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Even if you only print things once a month, a laser printer is far less wasteful in time, money, and bullshit than ink that's perpetually dry or consumed. Rath
by sacnoradhq 3y ago
Even if you only print things once a month, a laser printer is far less wasteful in time, money, and bullshit than ink that's perpetually dry or consumed.
Rather than an entry-level laser printer that cannot be economically repaired, a used mid-level enterprise printer is often the cheapest option long term and saves useful electronics from becoming e-waste. Office furniture rental/repo places and secondary markets like eBay have these.
In large enterprises, a printer's cost per page tends to be inversely proportional to (increased) initial acquisition cost and availability of repair parts. Put another way, giving everyone an entry-level printer would be far more expensive in acquisition costs, per-page costs, and an inability to repair them. (hitting TCO 3 ways).
I had a HP LaserJet 4 (released 1992, purchased new ~1994) until 2013 with a used JetDirect card. It had expansion options with cartridges and SIMM RAM and font options, but they weren't strictly needed.
- solarmist 3y agoAgreed. I have an HP Color LaserJet Pro and the toner is expensive, but lasts forever if I don't print and the quality is fantastic as well. Plus, they have automatic duplexing which is a must have feature for me. Newish ones like mine even support AirPrint and NFC printing.
- sacnoradhq 3y agoBuy color toner refill kits. Melt a hole in the cartridge with a soldering iron, refill it, and seal it with aluminum tape. Better to spend $70-150 than $300-1200 on new cartridges. PS: I'm currently in the market for an 5-15 year old HP Color LaserJet but still assessing which model tends to be more reliable. There were a lot of lemon SMB Color LaserJet models. Suggestions welcomed especially by staff IT people who support these things.
- solarmist 3y agoIt's expensive, but like $295 to replace all the color toners (high capacity), not $1200 or $300 each.
- bgirard 3y agoI followed this advice and it's been great. I have a $350 laser Brother printer, my iPhone can find the printer without fiddling with drivers, it wakes up, print, goes back to sleep. Works fine even if I go months without printing. After my last 'free ink forever' HP inkjet that never worked, a working printer is a blessing.
- esel2k 3y agoWhich brother do you have / recommend? I have been quiet happy with my OKI but the phone connection is the only letdown so far and I might change for a brother in the future.
- politelemon 3y agoI don't think you can go wrong with any Brother (or laser printer) as long as you don't need color printing. I have a DCP 1612W only for light printing. It works with Ubuntu, no special drivers required. I've had it for a few years now and I'm still on the toner the printer came with. If you need color printing, it tends to be expensive.
- Scoring6931 3y agoI have one of the same model. WiFi connection doesn’t seem to work. I’ve tried every troubleshooting article I could find, to the extent of setting a static IP for it in my router. Otherwise a great printer, but that issue did leave a bad taste in my mouth
- tivert 3y ago> Which brother do you have / recommend? I have been quiet happy with my OKI but the phone connection is the only letdown so far and I might change for a brother in the future. I have a brother HL-2270dw that I've been using for more than 10 years that I'm happy with. I don't think they make that exact model anymore, but Wirecutter recommends the HL-2350dw (I don't know what you get for the extra $10 to get a HL-2370dw): https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-home-printers/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-home-printer... I've got it hooked up to my wired network, and have never had an issue with it. I really like the duplex printing. I prefer my devices to do one thing, so I've avoided combo devices.
- TheLoafOfBread 3y agoSame thing. I have laser Xerox B230 for printing, because constantly dried up ink, especially when you need that printer NOW, was driving me crazy.
- Tepix 3y agoNowadays there are inkjet printers that are cheaper (cost per page) than laser printers. I would only get one if i were to print regularly, however. And never again HP of course.
- Retric 3y agoExamples? My research showed some inexpensive inkjets had reasonable cost per pages, but when you’re talking 10+k pages per month lasers easily win. They also win at the ultra low, 1 page per month side of things.
- coder543 3y agoI haven’t done the math to see if they’re right, but they’re likely talking about the various ink tank printers that exist, such as the Epson EcoTank series. Refilling the ink is supposed to be quite cheap, especially if you don’t care about the ink being name brand. Personally, I print like 5 pages a year, so unless I get into photo printing… the cheapest AirPrint-enabled Brother laser printer has served me well for like the last 5 years.
