Posted on 12/07/2018 12:13:12 PM PST by Alberta's Child
I'm shopping for a new printer for my business; I'm hoping to buy it early next year. Any advice from tech-savvy Freepers who are business owners? Key features I need are:
1. I'm looking for a color laser printer
2. It has to last a long time (my HP 2100 black & white printer lasted more than ten years before I replaced it a few years ago).
3. Despite the long life, I don't use it a lot. I typically print less than 200 sheets in a month.
4. Printing sheets as large as 11"x17" would be a nice feature, but is not essential. Most of what I do is standard letter size and an occasional 8.5"x14" sheet.
5. The cartridges need to last a long time, especially if they're expensive. A single set of cartridges for my old inkjet printer cost almost as much as the printer did when I bought it!
6. I would prefer to buy a well-known name brand (HP, Canon, Xerox, etc.).
7. Size isn't the most important thing, but it would be nice if I could fit it on a standard 15-inch wide letter-sized file cabinet with only an inch or so of overhang on each side. That will dictate where I put it in my office.
No advice on a color laser printer; but, a monochrome laser printer for printing ordinary business letters and memos etc; is IMO a smart investment. They are under $100, sometimes $60-$70 on sale and would save W & T on your color printer. I have a Brother mono HL-5170 printer I have had for a dozen years, it has worked flawlessly, the carts are $22 on ebay, and I’ve beaten the crap out of it. It’s also been in a construction zone and probably sucked a fair amount of dust. Indestructible.
+1. I switched to a monochrome laser printer for home use about a year ago after coming to the realization that I basically never need to print color. Mine’s an inexpensive ($99) Samsung. What I like is that it’s tiny, fast, and no smudges. And no liquid ink cartridges.
I bought a Xerox Phaser 6125 color laser on CyberMonday 2008. I got tired of inkjets that would dry out and last only a short time.
My Xerox still prints great. I print very little. I did finally change out the black cartridge a few months ago.
I paid $149 for the printer.
If I were to purchase a new one, I would go for auto-duplex but possibly a different brand. They are in the price range of $150 to $300 depending on the brand and seller.
Read reviews. They will give you a good idea whether a printer is any good.
My 3 old printers are HP. I buy ink in a bottle and refill my cartridges. Works and saved a ton of money. Buy 8 oz for $30. Seems to last forever.
Brother has never let me down.
Background: Part of a colorful past. I know what I’m talking about.
Problem: You state that you print only 200 pages/month, don’t need 11x17 yet don’t state a need for color.
A question I always asked my clients: Is it value-added color or cost-added color?
Tip: I’ve NEVER owned either an inkjet or color printer of any type.
It’s a good question to ask why someone having been “in” the industry would do that...
Advice: Find yourself a good, independent local dealer of printers & one which remarkets refilled toner cartridges. Find out what they have to say about your options (HP may or may not be a good choice this time around) but in the absence of a stated need for color, I recommend against it: I’ve plotted the added costs of color over the (short) life of a printer and if most business people knew the hard numbers, they would never let their employees/managers ever have access to a color printer/MFP unless it was driving sales.
It’s not the cost of the machine you need to worry about...
And did you notice I didn’t write anything about “inkjets” (other than never having owned one)???
wow. thats what i was just getting ready to buy for myself. i just but an hp laser monojet for my church. hope this isn’t true.
i have had a samsung color laser jet for 9 years. supposedly i could put a new drum in it and that would take care of the problem i am having (shadow of one page on next page that prints) but i don’t want to mess with that.
samsung printers have been bought out by hp so can’t get a samsug one now
Btw, with drivers being the “driving” force behind obsolescence, expect your next printer to last <5 years and let that guide your purchase as well.
Also, there are all-in-one (MFP aka multifunctional products) which are well worth the added couple/few hundred bucks for the added features (scan/copy/etc., including color scan) and use the same cartridges. I would recommend that vs. color any day of the week.
That is still the case for consumer color laser printers. However, the toner lasts a lot longer. I don't print that much. I have a 3 year old HP with the original toner cartridges. It still prints like I took it out of the box 3 or so years ago. when you buy the laser printer, the cartridges are about half full, maybe less. The replacements are full capacity.
