5 ms·

I bought a usb laser printer for a few hundred dollars about a decade ago. It gets detected and installed on Mac and Windows without issue. It still prints with

I bought a usb laser printer for a few hundred dollars about a decade ago. It gets detected and installed on Mac and Windows without issue. It still prints without issue. I am on the original toner (to help you understand how exceedingly rare it is for me to need to print). Inkjet Printers are such a pain to make work in general, have such high costs for ink, and rarely hold up well. I would rather buy a color laser if I needed to print color and I’d probably go find a used one that was loved before dealing with the new ones. Reminds me of 20 years ago when people kept the early HP LaserJet models going for their needs because they were such workhorses.

mongol 6y ago
A Brother printer by any chance? My Brother printer is just like the one you descibed but it is not exceedingly rare that I print. It is just infrequent.
- chx 6y ago
  Is there a phone version of ThinkPads and Brother printers?
  - fuzxi 6y ago
    Nokia bricks, haha.
- kstrauser 6y ago
  Same for me. I had an HP 1200n that was a workhorse forever and ever, but was completely phone-unfriendly. AirPrint? Not in this life, bucko! I replaced it with a Brother HL-3120CDW and that things a freaking tank.
  - ce4 6y ago
    Or add a "Raspberry Pi + CUPS"-dongle to the HP-1200n and it starts working on phone
    - kstrauser 6y ago
      I did that, but at least at the time when I was trying to make that work, the Pi wasn't up to it. The short version was that the drivers available at that time couldn't translate from the AirPrint-wrapped format to the one that the HP expected, on a Raspberry Pi, in realtime. It was worth it to me to replace the printer so that I didn't have to listen to my wife hate on the poor HP every time she tried to print and had to wait a minute or two for it to start.
wlesieutre 6y ago
If you print a lot of color and want cheaper ink, also look at Epson's EcoTank line. They fill up from ink bottles, like the continuous ink supply systems that people had been rigging up to avoid ink cartridges.
- tracker1 6y ago
  If you're printing a LOT of color, especially photo paper, those seem to be about the only good option around for most people. I'm pretty happy with my color laser, I don't print much, just replaced my black and about to replace the color tonor cartridges after about 5 years on the ones that came in the box.
ce4 6y ago
Same for me. I bought a used 2008 HP LaserJet (usb+ethernet duplex, prints double letter size / DinA3) some 8 years ago for like 30€ and converted it to a wifi CUPS printer via a RaspberryPi. Runs hassle free ever since, usable from Android, Windows and MacOS
fennecfoxen 6y ago
Inkjet printers are for photos and fine art. If you're not printing those, you should probably go with a laser printer. If you are printing those, you should probably go with a laser printer anyway for all the miscellaneous documents you use. (That said, I just got an Epson P900 which will do borderless 17x22"/A2 printing with archival pigment inks <3 <3 <3 which is a little bit prone to clogging as a general rule, but still)
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Inkjet printers are for photos and fine art. Lasers, even relatively inexpensive ones, are often better than cheap inkjets for photos and fine art, too. Expensive inkjets, usually with additional fancy options and paper, are for photos and fine art, but most inkjets are just a rip-off leveraging the ability to conceal high printing costs behind low initial buy-in cost.
tracker1 6y ago
School auctions are great for finding printers going out of service, got about 7 years out of an old HP 4000 (BW only) before it died, and probably had 10 years in service before that, best $35 I think I ever spent, and never even had to order toner, it had a fresh large capacity cartridge when I got it.
cptskippy 6y ago
I'm on my second HP Color LaserJet, the first one started jamming after 5 years before it finished the starter toner cartridges. I stupidly bought a replacement black cartridge. The cost of replacing toner is more than the printer so the next time it acts up I will just replace it.
- sangnoir 6y ago
  I recommend you buy a Brother printer - unlike HP, they don't follow the Gillette/razor blade pricing sale strategy. Brother printers are great quality, and their toners and drums are reasonably priced.
  - cptskippy 6y ago
    I have nothing against Brother laser printers but their inkjet based units are garbage. Their price point is great. Their laser printers produce crisp clean black and white prints but their color laser printers are mediocre at best. That being said, if you pay attention you can pick up a very nice HP Color Laser at a really low price point.
Mister_Snuggles 6y ago
Same for me. I bought a Lexmark E232 for school and it's been a solid printer on the rare occasion I've needed to use it. The only thing I've had to do is apply Rubber Renue to the pickup rollers when it stops feeding paper correctly. I did replace it with an HP Colour LaserJet, primarily so that I could get colour prints and not have to worry about ink drying up due to very infrequent use.
szhu 6y ago
> Reminds me of 20 years ago when people kept the early HP LaserJet models going for their needs because they were such workhorses. My family used this until 2012: https://i.imgur.com/QedZrsm.png https://i.imgur.com/QedZrsm.png (They're on a newer LaserJet model now, and they've been using that one for the past 8 years.)
- koffiezet 6y ago
  My grandma used an original HP Deskjet (from 1988) on a Pentium one computer running Wordstar and Wordperfect 5 on MSDOS until she moved to an elderly home in 2015. My dad replaced the rubber rolls on the printer a few times, and I think he had to refill the old cartridges with 3rd party ink, but other than that it still worked perfectly. No idea what happened to it though... I suspect finding replacement parts for the things that wear out has become close to impossible, but I doubt that thing was broken in any other way.
gerbilly 6y ago
We are still using an Apple Laserwriter 12/640 PS postscript printer that we bought in 1998. I't on the second cartridge and works perfectly. I had some old sticks of RAM laying around so I upgraded it to 64Mb about ten years ago.

