General > General Technical Chat
What's a good printer for minimal usage ?
james_s:
--- Quote from: tooki on February 05, 2023, 04:00:13 pm ---I just think it’s important to remind people that the toner for cheap laser printers is very, very, very expensive, frequently more expensive than inkjet ink. So while they’re great for people who truly print next to nothing, with large gaps of time between print jobs, it only takes a few hundred pages of printouts to make it cheaper, long term, to get an ink tank inkjet. Their ink is so cheap that even if you waste fully half of it on head cleaning, you’ve still spent practically nothing on ink.
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Maybe you can point to an example but I haven't encountered that. The cartridges are good for hundreds or even thousands of pages and aftermarket cartridges that work just fine are available for every laser printer I've ever had. If you want OEM, they can usually be found on ebay from people/companies that have leftover cartridges from a printer they no longer have for one reason or another. My current printer is still on the original starter cartridges that came in it when I bought it at least 4 years ago, it's been complaining for a couple of years that one is critically low but it keeps printing just fine.
I'm amazed you have had such good luck with inkjets. I lived with them for years and have come to absolutely hate them. The only thing I can think of where an inkjet is marginally superior is color photos and that's only if you use special expensive photo paper. My laser printer does a nice job with photos on ordinary paper, they don't fade or smudge, they don't run if they get damp and they're good enough that in a framed 6x4" you'd never notice it wasn't from a photo lab without picking it up and inspecting it closely. Every inkjet I owned was clogged practically every time I went to use it. I'd buy a set of expensive new cartridges, print a few pages and then next time I went to use it there would be missing lines. Cleaning cycle after cleaning cycle wasting more of my expensive ink than got on the paper, older printouts exposed to humidity would get blurry and fade over time, a droplet of sweat on a page makes a big smear. Junk. I don't want an inkjet even if it's free, I'm totally over them.
tooki:
--- Quote from: paulca on February 05, 2023, 05:08:03 pm ---At least at the level I bought (£230 Full Colour laser). The toners are 5,000 pages and the black 10,000.
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What model, if I may ask?
And what does that toner cost? As I said in another reply, I’ve been shopping around for a new printer, and color laser supplies have shocked me with how expensive they are.
For example, for a $500 color laser multifunction from HP, the XL toner is $200 per color, for 6000 pages ($160 for 7500pp black). So yeah, the yield is high, but the cost is enormous. For $500 you get an ink tank inkjet with ink that costs literally $15 per color for that yield.
--- Quote from: paulca on February 05, 2023, 05:08:03 pm ---Unlike inkjets where a FULL cartridge is good for about 200-300 pages if you are lucky. The 1/4 full "intro" cartridge in the printer when you buy it is good for sod all too.
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Only on the very cheapest entry level printers. Spend a bit more up front and the cartridge sizes go up (while the cartridge prices don’t).
And lasers are just as bad about including tiny “starter” cartridges. (In fact, they may be worse.)
--- Quote from: paulca on February 05, 2023, 05:08:03 pm ---Lexmark are prime examples, the printer + intro ink is £35. The full set of cartridges is £135.
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Lexmark exited the inkjet market a full decade ago. Completely irrelevant.
And even if it weren’t: how’s that any better than a $500 laser printer where the full set of toner costs $850? (I’d argue it’s even worse, since at least with the $50 inkjet you’ve spent practically nothing up front.)
--- Quote from: paulca on February 05, 2023, 05:08:03 pm ---The thing is... aim just high enough to be buying "SOHO Office printers". That market WILL NOT and DO NOT accept that inkjet ink subsription non-sense. They just won't. Not when it has to print day in, day out without breaking down, ideally.
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The ink and toner subscriptions apparently make the economic sense in some situations, especially photo printing. Not that subscriptions and robustness have anything whatsoever to do with each other.
