Laser printer for home use

[Ironhorse]

We need to get a new printer for at home. Was thinking of a colour laser (tired of paying $$$ for stupid ink cartridges that last 30 pages), perhaps an HP.

Does CP have any thoughts on the subject?

[FlameCity]

We got a Samsung colour laser printer a little over a year ago. I love it. We would either run out of ink too fast or the cartridges would dry out from lack of use . . . no longer a problem. The toner can be expensive if you buy it at places like Future Shop but you can get really good deals on it online. Not great for photos so I usually take those to Costco or print them on a photo printer.

[amorak]

I have a wireless laser and it's awesome. A bit of a headache to set up initially, but it allows my wife to print off her macbook laptop wirelessly, as well as let guests (*cough our realtor cough*) print stuff easily.

[Mazrim]

Highly recommended. A bit pricier than Inkjet for obvious reasons, but well worth the extra cost.

[Rathji]

Colour laser printers can still be quiet pricey for toner. Make sure you research toner cost before you purchase and at the very least ensure there are several people making compatible cartridges.

Just to give you some perspective, we have a colour LJ printer at work that costs about $350 for a full toner set that includes one each of CMY and and 2 Blacks. As comparison, a monolaser printer we picked up last week costs $40 for 2000 print OEM cartridges and there are many places selling compatible carts for under $20.

[Jimmy Stang]

Good printers, especially if they're network connected. We have an HP CLJ 3600 at work and it is a great printer. Duplexing, 2 trays plus the manual feed, etc.

The only drawback, and it is a big one, is that the toner is very pricey. We pay about $150 per cartridge and you need 4 of them. Hopefully they don't all run out at once for you!

One thing that I highly recommend is to use the settings to override the "out of toner" message. By default, ours will not let you print until you have replaced the toner once it assumes that it should be empty. The truth is, this is an estimate based on the expected page yield and print coverage. With override enabled, I have been able to print thousands more pages before the toner actually runs out. Yes, thousands.

I'm not a tinfoil hat kind of guy, but when the company that makes the printer also sells you the toner, I'm a little cynical. The margin on consumables is considerably higher than the actual printer, as you already know with inkjets.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

Good printers, especially if they're network connected. We have an HP CLJ 3600 at work and it is a great printer. Duplexing, 2 trays plus the manual feed, etc.

The only drawback, and it is a big one, is that the toner is very pricey. We pay about $150 per cartridge and you need 4 of them. Hopefully they don't all run out at once for you!

One thing that I highly recommend is to use the settings to override the "out of toner" message. By default, ours will not let you print until you have replaced the toner once it assumes that it should be empty. The truth is, this is an estimate based on the expected page yield and print coverage. With override enabled, I have been able to print thousands more pages before the toner actually runs out. Yes, thousands.

I'm not a tinfoil hat kind of guy, but when the company that makes the printer also sells you the toner, I'm a little cynical. The margin on consumables is considerably higher than the actual printer, as you already know with inkjets.

A simple thanks is not enough. I didn't even know they had this feature!

[chalms04]

Originally Posted by FlameCity

We got a Samsung colour laser printer a little over a year ago. I love it. We would either run out of ink too fast or the cartridges would dry out from lack of use . . . no longer a problem. The toner can be expensive if you buy it at places like Future Shop but you can get really good deals on it online. Not great for photos so I usually take those to Costco or print them on a photo printer.

+1 for Samsung, and buying toner online

[ken0042]

Bought an HP "Laser" printer a few years ago for around $45. The factory toner lasted about 1200 pages or about 3 years. I think it was a good buy; but my fiancee really wants something "all-in-one" so she can photocopy and scan. (Well, easier than using the stand alone scanner.)

It's also nice that when I need to print something "official" my home printer can actually print something of decent quality.

Just to add- the replacement toner was about $85. A bit pricey; but apparently it should last twice as long as the factory toner. So assuming I get another 2400 sheets from the printer; that brings my ink cost lower than 4¢ per page. As for power; in standby mode it uses 3 watts of power (I measured it) and can go from standby to printing in under 15 seconds.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Colour laser printers can still be quiet pricey for toner. Make sure you research toner cost before you purchase and at the very least ensure there are several people making compatible cartridges.

