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Funny, I came to the comments to dispute the printer point. I have a <$100 wireless duplex laser printer (Brother HL-2270DW) which works really well. It's not c

Funny, I came to the comments to dispute the printer point. I have a <$100 wireless duplex laser printer (Brother HL-2270DW) which works really well. It's not color, but does everything I need it to do. Maybe $100 doesn't qualify as cheap.

wil421 11y ago
In my experience Laser jets have always been much better than ink jets. My ink jet printer requires $120+ dollars for color and black cartridges. Black cartridges are usually much cheaper. Some advice I received years ago was to forgo a color printer altogether and use Kinko's/UPS Store to do color. The cost savings are very good if you dont require a lot of color printing.
- ssmoot 11y ago
  I bought a Konica Minolta 1600W Color Laser Printer on Amazon a few years ago after being frustrated at the infrequently used ink-jet cartridges going bad yet again because I didn't print enough. I think it was $120. Still on the original colors (replaced the black). Toner gives me a lot more prints, never goes bad because of disuse, and looks better. I love it. Now I just wish I could find a no-drivers AirPrint compatible Color Laser with the same reliability and price point that was as small or smaller (so it still fit in my IKEA printer stand with rolling door). Haven't turned up such a device yet so I'll stick with this USB printer for awhile yet I guess. It was discontinued years ago, but toner refills are still readily available, for about the same price as a new set of Inkjet cartridges (except again, more capacity, and if you only use it once every 6 months it won't complain and make you buy a new set). Anyways, IMO Color Laser is definitely the way to go for the home user. The printers are pretty reasonably priced these days, and the TCO is drastically lower than any Inkjet printer I've ever owned.
  - ansible 11y ago
    The easiest thing I know of to do with dried out ink cartridges is to use steam to open the nozzles.
taco_emoji 11y ago
In general I've found cheapo monochrome desktop laser printers to be completely satisfactory. My hypothesis is that inkjet is just an error-prone technology.
- mark-r 11y ago
  I had an old HP inkjet printer that was flawless for many years, until the belt that moves the head wore out and shredded itself. I believe I got my money out of that one. But in the drive to make the printers ever cheaper, quality has gone out the window. Plus the price of ink cartridges vs. their capacity has become totally out of whack. When that printer died, I didn't even consider another inkjet.
logfromblammo 11y ago
I also have a monochrome laser printer at home. It replaced a monochrome laser printer that lasted about 10 years, including a jury-rig home repair of the solenoids. I think that on some instinctual level, I have always known that the home consumer market for color inkjet printers is absolutely saturated with crap. It all just seemed like a massive conspiracy to sell ink at prices higher than an equivalent quantity of heroin. I know a photo-artist who uses a higher-end inkjet to make archival-quality prints, and he buys 6 colors of UV-stable pigment inks, by the bottle, for less than most people pay for one dinky, chipped, proprietary replacement cartridge for their printer. Those consumer-level printers are engineered to be the absolute minimum-cost solution to get people to empty their ink cartridges. So I'm not entirely certain that the two breeds of printer are comparable. Mono lasers are almost certainly considered by the industry to be small-office/home-office (SOHO) goods, wherein a perceived deficiency in quality or operating costs might hurt future large-office purchases.
- bluedino 11y ago
  >> I also have a monochrome laser printer at home. It replaced a monochrome laser printer that lasted about 10 years Same here. Rescued an HP Laserjet 2100 from the trash, it lasted 10 years and would have kept going with more toner but I got a Brother something-or-another for $69 at OfficeMax.
toomuchtodo 11y ago
Ahhh! I too have a Brother HL-2270DW sitting at my feet currently! Its probably the best $100 I've ever spent on tech gear. Miser on the toner, and a solid piece of hardware even after thousands of pages have been run through it.
- orkoden 11y ago
  Brother HL-2030 the best 80 € I ever spent on a printer. It's been printing perfectly for years and is on its second toner cartridge now. I sometimes wish it had automatic duplex. But I print less and less.
withdavidli 11y ago
Also had a Brother Laser printer. $100 as well and came with a 4gb flashdrive (which would've cost~$30 at the time). Thing lasted 9 years without changing the toner. Sad that I couldn't find the same model anymore.
protomyth 11y ago
The whole line of Brother printers is surprisingly good for the price. Also, the Ricoh printers do a good job, but send a lot of e-mail about how they are doing.