But regardless, you can’t expect robustness from a $50 inkjet or a $100 laser. You can, however, expect it from a $500 inkjet, and those printers deliver it, while giving you print costs that even the most expensive laser printers (which the very cheapest page costs) can’t even dream of.
james_s:
--- Quote from: tooki on February 05, 2023, 05:46:50 pm ---You doubt that laser could be more expensive than inkjet? Don’t be so sure! The toner cartridges for the cheapest black and white lasers are very expensive. For example, for HP’s entry level models, that’s $45 for just 950 pages. There are many cartridge inkjets with ink cheaper than that (not entry level, but not expensive, either), and ink tank printers are orders of magnitude cheaper to run.
With color it gets worse: $50 for 700 pages for HP’s entry level. Per color.
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Wait, $45 for almost 1,000 pages is your example of "very expensive"? :-// That's dirt cheap, 1,000 pages is *years* of printing for me so $50 is absolutely negligible, I was spending that much on inkjet cartridges that I was lucky to get 30 pages out of before they dried up. Even the color cost is not that bad, you only use it when you print in color and you can replace them individually, my black cartridge has been saying it's empty for a couple years now and my color cartridges are 50, 50 and 40% currently. I just checked and the total on this printer is 780 pages since I bought it 4-5 years ago. Maybe if you print color photosin high volume a tank inkjet could be cheaper, but I only know one person that prints a lot due to his and his wife's home business and he went through multiple big inkjets and went back to laser once he was no longer printing DVD jackets for a friend's company. I remember he used to have to tear it all apart to get to the waste ink sponge to replace that because it would get saturated and start dripping ink on the shelf.
nctnico:
--- Quote from: tooki on February 05, 2023, 05:46:50 pm ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on February 05, 2023, 04:33:40 pm ---I doubt that. I always buy the largest B&W toner cartridge that fits the printer and it takes me years before it is empty.
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You doubt that laser could be more expensive than inkjet? Don’t be so sure! The toner cartridges for the cheapest black and white lasers are very expensive. For example, for HP’s entry level models, that’s $45 for just 950 pages. There are many cartridge inkjets with ink cheaper than that (not entry level, but not expensive, either), and ink tank printers are orders of magnitude cheaper to run.
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I think you forgot to add a 0 in there. I recently paid 121 euro for an original cartridge for my HP printer. HP says it is good for 6300 pages but from experience I know it is more like 7000 pages or more. That is way cheaper than your 4.5 cents per page. The aftermarket cartridges with even higher printing capacity cost half of the original HP cartridge.
tooki:
--- Quote from: james_s on February 05, 2023, 06:06:30 pm ---Maybe you can point to an example but I haven't encountered that. The cartridges are good for hundreds or even thousands of pages
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Go look at the printer manufacturers right now and look. I’m not making it up, I’m not exaggerating.
In the reply above, the $500 HP I’m referring to is the M479dw, whose set of toner is nearly $800.
The basic black and white is whatever the entry level HP is. Low 100-series.
--- Quote from: james_s on February 05, 2023, 06:06:30 pm ---and aftermarket cartridges that work just fine are available for every laser printer I've ever had.
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I’ve not been impressed by the aftermarket toner various workplaces have used. Output was never as good as original.
--- Quote from: james_s on February 05, 2023, 06:06:30 pm --- If you want OEM, they can usually be found on ebay from people/companies that have leftover cartridges from a printer they no longer have for one reason or another.
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That applies equally to inkjets. That’s how I have been running my current 15-year-old Canon inkjet for peanuts: people literally give away their old spare ink. (Canon inks don’t have expiration dates.)
--- Quote from: james_s on February 05, 2023, 06:06:30 pm ---I'm amazed you have had such good luck with inkjets.
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1. Avoiding Epson.
2. Buying high end.
Most people’s experience with inkjets is with $50-100 junk. You get a much, much better experience with a $300 printer.
(Salesmen nowadays tell me Epsons don’t suffer from the severe clogging older models did. Not sure if I’m convinced.)
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