stuff all the time", somehow this writer is an expert. Personally ,this seems as presumptive as the manufacturers "gouging" on peoples novice understanding of printing economics and technical ability, thus charging a premium for the abstraction of the details and upfront subsidy in the form of hardware discounts to later charge for supplies, that the author rallies against in the entire blog. 2. The 2nd and 3rd comments are just plain wrong. Writing them in a blog or anywhere with the conviction that they're right will do nothing to further ones reputation as someone who knows what they're talking about or has done a reasonable job searching the internet or any other source for details that may disgree with ones view before putting it out there. 3. The blogpost is from 2016, but tank printers and the economics that the blog covers have been around for much longer than that (>5 years now) The issue i take with this whole opinion isn't the fact that it is wrong. Again, debate on ideas is a very healthy exercise and must be encouraged. It's the presentation of an opinion as unquestionable and absolute fact that reduces the whole piece to one that's not in good taste. This writing style is more and more prevalent in tech where authors tend to cling to their POV with absolutes rather than approach an engineering problem/statement with an open mind and present ideas/opinion as what they are . . Ideas and opinions. Not absolute fact that cannot be questioned under any circumstance.
mehrdada 8y ago
Sure there is: often the cheapest scanner you can buy is a multifunction inkjet printer.
- rcarmo 8y ago
  This. I can live without a printer for a long time, but I need to scan stuff on a monthly basis.
  - otherme123 8y ago
    There're (relatively cheap) lasers with scanners. I have a Brother L3510CDW color laser, scanner and copier, for about $300. Then you have things like the L1610, laser B/W and scaner, for $100. One thing the article does't mention is that the ink cartridges get clogged and dry if the printer was left idle for some time. I had lost a significant amount of money to this before changing to lasers and never looking back. Also Epson, Canon and HP were so bad actors in the 90's and 00's that I would never buy a printer from them again. Fool me once...
  - Veen 8y ago
    I do a fair bit of scanning but these days scanner apps on my phone are just about good enough.
- taneq 8y ago
  Yep. We have one partly for this, and partly because so we had a printer that wasn't in my office. It cost $19 and hasn't run out of ink yet, we figure when it does we can buy another three $19 multifunction printers instead of spending $60whatever on ink.
xg15 8y ago
I agree, laser printers these days are an interesting option to consider (one advantage he didn't mention is the speed of printing, which makes life significantly easier when you often have to print large stacks of documents) However, what I don't like is his treatment of colour printers. He somehow concludes that the only use-case for consumers to print in colour would be photos and then goes on that printing photos at home produces crappy results, so you shouldn't do it anyway. Therefore, consumers do not need to print in colour. QED. I'm always wary of "tell me one reason you're gonna use it for" type arguments, where the asker then goes on to treat the answer as an exhaustive list of use-cases. Only because I cannot think of a use-case in that very moment does not mean a use-case doesn't exist. For colours, additional use-cases would be colour-coded diagrams or documents that for various reasons, you just want to look pretty.
- detaro 8y ago
  I'd argue "these days", this advice isn't as true anymore as it was some years ago. Office inkjets now beat many laser printers on printing costs again, you can buy inkjet printers you refill with an ink bottle, ...
  - asaph 8y ago
    > you can buy inkjet printers you refill with an ink bottle In my experience, this is messy and not worth the trouble.
    - detaro 8y ago
      I wasn't quite clear: I'm not talking about refilling used cartridges, but printers that have tanks and are designed for that. Those aren't that messy in my experience.
- McDev 8y ago
  >I'm always wary of "tell me one reason you're gonna use it for" type arguments, where the asker then goes on to treat the answer as an exhaustive list of use-cases. Sounds like an "On the spot fallacy" - https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/On_the_spot_fallacy https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/On_the_spot_fallacy
izacus 8y ago
It's also worth nothing that these days there are many LED printers, which use the same kind of tech as laser printers, but substitute expensive lasers with LEDs. They typically have a bit lower DPI, but are also significantly cheaper while still keeping cost-per-page down. My OKI color LED printer cost about 150$ and has network printing support, duplex unit and contains pretty large toners.
- chungleong 8y ago
  I have one as well. It's great but the downside is the enormous size. Thing weights a ton as well. I almost broke my back carrying it up the stairs.
  - izacus 8y ago
    Oh yeah, they are humongous and not really fit for small apartments. On the upside, the huge size means they're easy to service - pretty removing the fixer unit or transfer belt is very easy and needs no screws.
    - chungleong 8y ago
      Actually, I had a hell of time clearing a paper jam just the other day. Had to completely rip apart the duplexer. First malfunction in years. Definitely one of my better tech investment. Colors are better than I expected. Output is so much more professional looking compared to inkjet.
rmu09 8y ago
Inkjets don't produce dust or ozone and usually don't need any startup time.
- Tomte 8y ago
  Sure they do. Unless you print every day, they go through a printing head cleaning routine which lasts several seconds and eats your ink like crazy. If you only print occasionally, most of the ink does not end up on paper, but in some collecting tank.
rcarmo 8y ago
I don’t think the OP has children. Mine are the primary users of our printer, and never print in black and white, since “regular” essays are mailed in. They print out photos, colored shapes, game maps, etc. I probably print out something twice a year, and quite often only so I can move it to the scanner tray and fax it in to some government office (because nothing else in the house but our printer has a modem, and Portuguese post office/customs/etc. still operate in the Middle Ages). And even then the main reason I do that is that I prefer to use the printer menus than install HP’s utterly hideous Mac software.
- afterburner 8y ago
  There are $100 colour laser printers.
  - toyg 8y ago
    Are there?
    - fock 8y ago
      yeah. A pack of toner costs $300 then, but hey "the print won't wash away" (modern ink won't either) and you have a little bit of microdust for your lungs...
    - izacus 8y ago
      Yes, they're usually LED, not Laser, but it doesn't make much of a difference. They print color just fine.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
jsmith99 8y ago
HP's pagewide inkjets have print heads wide enough to print the entire page in one pass and compare pretty well to medium end small business laser printers on cost and speed. They're still not a good option for light home users though.
kalleboo 8y ago
I print rarely enough (quarterly? twice a year?) that I just go to 7-11 and use their multicopier when I need to print. It has a color laser and photo printer, as well as being stocked with postcards so you can print those for Xmas. The only downside is you just know all your files are being cached indefinitely on the internal harddisk and will end up god knows where when it's been decommissioned.