- Retric 3y agoThe nominal cost per page on those edge out many home office laser printers, but the printers themselves don’t last very long which then bumps up the cost per page. It’s like the razor blade model of inkjets use high ink costs and the unsubsidized bulk ink versions use planned obsolescence. Though it could just be the basic mechanics of inkjets as moving around the ink + print heads involves significant mechanical stress per page and EcoTank style inkjets prints lots of pages.
- coder543 3y ago> the printers themselves don’t last very long A high quality citation is seriously needed for a claim like that. That’s not a complaint I’ve ever heard about the EcoTank printers, and googling it didn’t turn up anything. I strongly doubt this is a characteristic of EcoTank printers. That unsourced claim sounds suspiciously convenient for your side of the discussion. Epson also makes a dedicated line of business EcoTank printers ("EcoTank Pro") which are clearly intended to print very large numbers of pages. But again, even the very basic ones seem to do a great job, with very high reviews across the board when I look at retailers.
- djaychela 3y agoAbsolutely. I have a laserjet 4000 I've had since I was given it in 2002 at an office clearance. It's printed about 10000 pages while I've had it,and in that time I've had to change the toner once. And I was given two original HP cartridges with the printer,and installed the first one a full 17 years after getting it. Worked perfectly,and is still in there. Works with windows, mac os, chromebooks without issue, all over the network. I even got a duplexer from gumtree a few years ago as it was going for nothing. One day it will die and then I'll have to deal with all the current printer grief!
- ryandrake 3y agoRIP my laserjet 4000. So many plastic pieces became brittle and finally broke, but it kept on working. Finally a few things went that could not be readily replaced/repaired and I finally gave up on it. It was a sad day. Of today's options, Brother is fine, but nothing compares to the GOAT.
- 2muchcoffeeman 3y agoHP laser keys are still difficult to replace the transfer belt. Go brother if you want a laser. All the consumables are easily replaceable.
- cptskippy 3y agoThere's no belt in a Laser Jet, at least not modern ones.
- 2muchcoffeeman 3y agoOh? What’s modern?
- cptskippy 3y agoTransfer belts are still used in high volume enterprise grade printers and print shops because of the speed advantages. But I haven't seen a transfer belt on a consumer laser printer in 20 years. I don't think they've been used on consumer laser printers since the early color laser jets in the late 90s.
- r00fus 3y agoMost inexpensive (ie, $200 or less) AirPrint (or google/MS equivalent) enabled BW laser printers are good solutions. I have a Canon that's lasted me several years of moderate printing (I hardly print but my kids love to print stuff out). Every year I buy a 2-pack of off-brand toner from Amazon for $30. When the printer complains, before replacing toner, I just pull out the existing toner, shake it, and get probably 10-50 more (faded but usable) prints.
- throwaway234524 3y agoBack in my university days some students owned (used) business color lasers solely for printing bootleg textbooks. 3rd party toner is cheap and a couple books already paid for the price of the unit.
- temporallobe 3y agoThis. About 5 years ago when my wife started her doctoral program, she started printing a ton of resources (and still does). We were constantly buying expensive ink monthly. I did some research and bought her a Brother laser printer for something like $300 and never looked back. You do have to buy toner about once a year, but it’s far more cost effective and efficient. Now if I could somehow convince her to use PDFs instead!
- yieldcrv 3y agoyeah same, I ditched inkjets for a canon laserjet you just have to value your time and then it all makes sense
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoI just installed a new NOS toner cartridge in a 20 year old HP 4050n. The big caveat with those is that the old cartridges have long been out of production and the dried up rubber seals on them crumble into bits after removing the OE sealing strip. You need to fill in the opening to prevent toner from vibrating out into the machine.
- userbinator 3y agoParts and consumables are still available for the LaserJet 4.
- usr1106 3y agoIn the 1990s HP was a great brand. Nowadays it's a nightmare. My neighbor asked me to troubleshoot one. Obviously the whole printer cannot be used without WiFi and a connection to HP cloud nonsense. Only that the cloud and Windows driver could not agree whether the printer had been set up or not. And the neighbor could not remember their HP account. It took me 2 hours to figure out how to do a factory reset. 1990 a printer was a peripheral and if you had a driver it worked. Today it's a spyware, ink-selling nonsense.
- davisr 3y agoThis underscores why libre software is so important: if you don't control the software running on your devices, then somebody else does. One day, that somebody /will/ work against your interests. Don't let that happen. Apply the (A)GPL and put an end to the bullshit.
- wolverine876 3y agoBuy their corporate line of printers, which work as you expect (at least the ones I've seen).