mongol 6y ago

A Brother printer by any chance? My Brother printer is just like the one you descibed but it is not exceedingly rare that I print. It is just infrequent.

chx 6y ago
Is there a phone version of ThinkPads and Brother printers?
- fuzxi 6y ago
  Nokia bricks, haha.
kstrauser 6y ago
Same for me. I had an HP 1200n that was a workhorse forever and ever, but was completely phone-unfriendly. AirPrint? Not in this life, bucko! I replaced it with a Brother HL-3120CDW and that things a freaking tank.
- ce4 6y ago
  Or add a "Raspberry Pi + CUPS"-dongle to the HP-1200n and it starts working on phone
  - kstrauser 6y ago
    I did that, but at least at the time when I was trying to make that work, the Pi wasn't up to it. The short version was that the drivers available at that time couldn't translate from the AirPrint-wrapped format to the one that the HP expected, on a Raspberry Pi, in realtime. It was worth it to me to replace the printer so that I didn't have to listen to my wife hate on the poor HP every time she tried to print and had to wait a minute or two for it to start.

wlesieutre 6y ago

If you print a lot of color and want cheaper ink, also look at Epson's EcoTank line. They fill up from ink bottles, like the continuous ink supply systems that people had been rigging up to avoid ink cartridges.

tracker1 6y ago
If you're printing a LOT of color, especially photo paper, those seem to be about the only good option around for most people. I'm pretty happy with my color laser, I don't print much, just replaced my black and about to replace the color tonor cartridges after about 5 years on the ones that came in the box.

ce4 6y ago

Same for me. I bought a used 2008 HP LaserJet (usb+ethernet duplex, prints double letter size / DinA3) some 8 years ago for like 30€ and converted it to a wifi CUPS printer via a RaspberryPi. Runs hassle free ever since, usable from Android, Windows and MacOS

fennecfoxen 6y ago

Inkjet printers are for photos and fine art. If you're not printing those, you should probably go with a laser printer. If you are printing those, you should probably go with a laser printer anyway for all the miscellaneous documents you use. (That said, I just got an Epson P900 which will do borderless 17x22"/A2 printing with archival pigment inks <3 <3 <3 which is a little bit prone to clogging as a general rule, but still)

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Inkjet printers are for photos and fine art. Lasers, even relatively inexpensive ones, are often better than cheap inkjets for photos and fine art, too. Expensive inkjets, usually with additional fancy options and paper, are for photos and fine art, but most inkjets are just a rip-off leveraging the ability to conceal high printing costs behind low initial buy-in cost.

tracker1 6y ago

School auctions are great for finding printers going out of service, got about 7 years out of an old HP 4000 (BW only) before it died, and probably had 10 years in service before that, best $35 I think I ever spent, and never even had to order toner, it had a fresh large capacity cartridge when I got it.

cptskippy 6y ago

I'm on my second HP Color LaserJet, the first one started jamming after 5 years before it finished the starter toner cartridges. I stupidly bought a replacement black cartridge. The cost of replacing toner is more than the printer so the next time it acts up I will just replace it.

sangnoir 6y ago
I recommend you buy a Brother printer - unlike HP, they don't follow the Gillette/razor blade pricing sale strategy. Brother printers are great quality, and their toners and drums are reasonably priced.
- cptskippy 6y ago
  I have nothing against Brother laser printers but their inkjet based units are garbage. Their price point is great. Their laser printers produce crisp clean black and white prints but their color laser printers are mediocre at best. That being said, if you pay attention you can pick up a very nice HP Color Laser at a really low price point.

Mister_Snuggles 6y ago

Same for me. I bought a Lexmark E232 for school and it's been a solid printer on the rare occasion I've needed to use it. The only thing I've had to do is apply Rubber Renue to the pickup rollers when it stops feeding paper correctly. I did replace it with an HP Colour LaserJet, primarily so that I could get colour prints and not have to worry about ink drying up due to very infrequent use.

szhu 6y ago

> Reminds me of 20 years ago when people kept the early HP LaserJet models going for their needs because they were such workhorses. My family used this until 2012: https://i.imgur.com/QedZrsm.png https://i.imgur.com/QedZrsm.png (They're on a newer LaserJet model now, and they've been using that one for the past 8 years.)

koffiezet 6y ago
My grandma used an original HP Deskjet (from 1988) on a Pentium one computer running Wordstar and Wordperfect 5 on MSDOS until she moved to an elderly home in 2015. My dad replaced the rubber rolls on the printer a few times, and I think he had to refill the old cartridges with 3rd party ink, but other than that it still worked perfectly. No idea what happened to it though... I suspect finding replacement parts for the things that wear out has become close to impossible, but I doubt that thing was broken in any other way.

gerbilly 6y ago

We are still using an Apple Laserwriter 12/640 PS postscript printer that we bought in 1998. I't on the second cartridge and works perfectly. I had some old sticks of RAM laying around so I upgraded it to 64Mb about ten years ago.