pixelcort 8y ago
In Tokyo most convenience stores are within a few minute walk, and have printers and scanners. You can use a smartphone app to transfer PDFs to them. If you print a lot, it’s probably cheaper to buy a printer, but I only print a couple times per year so I find it more convenient to use this.
- purplezooey 8y ago
  I used a printer in To-k-yo
- SapporoChris 8y ago
  I am in Sapporo, the cost of a black and white print is 10 yen, a color print is 50 yen. My print needs are very low. I recently printed 36 color prints, and 30 bw prints. (Less than $20 USD) It's been more than a year since my last need to print anything. Store was 3 minute walk from apartment. I know in USA there are many print shops with comparable prices, but the time required to use the services is a larger factor. I'm glad for the convenience, and for my low print needs. Space and cost of a printer would be annoying. I speculate there are large numbers of people that don't fully utilize their printers and could be served by a print service better.
PunksATawnyFill 8y ago
"That’s what’s called a 'win-win.'” Actually, at the risk of being pedantic: It's a win/win.
- kgwgk 8y ago
  https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/win-win https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/win-win
z92 8y ago
Color ink tank printers are what everyone uses here. https://www.ldproducts.com/blog/best-ink-tank-printers-of-2018/ https://www.ldproducts.com/blog/best-ink-tank-printers-of-20... These are inkjet printers but no cartridge. Rather you buy ink in bottles and fill the tanks up. 4 bottles cost $4 for a fill up. And I finish more than three 500 packs of papers before ink ends. Plus most of these printers have scanners on top. So you can use it also as a color photocopier. Have been using these for over 5 years.
- exoesquitur 8y ago
  Came here to say this. Rediculosly low cost per page.
- steve19 8y ago
  Somehow I never knew about these. Seems too good to be true. What's the catch? If there is no catch I might pick one up next week!
  - derekp7 8y ago
    The catch is that you don't get the printer for $50 bucks. You pay the actual price for the printer, since it isn't subsidized by ink sales.
    - adem 8y ago
      You saying this made me realize that buying an inkjet printer is akin to buying a phone with a contract - crazy.
      - arcticbull 8y ago
        Razors and razor blades
        chrisseaton 8y ago
        I've never understood this example. A razor without the blade is just a handle. All the engineering is in the blades. Of course the handle is cheap and the blades are expensive.
clouddrover 8y ago
Canon sells "continuous ink" printers which you refill with bottles of ink as opposed to cartridges: https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/products/list/printers/megatank-inkjet-printers/ https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/products/l...
- seba_dos1 8y ago
  ...which is what people that use a lot of ink have been often doing anyway with other models: buying the ink in bottles, injecting it into old cartridges and resetting the gauge chip.
dorkwood 8y ago
Back when I was studying, I bought a $50 black-and-white laser printer for printing out my school work. It was fantastic to use, but when the toner cartridge ran out, the cheapest replacement I could find was $150. It turned out to be more economical to buy a new printer rather than replace the cartridge.
- tinix 8y ago
  Why not just refill the toner yourself for a few bucks?
  - steve19 8y ago
    Not the op but I used to do that. Now I buy fake cartridges on aliexpress or ebay. Toner can make such a mess that is hard to clean up. Just not worth the hassle.
    - tinix 8y ago
      Perhaps I've been lucky enough to buy laser printers with easy to empty and refill toner cartridges (brother)... The only problems I've had with messiness are when cleaning the roller, which, I do like, once every year or two maybe?
- muro 8y ago
  Maybe. The printer that comes with the printer usually only holds a fraction of what you get when buying a new toner (1/4 or so).
  - magicalhippo 8y ago
    I got a HP LaserJet Pro P1102W I bought several years ago. The replacement toner cartridge costs about 40% of what I paid for the printer. However, the cartridge that came with the printer lasted for about a hundred or so pages, while the replacement cartridge lasts for about 1500 pages, so about 10x longer.
- amelius 8y ago
magicalhippo 8y ago
If you require an A3-capable multi-functional color printer that doesn't cost more than a decent car and fits on a desk, it seems you're stuck with quite cheap inkjet varieties. At least here I can only find Epson and Brother varieties which have a predictable quality given their price point. And the ink is quite expensive.
fock 8y ago
Actually the infamous HP printers (Officejet 86x and up) had/have pretty good per page costs (color <10€cts/page, b/w <5€cts) even with the "expensive" original cartridges AND they work superbly with GNU/Linux. Brother and Epson also have some models with an attractive per page cost, with the former even not hindering the use of 3rd party-cartridges/refilling. And sincerely, once you want (other question is if you need it) a color printer, most of the points of this guy are just plainly wrong if not FUD: - color prints with lasers are horribly expensive if you buy a <1000€ machine. Also refill-cartridges are the same thing as with inkjets. - if you buy a used +1000€-machine be prepared to replace the drum (~300€) and set aside a hefty pile of cash for toner cartridges – while they may last 10k-15k pages, 300€ per color cartridge is not so much fun... even for basic b/w he just talks a lot of BS - as mentioned above, you easily find a 200€-class inkjet with HP/Epson/Brother, where you pay 30-40€ for a cartridge worth ~2000 pages of b/w. You'll have a hard time finding a (new) b/w laser with reccurring costs as low as this at the price point (and you're limited to b/w) - at least the HP ink doesn't care for getting wet (just soaked a paper once, when a friend explained to me, why he still pays around 300€ for a set of toner worth 1000 pages...) - if you really print a lot, you most certainly want things in color. Or at least I did during school (which is probably the only place to privately print anymore), sorry Jason. And for absolutely lowest operating cost (w/o power) buy a parallel adapter card and hook up your dad's old needle printer (if you don't care for power it also will do remotely untamperable logging for you!)
- robk 8y ago
  Laserjet printers like the 4700 and 5500 series are very cost effective to buy now. Maybe $250 on eBay and if you hunt toners go for $80 each on eBay and you'll get thousands of pages. Drum needs replacing very rarely - if you buy one with 75%+ left doubt it will ever be used in a residential or small office setting ime.
  - fock 8y ago
    well, I specifically mentioned the possibility to buy used ones. And while you can certainly buy 10-20 y.o. machines I guess in most cases you are probably better off with a nwe 200$ "business-class" inkjet, which sips power, includes a copy machine and won't need a dedicated print-server...
Lio 8y ago
I’d like a printer with FOSS firmware/drivers that will reliably work over wifi. I’d like a printer that I can used just once or twice a year without the ink drying up, when I really have to print something. I'd also like one that doesn’t leak any toxic gasses. I’ve always been put off home lasers because of worrying about that. Is that a real problem or am I misinformed?