wil421 11y ago

In my experience Laser jets have always been much better than ink jets. My ink jet printer requires $120+ dollars for color and black cartridges. Black cartridges are usually much cheaper. Some advice I received years ago was to forgo a color printer altogether and use Kinko's/UPS Store to do color. The cost savings are very good if you dont require a lot of color printing.

ssmoot 11y ago
I bought a Konica Minolta 1600W Color Laser Printer on Amazon a few years ago after being frustrated at the infrequently used ink-jet cartridges going bad yet again because I didn't print enough. I think it was $120. Still on the original colors (replaced the black). Toner gives me a lot more prints, never goes bad because of disuse, and looks better. I love it. Now I just wish I could find a no-drivers AirPrint compatible Color Laser with the same reliability and price point that was as small or smaller (so it still fit in my IKEA printer stand with rolling door). Haven't turned up such a device yet so I'll stick with this USB printer for awhile yet I guess. It was discontinued years ago, but toner refills are still readily available, for about the same price as a new set of Inkjet cartridges (except again, more capacity, and if you only use it once every 6 months it won't complain and make you buy a new set). Anyways, IMO Color Laser is definitely the way to go for the home user. The printers are pretty reasonably priced these days, and the TCO is drastically lower than any Inkjet printer I've ever owned.
- ansible 11y ago
  The easiest thing I know of to do with dried out ink cartridges is to use steam to open the nozzles.

taco_emoji 11y ago

In general I've found cheapo monochrome desktop laser printers to be completely satisfactory. My hypothesis is that inkjet is just an error-prone technology.

mark-r 11y ago
I had an old HP inkjet printer that was flawless for many years, until the belt that moves the head wore out and shredded itself. I believe I got my money out of that one. But in the drive to make the printers ever cheaper, quality has gone out the window. Plus the price of ink cartridges vs. their capacity has become totally out of whack. When that printer died, I didn't even consider another inkjet.

logfromblammo 11y ago

I also have a monochrome laser printer at home. It replaced a monochrome laser printer that lasted about 10 years, including a jury-rig home repair of the solenoids. I think that on some instinctual level, I have always known that the home consumer market for color inkjet printers is absolutely saturated with crap. It all just seemed like a massive conspiracy to sell ink at prices higher than an equivalent quantity of heroin. I know a photo-artist who uses a higher-end inkjet to make archival-quality prints, and he buys 6 colors of UV-stable pigment inks, by the bottle, for less than most people pay for one dinky, chipped, proprietary replacement cartridge for their printer. Those consumer-level printers are engineered to be the absolute minimum-cost solution to get people to empty their ink cartridges. So I'm not entirely certain that the two breeds of printer are comparable. Mono lasers are almost certainly considered by the industry to be small-office/home-office (SOHO) goods, wherein a perceived deficiency in quality or operating costs might hurt future large-office purchases.

bluedino 11y ago
>> I also have a monochrome laser printer at home. It replaced a monochrome laser printer that lasted about 10 years Same here. Rescued an HP Laserjet 2100 from the trash, it lasted 10 years and would have kept going with more toner but I got a Brother something-or-another for $69 at OfficeMax.

toomuchtodo 11y ago

Ahhh! I too have a Brother HL-2270DW sitting at my feet currently! Its probably the best $100 I've ever spent on tech gear. Miser on the toner, and a solid piece of hardware even after thousands of pages have been run through it.

orkoden 11y ago
Brother HL-2030 the best 80 € I ever spent on a printer. It's been printing perfectly for years and is on its second toner cartridge now. I sometimes wish it had automatic duplex. But I print less and less.

withdavidli 11y ago

Also had a Brother Laser printer. $100 as well and came with a 4gb flashdrive (which would've cost~$30 at the time). Thing lasted 9 years without changing the toner. Sad that I couldn't find the same model anymore.

protomyth 11y ago

The whole line of Brother printers is surprisingly good for the price. Also, the Ricoh printers do a good job, but send a lot of e-mail about how they are doing.