Just to give you some perspective, we have a colour LJ printer at work that costs about $350 for a full toner set that includes one each of CMY and and 2 Blacks. As comparison, a monolaser printer we picked up last week costs $40 for 2000 print OEM cartridges and there are many places selling compatible carts for under $20.

Solution: Order toner at work for your home printer on company dime.

[FlameCity]

So for the printer we have toner costs are like this:

4 cartridges required

Future Shop:
Black = $77.99
CMY = $80.99 ea

123inkcartridges.ca:
$17.99 ea (on sale this week for 14.99)
or
$57.99 for a set of all 4
Free shipping on orders over $49.00

[ken0042]

Have you bought from them? I'm just worried about using some off brand and having issues with print quality; or even worse- have it bust open and send toner flying.

[BananaPancakes]

I've tried 123inkcartridges for my canon inkjet (Pixma) and I'd say that that the quality of ink is a bit lower.. I compared two pages of printed text and the black ink bleeds a bit more than the oem inks.. so it's not as crisp. I started printing on "Light" and it helped. I probably wouldn't print photos with these inks, but for simple text/picture documents or websites it works great.

If you plan on buying any head over to redflagdeals.com and search for any coupon codes, they frequently have sales.

[FlameCity]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Have you bought from them? I'm just worried about using some off brand and having issues with print quality; or even worse- have it bust open and send toner flying.

I used them in October for the first time. I'm happy with the result so far. Ordering from them was easy, the product arrived really quickly, and I've noticed no difference in the print quality since using the toner from them, not sure about the ink cartridges as I don't use an inkjet printer anymore so I can't comment on that.

[Acey]

Moto has all but confirmed that the Atrix will have a locked bootloader. Things are going to start going downhill for this phone pretty quickly.

[Hemi-Cuda]

i bought one of these on Boxing Day for $150

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...7%28ME%29.aspx

for the price it couldn't be beat, a much better printer than any injet i've used and so much faster, plus having the all-in-one unit is great

[McG]

i have a brother wireless network colour laser and it works really well. duplex, wireless...the usual stuff. i bought it at costco when it went on crazy sale; i think i paid like $300 or so for it. it is a cdw4070.

as jimmy was mentioning above, there are items in the menu that override the "assumed" page usage. for example, all 3 of my colour cartridges went at once. there was literally no way that could happen without some sort of page counter. turns out that all it needed was a reset and it has been running fine. the kicker here is that we use the colour portion very rarely; it is mostly used for the other features. so then the black starts giving me the "empty" message. i followed the menu items...and it was actually empty. however i don't feel too badly about it because i know that the black toner gets way used and the cartridge was the cheapest one.

costco.ca has the best balance of price and factory toner for me for this printer.

if all 4 of my cartridges went at the same time...i might just recycle it and buy a new one. it literally would be reasonably close in price for me to get a new one and get new features. i know the money is made on peripherals but how crazy is that?

i should add that it was crazy easy to set up the wireless network part; i had my windows network and the apple running on it very quickly.

[Canada 02]

bump for info request or warning

I'm looking for a monochrome laser printer for the home and was interested in the Samsung SCX-4623F

http://www.trustedreviews.com/printe...-All-in-One/p1

the reviews sound pretty good, except several posted reviews on Amazon said that a firmware upgrade locks out third party toners, for example:

First, DO NOT DOWN LOAD ANY FIRMWARE UPDATE from Samsung. They prompted me to install a firmware upgrade for a "bug" in the printer copier. There has been no issue with it. All has been working fine. Until after the install. I have been buying off-label (Green Apple brand) toner/drum cartridges which save me a bit of money (not alot). I have 2 for backup. Immediately after installing the firmware upgrade, the copier will not recognize the toner. Saying "Incompatible toner cartridge installed".

anyone have a Samsung printer? Is it locked to non-Samsung toners out of the box, or do you have to dowload the firmware update for this to happen? If it's the latter, then I'd still be interested in the printer, I just won't upgrade the firmware, but if it's locked out of the box, then might have to reconsider. Does HP or other printer manufacturers do this?