- fock 8y ago
  Raspberry Pi + Needle-Printer of vintage provenance? (might consume too much power and the parallel port might bug sometimes though) And it's not gases, but dust, but yeah (and inkjet's probably also have their problems with ink-fog)...
- zepearl 8y ago
  Concerning the first 2 points I've always been very happy with the Kyocera FS-C5150DN that I bought maaany years ago. It's best if you check beforehand on their download page the availability of drivers for your OS and device (e.g. PPD for Linux & CUPS for mine is listed here: https://www.kyoceradocumentsolutions.ch/de/index/service_support/download_center.false._.FSC5150DN._.DE.html https://www.kyoceradocumentsolutions.ch/de/index/service_sup... ). Mine is connected over LAN. I print very rarely and so far it always worked fine (I'm still using the provided cartriges - I guess that so far I printed with them ~400 pages, usually duplex). I didn't worry much about the gases because I use the printer too rarely.
Arkanosis 8y ago
I've not had a personal printer for something like ~15 years now… I've spent around 200€ once on a decent quality (except black and white) ebook reader and spend an additional ~10€ a year at most for high quality prints (photos and labels). So I'd argue that for some people, there's no good reason to buy a personal printer at all: not for price, not for quality and not even for convenience (buying compatible cartridges is not something I remember as being easy).
Fnoord 8y ago
1) Laser printers are notorious for particulates. You don't want such a printer on the same area as your office. In The Netherlands this is why printers are normally near the coffee machine in offices. In a small home, where would you put it? I find it convenient to have my inkjet near my computer. 2) You don't have to buy official cartridges. Just buy refill (which I'm doing with my Brother printer). You need to do some research on which printer gives a good price on the refill cartridges.
drfuchs 8y ago
Nobody has yet mentioned HP “InstantInk” plans, where they charge for ink by the page, and send cartridges as they anticipate you’ll need them (so big brother is indeed watching your usage via the internet; the fun advantage of being connected is that you can send print jobs home while you’re on the road). Works on many of their newer models; we have the OfficeJet Pro 8740. Cheapest plan is $3/month for up to 50 pages; higher volume plans get down to 3 cents per page (side).
Lendal 8y ago
I came to the same conclusion after throwing away three bricked inkjet printers in a row. All different brands. None of them lasted more than 400 printed pages. They're shit. Laser from now on.
cseelus 8y ago
Inkjets still have a few advantages or are at least on par with Laser printers: - Borderless printing (Photos, your invoices with a footer that has a blue background, …) - Much cheaper to restock with 3rd party cartridges or even cheaper when you have one with refillable tanks - You can print on photo paper and get out really nice looking photos. Generally the quality of images with a good Inkjet is better than laser imho - You can print on a very broad array of different kinds of papers, formats and materials, many printers can even print on blu-ray discs and stuff like that - Many modern Inkets use Ink that is water resistant, so you can use a marker pen on your printouts for example - Time to first page is usually shorter (no warmup needed) - No risk of Ozone hazards (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_printing#Ozone_hazards https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_printing#Ozone_hazards) - Usually smaller form-factor
hevi_jos 8y ago
Laser printers have cancerous particles on it that fly into the air. A little detail when you have it in your house. I thought about using the same enclosure with carbon filters that I use with my 3D printers but it is a lot of work. Carbon filters are made from wood, very different from the degenerated aromatic rings of toner. Also color printing with laser is extremely expensive, way more than color ink tanks with drainage so your printers last a long time.
brudgers 8y ago
One good reason, gamut.
mikece 8y ago
I use an inkjet for printing shipping labels. It’s not common I need to print a full sheet and when printed on a laser printer the heat applied to the unprinted labels warps the sheet rendering them nearly useless. And Epson inkjets make really good looking black-print documents as well... I haven’t had the laser hooked up in a couple years and I’m not missing it.
- julianlam 8y ago
  Ironically in this case, a dot matrix printer would be more cost efficient and faster (as shipping labels are a couple lines of text, which would only require about 10 or so passes of the print head).
leoedin 8y ago
I've had a brother laser printer for more than 10 years. It's absolutely amazing for what it does - sit in the corner untouched for a few months and then prints tickets or boarding passes reliably. If you're a casual home user I'd definitely recommend getting one.
thinkingemote 8y ago
The only time I use a printer is for boarding passes and only for budget airlines that don't allow free printing at the airport. I have a printer but the ink dries up as I never use it. Replacing the ink would not be economical. I go to the library and print there for a few cents.
- martyvis 8y ago
  Why do you need to print boarding passes? All of the domestic airlines in Australia either have mobile apps or SMS you a link that displays a QR code that can be scanned at the terminal gates.
blisterpeanuts 8y ago
In my experience, a good compromise is to buy both a cheap laser and a cheap inkjet. An $80 Brother laser,for example, and a $50-60 refurbished HP. 90% of my family's printouts are black and white. The HP Envy is ideal for the occasional color job. Laser toner $12 on Ebay, lasts about 8 months. Color cartridges for the inkjet last a year. Each technology has its advantages and weaknesses. I've considered a color laser, but the prices and features are still not competitive.
purplezooey 8y ago
Just get a line printer. Boarding passes work great, you can convert everything to ascii art.
purerandomness 8y ago
I recommend the Brother HL2030 (LED, b/w) (or the slightly faster, but more rare HL-2035). Costs you ~20€ off of eBay classifieds, parts are cheap, works like a charm. Cartridges cost the same as the printer. One toner cartridge lasts forever. Hook it to a 5€ network print server off of ebay, and you get the cheapset possible office printing solution for your startup.
- jboles 8y ago
  I have a HL5250DN that I picked up for $70 at least 5 years ago. It’s been going strong since then with occasional home printing duties and despite it not supporting modern wireless printing, Brother’s own “iPrint&Scan” software (with the printer hooked up via wired Ethernet) was a welcome discovery. Would never have thought I could print directly from an iPad/iPhone to a ~12 year old printer like that, but it works really well. I was quite impressed it was possible and will never buy an HP/Epson inkjet again.
julienfr112 8y ago
What about the size of the printer. We live in a small apartement, and I really enjoy the small size of my officejet 100 https://support.hp.com/fr-fr/drivers/selfservice/HP-Officejet-100-Mobile-Printer-series---L411/4231339/model/4231407 https://support.hp.com/fr-fr/drivers/selfservice/HP-Officeje... . And as i mainly print at work, and use it only when I've got no other choice, I find that it really fit my needs.
Angela_Marshall 8y ago
What's a good printer to get these days for regular home use?