Ping for later review. Thanks for the recommendation, djf, as I’m in the market for a printer as well.
I’ve had several HP inkjets and one Epson now. I switched because of HP’s reaming me for ink. But the Epson does one PITA thing HP never did. If I skip any printing for a few days, the nozzles gum up and I must go thru PITA nozzle cleanings before I can print anything. Never again for Epson!
HP = Has Problems.
Epson has been OK.
Brother laser is a good way to go.
As a kind if added bonus, the print heads are NOT in the cartridge, the cartridge is filled with ink but simply plugs into the machine.
The only problem well it’s not really a problem is that every once in a while it will power up and clean itself out - other than that, it has worked perfectly.
Prints nice pictures from your cell phone or whatever on photo-quality stock.
I can’t recommend this printer enough, you will be very happy with it’s operation!
Maybe you should look at multiple printers.
The Panasonic KXMB is an excellent B/W laser 8.5x11.
It does fine line stuff well for a low cost, and it is also a scanner, B&W and color.
Lasers do not do color well. (but ink jet printers are trash)
HP Pagewide. Period. You are talking about a printer for a business, not home use. The pagewide is an ink jet product but has a printhead as wide as the paper. The ink dries waterproof and the cost of consumables makes the product cheaper than toner based printers. check them out at Staples.
The small machines are new to me, I work on the Pagewide XL If the small machine are half as good as the big brother, you will not be sorry.
AC, I have been in the commercial copier/printer business for more than 20 years.
Look into the Sharp MX-C300W.
Most of the copiers/printers we sell are larger units but I brought one of these little guys home to use for my second business 2 years ago. Wireless, printing and scanning, and can copy and fax also.
With about the same amount of usage as you, I have not put a penny into besides the paper. Toner cartridges are still half full.
Do not purchase an Epson printer of any kind! One of their “Updates” modified my printer so that it would no longer work with re-fills or so-called “counterfeit” ink cassettes.
Don’t buy a Dell. Piece oh crap.
5. The cartridges need to last a long time, especially if they're expensive. A single set of cartridges for my old inkjet printer cost almost as much as the printer did when I bought it!
Which is why i used to refill my own cartridges for years, mainly old Lexmarks, which was messy and problematic (we often printed hundreds of pages a month), though the cost was about 2.00 a cartridge. Then I finally prayerfully researched buying a inkjet with the largest cartridges, then check how much replacement ones cost, and then matched them with the printer that used them, and shopped for the best price on one.
What I found was the the cheapest printers had the most expensive carts, while the more expensive printers had the most expensive carts.
And among extra large capacity carts the HP 950XL Black Ink Cartridge (CN045W) cartridge was the largest i found, at 53.0 ml ((the standard cartridge holds 11 ml of ink ), and a 4 pack (3 color and 1 black) was as low as 9.00 + free shipping. The color cap. are Cyan =24ml; 950 Magenta=17ml; 950 Yellow=17ml)
And the cheapest printer i found that used those was the HP8100 (made for offices), which I prayerfully found for 60.00 lightly used (it had a paper jam) from Amazon (normally about 200.000 ). However, there are some other models that use the same cart, like the Officejet Pro 8600 or 8620 that you can look for.
I was not and am not a HP fan, and HP says the black 951xl 53.0 ml prints 2300 pages, but which est. page yields are absurd for they mean 5% coverage, or about 6 lines of text .
Yet these 951 are very large carts and print many many pages, and the cheap Ebay carts have worked fine (hold down the top button/amber light for first print after installing, and after the first warning of low ink), and at about 2.50 per cart there is little warrant to reink.
Here is one (among many others) of those massive (refilled) HP 950XL for just $3.72 with free ship.
Or you can get 3pk 951XL color cartridges for US $8.50, or combos of 2 black and 3 color for about 14.00. Should have done this years ago, but thank God for good buys.
our friend and brother pastor Walter also gave us two Brother Laser printers that were being thrown out a business they visited, one with a bad drum and the other with a spent cartridge, but combined I had a good printer that lasted a couple years and used 10.00 toner carts off Ebay. Then l it died and was replaced by a Brother Printer, HLL2395DW, Flatbed Copy & Scan which is only 106 . Thank the Lord for His mercy and grace. Matthew 6:31.
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