- cyberax 3y ago> 1990 a printer was a peripheral and if you had a driver it worked. LOL no. Printing and scanning have ALWAYS been terrible. A fortune cookie somewhere: "GNU is a printer driver gone horribly wrong". I have a theory that printer drivers are somehow produced by aliens, who are hellbent on destroying the Earth's infrastructure.
- JohnMakin 3y agoif you print things once a month go to your nearest staples and print it there for a couple bucks
- tgsovlerkhgsel 3y agoConsider standby power consumption though if you aren't going to manually turn it on and off. The old printers may be very expensive in that regard.
- londons_explore 3y agoI was annoyed to find that a laser printer I've had for a decade used 30 watts just to keep the network link up, while the manual claimed it used 0.5 watts while on standby. 30 watts over 10 years is about $500 where I'm at...
- jojohohanon 3y agoI swear by the lowest end brother duplexing monochrome laser printer. Mine is the dw2270 which was <$150 at the time. Rock solid. No fuss ever. I’ve praised it here before. It’s the sort of printer that I wonder they stay in business selling because each customer is a customer for life but only buys one item.
- Johnny555 3y ago>Even if you only print things once a month, a laser printer is far less wasteful in time, money, and bullshit than ink that's perpetually dry or consumed Especially if you only print things once a month a laser printer is better, otherwise as you said your ink will dry out or you'll consume more ink in cleaning cycles than in printing. My wife has an office size inkjet printer that she uses nearly daily (prints ~500 - 1000 pages/month for work) and it works flawlessly, ink is cheaper than toner for her old laser printer. If she was only printing once a month, I'm sure the inkjet would be less reliable or economical.
- ornornor 3y ago100%. I have a 5–10 years old business HP laserjet and it just works. It’ll happily take third party consumables that cost around 25$ for 5k pages. It’s firewalled off the internet just in case. I paid 30$ for it on the classifieds. HP’s consumer stuff has been hit garbage for a while now. I don’t know about their more recent enterprise stuff.
- tinus_hn 3y agoBe aware of two things: Modern HP is not the HP of the LaserJet 4. The new printers, also the lasers, are crap. And second, these old printers are workhorses but they waste energy like crazy, the standby mode still uses a lot of power so unless your electricity is free it very quickly makes sense to replace them.
- yourusername 3y ago>Rather than an entry-level laser printer that cannot be economically repaired, a used mid-level enterprise printer is often the cheapest option long term and saves useful electronics from becoming e-waste. Office furniture rental/repo places and secondary markets like eBay have these. My print volume is extremely low, my 70 euro Samsung has lasted me over a decade. I suspect i'll be dead before i see any savings on a mid level enterprise printer, assuming the thing lasts decades without the rubber inside it disintegrating. If i have to service it my grandchildren will have to reap those savings. I decided to go completely printerless. So far i've gone about a year without printing anything. I don't think there is anything in my life that still requires a printer.
- jdthedisciple 3y agoYou must be lucky. Some places are still cursed with enough antiquated forms of red tape that it becomes impossible to do so...
- ed_elliott_asc 3y agoIt might very well be the better option but the printing execs want their subscription pricing dollars.
- bArray 3y agoI recently purchased an Epson Eco Tank printer (their budget mono without a scanner) [1], I'm quite impressed so far. The first thing I did was print 200+ pages, and it kept up well. My biggest cost now is the price of paper (as it should be). I would suggest ink jet still could be useful, especially with cheap refillable ink rather than this expensive cartridge bullshit. I remember years ago wanting to buy a new ink cartridge for my HP printer. In the shop the printer was something like £25 (printer + scanner, black + colour ink) - or - I could pay something like £20 for black and £25 for colour cartridges. I explained to the service person "so you're telling me, it would be cheaper for me to buy a new printer, throw the printer in the bin and just take the cartridges out?". They answered "yeah". I tried to refill the ink cartridge manually with a syringe and an online guide, but never could get it to work due to their "smart secure" cartridge lock-ins. HP time and time again prove to be a massive problem in the printing industry. I think I have said on HN a few times that I would be very much interested in building an open source ink jet printer (including head) - it can't be impossible. [1] https://www.epson.co.uk/en_GB/for-home/ecotank https://www.epson.co.uk/en_GB/for-home/ecotank
- poulpy123 3y agoI bought a first price laser printer few years ago, it was twice the price of a inkjet printer with the same quality, and B&W only but it paid itself by having more ink in the package and not having ink drying when I'm not using it