90 points by smacktoward 8y ago

Same is happening with laser printers as inkjet printers. I think I have last laser printer ever, where you can add color powder from an Ebay bottle. Samsung CLP-315 was manufactured in 2007.

detaro 8y ago
And you can buy inkjets that officially refill from a bottle again, e.g. from HP: https://www8.hp.com/ph/en/printers/HP-Ink-Tank_System.html https://www8.hp.com/ph/en/printers/HP-Ink-Tank_System.html

bayareanative 8y ago

Laser printers economics: The more expensive the printer, the amortized cheaper the cost per page and the more repairable it is. I worked at nuclear engineering firm and a Pac10 university in IT on the budgetary side. The cheap laser printers were almost always unrepairable. I remember this one laser printer, an HP 5si, that had a page count over 1 million pages. At home, I had an HP LaserJet 4 from mid 90's that worked for around 25 years. I think I changed the toner cartridge once from Laser Monks. People who buy inkjet printers keep throwing them away because they dry up or their cheap displays stop working, and end up buying another cheap throw-away printer and set of cartridges. The razor-blade economy is in the cartridges and almost giving away the printers. And they never last, and people keep throwing the old ones and buying new ones. ProTip: home gamers should buy a repo big name corporate laser printer, preferably black&white or maybe the medium/higher-end color mopiers. Never the entry model because they're cheaply made.

tomcam 8y ago
What do gamers do with printers?
- FigmentEngine 8y ago
  print key guides, maps, cheatsheets
- jstanley 8y ago
  "Home gamer" is slang for anyone operating on their own at home (even if just in evenings or weekends), as opposed to work done at a company.
- Max_aaa 8y ago
  Not all games are played on the computer.....
- clouddrover 8y ago
  They take pictures with their Game Boy Camera: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Camera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Camera And print them out with their Game Boy Printer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Printer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Printer Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z2_af1vfJM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z2_af1vfJM
Theodores 8y ago
The detail that people forget is that printers are mechanical and therefore suffer from mechanical wear. With laser printers that go on forever the toner cartridge includes a fair heft of the parts that would wear out. With ink jet printers this is not the same. Also, are you changing just the ink or the nozzles too? Regulation could have rigged this market to have avoided the race to the bottom that went on. The razor blade sales model is okay for razor blades, you are spending tops $10 on the razor and it is clear in the box that you are not getting the full complement of replacement blades that cost $20 and are next to it in the store. With inkjet printers it was a deceptive practice. Only after you were back buying ink did you clock the start pack inks. Some of the printers did not include a black ink. In the EU the regulation of USB power charging worked out well for everyone, we no longer have drawers full of 'wall warts'. Had printers been regulated so that there was a minimum amount of pages that a new printer would print without running out of ink with the ink not running dry during the 2 year warranty period then the market would have been more sensible. Oh, and no proprietary replacement inks. The price of a new printer would have been higher however there would have also been a secondary market in second hand printers. With the razor model there is no secondary market, at best you are giving a printer away rather than charging for it because it costs more to put ink in it than it costs for someone to just buy a new one. The original inkjet printers were a wonder of fine engineering. I particularly liked the way the original ones held the freshly printed page to dry before dropping it into the tray. In 1990 you needed an expensive dye sublimation printer with mega expensive consumables to print colour. The inkjets came along and made colour something to take for granted. This was wonderful. But the razor model made it impossible for the inkjet to keep the awe it truly deserved. In time the printers got nastier and nastier, e.g. the Lexmark efforts that are landfilled rather than cherished. Had there been just the smallest bit of regulation in the EU then that would have affected how these things were sold globally and there wouldn't have been such a wasteful race to the bottom.
- 0815test 8y ago
  > In 1990 you needed an expensive dye sublimation printer with mega expensive consumables to print colour. Not so, four-color ribbons for impact printers were a thing.

nickgrosvenor 8y ago

I personally print color pages all the time.

londons_explore 8y ago

Inkjet are far better for photographs. Laser-printed photographs lack any kind of vibrancy. Put photo paper through a laser printer and chances are it'll melt into the rollers.

hydrox24 8y ago
The article did not address this use case enough, but it was addressed in part. > Reproducing colors in photographs accurately demands a lot more than just some barrels of color ink; it demands a high-resolution printer and special, treated paper that can hold colors better than plain old printer paper can. You can buy that stuff too, of course, but doing so expensive and complicated, which makes it hard to recommend when you could alternately just send your photos to a photo printing service and get much better results than you’d get at home for a fraction of the price.
- muro 8y ago
  I don't think you get both higher quality and lower price. I like large prints (A2) of my photos. I print them at home, after disappointing results from a service. I bought a Canon imageprograf 1000 - the cartridges are very big and the print costs are somewhat reasonable. When using expensive paper, the quality is impressive. It's not a cheap hobby, whenever I change cartridges, it's about 500, which hurts. Luckily they last a while. At larger sizes, I still send them to a printing service, those printers would be too expensive and used very rarely.

londons_explore 8y ago

I disagree. Many home users print less than a page a week on average. Just the occasional concert ticket or homemade sign/postcard. If you print a page a week, that means a $25 cheapest Inkjet, plus $20 of fake inks will let you have a working printer for 4 years for $45. Always turn the printer off to prevent ink drying up. No laser solution can give me the ability to print for $11/year.

tinus_hn 8y ago
Printing a ticket on an inkjet is fun when it starts to rain.
- rcarmo 8y ago
  You must be using some very odd inkjets. I’ve had printed pages get wet but not blurry.
- derekp7 8y ago
  There's only been a couple times recently that I've bought an online ticket for something, but in each case I'd have the gate agent at the venue just scan the QR code on my phone. Are online tickets that must be printed a common thing, and I just haven't run across it yet?
  - londons_explore 8y ago
    Bus and train tickets often seem to require the driver tear part of the ticket off and keep it. I guess they're too cheap or to encumbered by beauracracy to issue the drivers with a smartphone app.
dazc 8y ago
'Many home users print less than a page a week on average.' I am a one-man business and home user, printing on average less than this. I've used the sama canon inkjet printer for several years and changed the ink maybe twice in this time. Recently though, while staying with my dad, I bought another cheap inkjet partly because he needed a printer too and it would be useful for when ever I was there. I made the mistake of buying a 'Google Cloud-print' compatible printer since my dad uses a Chromebook. I have to say that thing has put us both through hell and is the worst purchase I have ever made.

bleh123 8y ago

Pardon the rage, but this blog is simply a rant masquerading as technical opinion. Laser printers do NOT have better quality to a comparable inkjet printer. This is what happens when individuals with expertise in a specialized area (such as programming), think that gives them some right to pass off opinion as fact in other fields, such as printing economics or procurement. For those curious about the details, the industry has been more or less disrupted with the new generation of tank printers. Epson and HP even have begun offering printers with massive ink tanks that bring down the cost of prints to much lower than a US cent. You can do even better than that with bulk buys or sourcing the ink from discount stores, better sources than open retail. Also, you “absolutely don’t” need to print every page in color, but it makes it a whole lot better if you do. Once you’re used to the difference in quality, there’s very little else that will feel as good. This is personal preference of course and if your requirements at present are only black and white documents, those will look a lot better with the higher dpi prints too. There’s another thing to be said about titles such as “no good reason to ever do x” ; Just because one person in a narrow minded existence sees no reason to, that doesn’t mean there’s never a good reason to. This toxic BS is what makes the tech industry so hard to have constructive conversations in.

nmstoker 8y ago
I think you're overblowing things here. It's not "toxic BS", it's just a piece he put out on his blog with his opinion. Your mention of tank printers is helpful but given his article is from 2016 the trend may not have been so obvious back then as it is now (to you; I don't bother following the printer market).
- bleh123 8y ago
  Interesting. You're saying that one mustn't take the writings in a blog seriously, because . . its a blog? Here are a few choice quotes from the blog: > Which gives me, as your nerd friend who gets asked about this stuff all the time, an opportunity to pre-emptively pass along to you a little bit of purchasing advice. > because literally the only thing that inkjets had going for them was the fact that they were massively cheaper than lasers. They lose on every other front. > And then there is the big problem with inkjets, which is that ink for them is just ludicrously expensive. 1. There's no premise of "hey, i might be wrong here, this is what i think", in fact the first quote begins with the premise that, as a "nerd friend who gets asked about this stuff all the time", somehow this writer is an expert. Personally ,this seems as presumptive as the manufacturers "gouging" on peoples novice understanding of printing economics and technical ability, thus charging a premium for the abstraction of the details and upfront subsidy in the form of hardware discounts to later charge for supplies, that the author rallies against in the entire blog. 2. The 2nd and 3rd comments are just plain wrong. Writing them in a blog or anywhere with the conviction that they're right will do nothing to further ones reputation as someone who knows what they're talking about or has done a reasonable job searching the internet or any other source for details that may disgree with ones view before putting it out there. 3. The blogpost is from 2016, but tank printers and the economics that the blog covers have been around for much longer than that (>5 years now) The issue i take with this whole opinion isn't the fact that it is wrong. Again, debate on ideas is a very healthy exercise and must be encouraged. It's the presentation of an opinion as unquestionable and absolute fact that reduces the whole piece to one that's not in good taste. This writing style is more and more prevalent in tech where authors tend to cling to their POV with absolutes rather than approach an engineering problem/statement with an open mind and present ideas/opinion as what they are . . Ideas and opinions. Not absolute fact that cannot be questioned under any circumstance.

mehrdada 8y ago

Sure there is: often the cheapest scanner you can buy is a multifunction inkjet printer.

rcarmo 8y ago
This. I can live without a printer for a long time, but I need to scan stuff on a monthly basis.
- otherme123 8y ago
  There're (relatively cheap) lasers with scanners. I have a Brother L3510CDW color laser, scanner and copier, for about $300. Then you have things like the L1610, laser B/W and scaner, for $100. One thing the article does't mention is that the ink cartridges get clogged and dry if the printer was left idle for some time. I had lost a significant amount of money to this before changing to lasers and never looking back. Also Epson, Canon and HP were so bad actors in the 90's and 00's that I would never buy a printer from them again. Fool me once...
- Veen 8y ago
  I do a fair bit of scanning but these days scanner apps on my phone are just about good enough.
taneq 8y ago
Yep. We have one partly for this, and partly because so we had a printer that wasn't in my office. It cost $19 and hasn't run out of ink yet, we figure when it does we can buy another three $19 multifunction printers instead of spending $60whatever on ink.

xg15 8y ago

I agree, laser printers these days are an interesting option to consider (one advantage he didn't mention is the speed of printing, which makes life significantly easier when you often have to print large stacks of documents) However, what I don't like is his treatment of colour printers. He somehow concludes that the only use-case for consumers to print in colour would be photos and then goes on that printing photos at home produces crappy results, so you shouldn't do it anyway. Therefore, consumers do not need to print in colour. QED. I'm always wary of "tell me one reason you're gonna use it for" type arguments, where the asker then goes on to treat the answer as an exhaustive list of use-cases. Only because I cannot think of a use-case in that very moment does not mean a use-case doesn't exist. For colours, additional use-cases would be colour-coded diagrams or documents that for various reasons, you just want to look pretty.

detaro 8y ago
I'd argue "these days", this advice isn't as true anymore as it was some years ago. Office inkjets now beat many laser printers on printing costs again, you can buy inkjet printers you refill with an ink bottle, ...
- asaph 8y ago
  > you can buy inkjet printers you refill with an ink bottle In my experience, this is messy and not worth the trouble.
  - detaro 8y ago
    I wasn't quite clear: I'm not talking about refilling used cartridges, but printers that have tanks and are designed for that. Those aren't that messy in my experience.
McDev 8y ago
>I'm always wary of "tell me one reason you're gonna use it for" type arguments, where the asker then goes on to treat the answer as an exhaustive list of use-cases. Sounds like an "On the spot fallacy" - https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/On_the_spot_fallacy https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/On_the_spot_fallacy

izacus 8y ago

It's also worth nothing that these days there are many LED printers, which use the same kind of tech as laser printers, but substitute expensive lasers with LEDs. They typically have a bit lower DPI, but are also significantly cheaper while still keeping cost-per-page down. My OKI color LED printer cost about 150$ and has network printing support, duplex unit and contains pretty large toners.

chungleong 8y ago
I have one as well. It's great but the downside is the enormous size. Thing weights a ton as well. I almost broke my back carrying it up the stairs.
- izacus 8y ago
  Oh yeah, they are humongous and not really fit for small apartments. On the upside, the huge size means they're easy to service - pretty removing the fixer unit or transfer belt is very easy and needs no screws.
  - chungleong 8y ago
    Actually, I had a hell of time clearing a paper jam just the other day. Had to completely rip apart the duplexer. First malfunction in years. Definitely one of my better tech investment. Colors are better than I expected. Output is so much more professional looking compared to inkjet.

rmu09 8y ago

Inkjets don't produce dust or ozone and usually don't need any startup time.

Tomte 8y ago
Sure they do. Unless you print every day, they go through a printing head cleaning routine which lasts several seconds and eats your ink like crazy. If you only print occasionally, most of the ink does not end up on paper, but in some collecting tank.

rcarmo 8y ago

I don’t think the OP has children. Mine are the primary users of our printer, and never print in black and white, since “regular” essays are mailed in. They print out photos, colored shapes, game maps, etc. I probably print out something twice a year, and quite often only so I can move it to the scanner tray and fax it in to some government office (because nothing else in the house but our printer has a modem, and Portuguese post office/customs/etc. still operate in the Middle Ages). And even then the main reason I do that is that I prefer to use the printer menus than install HP’s utterly hideous Mac software.

afterburner 8y ago
There are $100 colour laser printers.
- toyg 8y ago
  Are there?
  - fock 8y ago
    yeah. A pack of toner costs $300 then, but hey "the print won't wash away" (modern ink won't either) and you have a little bit of microdust for your lungs...
  - izacus 8y ago
    Yes, they're usually LED, not Laser, but it doesn't make much of a difference. They print color just fine.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

jsmith99 8y ago

HP's pagewide inkjets have print heads wide enough to print the entire page in one pass and compare pretty well to medium end small business laser printers on cost and speed. They're still not a good option for light home users though.

kalleboo 8y ago

I print rarely enough (quarterly? twice a year?) that I just go to 7-11 and use their multicopier when I need to print. It has a color laser and photo printer, as well as being stocked with postcards so you can print those for Xmas. The only downside is you just know all your files are being cached indefinitely on the internal harddisk and will end up god knows where when it's been decommissioned.

pixelcort 8y ago

In Tokyo most convenience stores are within a few minute walk, and have printers and scanners. You can use a smartphone app to transfer PDFs to them. If you print a lot, it’s probably cheaper to buy a printer, but I only print a couple times per year so I find it more convenient to use this.

purplezooey 8y ago
I used a printer in To-k-yo
SapporoChris 8y ago
I am in Sapporo, the cost of a black and white print is 10 yen, a color print is 50 yen. My print needs are very low. I recently printed 36 color prints, and 30 bw prints. (Less than $20 USD) It's been more than a year since my last need to print anything. Store was 3 minute walk from apartment. I know in USA there are many print shops with comparable prices, but the time required to use the services is a larger factor. I'm glad for the convenience, and for my low print needs. Space and cost of a printer would be annoying. I speculate there are large numbers of people that don't fully utilize their printers and could be served by a print service better.

PunksATawnyFill 8y ago

"That’s what’s called a 'win-win.'” Actually, at the risk of being pedantic: It's a win/win.

kgwgk 8y ago
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/win-win https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/win-win

z92 8y ago

Color ink tank printers are what everyone uses here. https://www.ldproducts.com/blog/best-ink-tank-printers-of-2018/ https://www.ldproducts.com/blog/best-ink-tank-printers-of-20... These are inkjet printers but no cartridge. Rather you buy ink in bottles and fill the tanks up. 4 bottles cost $4 for a fill up. And I finish more than three 500 packs of papers before ink ends. Plus most of these printers have scanners on top. So you can use it also as a color photocopier. Have been using these for over 5 years.

exoesquitur 8y ago
Came here to say this. Rediculosly low cost per page.
steve19 8y ago
Somehow I never knew about these. Seems too good to be true. What's the catch? If there is no catch I might pick one up next week!
- derekp7 8y ago
  The catch is that you don't get the printer for $50 bucks. You pay the actual price for the printer, since it isn't subsidized by ink sales.
  - adem 8y ago
    You saying this made me realize that buying an inkjet printer is akin to buying a phone with a contract - crazy.
    - arcticbull 8y ago
      Razors and razor blades
      - chrisseaton 8y ago
        I've never understood this example. A razor without the blade is just a handle. All the engineering is in the blades. Of course the handle is cheap and the blades are expensive.

clouddrover 8y ago

Canon sells "continuous ink" printers which you refill with bottles of ink as opposed to cartridges: https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/products/list/printers/megatank-inkjet-printers/ https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/products/l...

seba_dos1 8y ago
...which is what people that use a lot of ink have been often doing anyway with other models: buying the ink in bottles, injecting it into old cartridges and resetting the gauge chip.

dorkwood 8y ago

Back when I was studying, I bought a $50 black-and-white laser printer for printing out my school work. It was fantastic to use, but when the toner cartridge ran out, the cheapest replacement I could find was $150. It turned out to be more economical to buy a new printer rather than replace the cartridge.

tinix 8y ago
Why not just refill the toner yourself for a few bucks?
- steve19 8y ago
  Not the op but I used to do that. Now I buy fake cartridges on aliexpress or ebay. Toner can make such a mess that is hard to clean up. Just not worth the hassle.
  - tinix 8y ago
    Perhaps I've been lucky enough to buy laser printers with easy to empty and refill toner cartridges (brother)... The only problems I've had with messiness are when cleaning the roller, which, I do like, once every year or two maybe?
muro 8y ago
Maybe. The printer that comes with the printer usually only holds a fraction of what you get when buying a new toner (1/4 or so).
- magicalhippo 8y ago
  I got a HP LaserJet Pro P1102W I bought several years ago. The replacement toner cartridge costs about 40% of what I paid for the printer. However, the cartridge that came with the printer lasted for about a hundred or so pages, while the replacement cartridge lasts for about 1500 pages, so about 10x longer.
amelius 8y ago

magicalhippo 8y ago

If you require an A3-capable multi-functional color printer that doesn't cost more than a decent car and fits on a desk, it seems you're stuck with quite cheap inkjet varieties. At least here I can only find Epson and Brother varieties which have a predictable quality given their price point. And the ink is quite expensive.

fock 8y ago

Actually the infamous HP printers (Officejet 86x and up) had/have pretty good per page costs (color <10€cts/page, b/w <5€cts) even with the "expensive" original cartridges AND they work superbly with GNU/Linux. Brother and Epson also have some models with an attractive per page cost, with the former even not hindering the use of 3rd party-cartridges/refilling. And sincerely, once you want (other question is if you need it) a color printer, most of the points of this guy are just plainly wrong if not FUD: - color prints with lasers are horribly expensive if you buy a <1000€ machine. Also refill-cartridges are the same thing as with inkjets. - if you buy a used +1000€-machine be prepared to replace the drum (~300€) and set aside a hefty pile of cash for toner cartridges – while they may last 10k-15k pages, 300€ per color cartridge is not so much fun... even for basic b/w he just talks a lot of BS - as mentioned above, you easily find a 200€-class inkjet with HP/Epson/Brother, where you pay 30-40€ for a cartridge worth ~2000 pages of b/w. You'll have a hard time finding a (new) b/w laser with reccurring costs as low as this at the price point (and you're limited to b/w) - at least the HP ink doesn't care for getting wet (just soaked a paper once, when a friend explained to me, why he still pays around 300€ for a set of toner worth 1000 pages...) - if you really print a lot, you most certainly want things in color. Or at least I did during school (which is probably the only place to privately print anymore), sorry Jason. And for absolutely lowest operating cost (w/o power) buy a parallel adapter card and hook up your dad's old needle printer (if you don't care for power it also will do remotely untamperable logging for you!)

robk 8y ago
Laserjet printers like the 4700 and 5500 series are very cost effective to buy now. Maybe $250 on eBay and if you hunt toners go for $80 each on eBay and you'll get thousands of pages. Drum needs replacing very rarely - if you buy one with 75%+ left doubt it will ever be used in a residential or small office setting ime.
- fock 8y ago
  well, I specifically mentioned the possibility to buy used ones. And while you can certainly buy 10-20 y.o. machines I guess in most cases you are probably better off with a nwe 200$ "business-class" inkjet, which sips power, includes a copy machine and won't need a dedicated print-server...

Lio 8y ago

I’d like a printer with FOSS firmware/drivers that will reliably work over wifi. I’d like a printer that I can used just once or twice a year without the ink drying up, when I really have to print something. I'd also like one that doesn’t leak any toxic gasses. I’ve always been put off home lasers because of worrying about that. Is that a real problem or am I misinformed?

fock 8y ago
Raspberry Pi + Needle-Printer of vintage provenance? (might consume too much power and the parallel port might bug sometimes though) And it's not gases, but dust, but yeah (and inkjet's probably also have their problems with ink-fog)...
zepearl 8y ago
Concerning the first 2 points I've always been very happy with the Kyocera FS-C5150DN that I bought maaany years ago. It's best if you check beforehand on their download page the availability of drivers for your OS and device (e.g. PPD for Linux & CUPS for mine is listed here: https://www.kyoceradocumentsolutions.ch/de/index/service_support/download_center.false._.FSC5150DN._.DE.html https://www.kyoceradocumentsolutions.ch/de/index/service_sup... ). Mine is connected over LAN. I print very rarely and so far it always worked fine (I'm still using the provided cartriges - I guess that so far I printed with them ~400 pages, usually duplex). I didn't worry much about the gases because I use the printer too rarely.

Arkanosis 8y ago

I've not had a personal printer for something like ~15 years now… I've spent around 200€ once on a decent quality (except black and white) ebook reader and spend an additional ~10€ a year at most for high quality prints (photos and labels). So I'd argue that for some people, there's no good reason to buy a personal printer at all: not for price, not for quality and not even for convenience (buying compatible cartridges is not something I remember as being easy).

Fnoord 8y ago

1) Laser printers are notorious for particulates. You don't want such a printer on the same area as your office. In The Netherlands this is why printers are normally near the coffee machine in offices. In a small home, where would you put it? I find it convenient to have my inkjet near my computer. 2) You don't have to buy official cartridges. Just buy refill (which I'm doing with my Brother printer). You need to do some research on which printer gives a good price on the refill cartridges.

drfuchs 8y ago

Nobody has yet mentioned HP “InstantInk” plans, where they charge for ink by the page, and send cartridges as they anticipate you’ll need them (so big brother is indeed watching your usage via the internet; the fun advantage of being connected is that you can send print jobs home while you’re on the road). Works on many of their newer models; we have the OfficeJet Pro 8740. Cheapest plan is $3/month for up to 50 pages; higher volume plans get down to 3 cents per page (side).

Lendal 8y ago

I came to the same conclusion after throwing away three bricked inkjet printers in a row. All different brands. None of them lasted more than 400 printed pages. They're shit. Laser from now on.

cseelus 8y ago

Inkjets still have a few advantages or are at least on par with Laser printers: - Borderless printing (Photos, your invoices with a footer that has a blue background, …) - Much cheaper to restock with 3rd party cartridges or even cheaper when you have one with refillable tanks - You can print on photo paper and get out really nice looking photos. Generally the quality of images with a good Inkjet is better than laser imho - You can print on a very broad array of different kinds of papers, formats and materials, many printers can even print on blu-ray discs and stuff like that - Many modern Inkets use Ink that is water resistant, so you can use a marker pen on your printouts for example - Time to first page is usually shorter (no warmup needed) - No risk of Ozone hazards (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_printing#Ozone_hazards https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_printing#Ozone_hazards) - Usually smaller form-factor

hevi_jos 8y ago

Laser printers have cancerous particles on it that fly into the air. A little detail when you have it in your house. I thought about using the same enclosure with carbon filters that I use with my 3D printers but it is a lot of work. Carbon filters are made from wood, very different from the degenerated aromatic rings of toner. Also color printing with laser is extremely expensive, way more than color ink tanks with drainage so your printers last a long time.

brudgers 8y ago

One good reason, gamut.

mikece 8y ago

I use an inkjet for printing shipping labels. It’s not common I need to print a full sheet and when printed on a laser printer the heat applied to the unprinted labels warps the sheet rendering them nearly useless. And Epson inkjets make really good looking black-print documents as well... I haven’t had the laser hooked up in a couple years and I’m not missing it.

julianlam 8y ago
Ironically in this case, a dot matrix printer would be more cost efficient and faster (as shipping labels are a couple lines of text, which would only require about 10 or so passes of the print head).

leoedin 8y ago

I've had a brother laser printer for more than 10 years. It's absolutely amazing for what it does - sit in the corner untouched for a few months and then prints tickets or boarding passes reliably. If you're a casual home user I'd definitely recommend getting one.

thinkingemote 8y ago

The only time I use a printer is for boarding passes and only for budget airlines that don't allow free printing at the airport. I have a printer but the ink dries up as I never use it. Replacing the ink would not be economical. I go to the library and print there for a few cents.

martyvis 8y ago
Why do you need to print boarding passes? All of the domestic airlines in Australia either have mobile apps or SMS you a link that displays a QR code that can be scanned at the terminal gates.

blisterpeanuts 8y ago

In my experience, a good compromise is to buy both a cheap laser and a cheap inkjet. An $80 Brother laser,for example, and a $50-60 refurbished HP. 90% of my family's printouts are black and white. The HP Envy is ideal for the occasional color job. Laser toner $12 on Ebay, lasts about 8 months. Color cartridges for the inkjet last a year. Each technology has its advantages and weaknesses. I've considered a color laser, but the prices and features are still not competitive.

purplezooey 8y ago

Just get a line printer. Boarding passes work great, you can convert everything to ascii art.

purerandomness 8y ago

I recommend the Brother HL2030 (LED, b/w) (or the slightly faster, but more rare HL-2035). Costs you ~20€ off of eBay classifieds, parts are cheap, works like a charm. Cartridges cost the same as the printer. One toner cartridge lasts forever. Hook it to a 5€ network print server off of ebay, and you get the cheapset possible office printing solution for your startup.

jboles 8y ago
I have a HL5250DN that I picked up for $70 at least 5 years ago. It’s been going strong since then with occasional home printing duties and despite it not supporting modern wireless printing, Brother’s own “iPrint&Scan” software (with the printer hooked up via wired Ethernet) was a welcome discovery. Would never have thought I could print directly from an iPad/iPhone to a ~12 year old printer like that, but it works really well. I was quite impressed it was possible and will never buy an HP/Epson inkjet again.

julienfr112 8y ago

What about the size of the printer. We live in a small apartement, and I really enjoy the small size of my officejet 100 https://support.hp.com/fr-fr/drivers/selfservice/HP-Officejet-100-Mobile-Printer-series---L411/4231339/model/4231407 https://support.hp.com/fr-fr/drivers/selfservice/HP-Officeje... . And as i mainly print at work, and use it only when I've got no other choice, I find that it really fit my needs.

Angela_Marshall 8y ago

What's a good printer to get these days for regular home use?