Ink Jet or Laser?

[stevej37]

My HP Envy jet printer is giving me trouble with the wifi hook-up. It won't find it unless I restart the printer. (pia)
Never owned a laser printer...thinking of going to one next.
Any reasons for or against? Main use is occasional printing...maybe 20 pages/week.

[unclebilly]

Laser - no question.

We had a fairly fancy HP inkjet and the cartridges always seemed to be plugged from sitting due to occasional use. I used to take them to Costco to get refilled but then HP updated the firmware and it would no longer work with refilled cartridges- it detected that they were not HP.

We bought a new colour laser printer, my mantra was anything but HP. We got a Samsung and it was great for nearly a year. Then HP bought Samsung’s printer product line and again updated the firmware so it would only work with hp toner cartridges. I have some aftermarket toner here, unopened if anyone wants it.

Printer 3, continuing to follow my anything but HP mantra is a Xerox all in one laser. This thing is great. It uses any aftermarket toner, it scans, copies, prints, and faxes (remember that?). It was around $250 Canadian and provided HP can’t so how update the firmware, it will last us a few years.

[rusnak]

20 pages a week? Get the cheapest cost per page including the buy-in cost. Probably ink jet.

I use a color laser, but I might print 120 pages at a time. The big up front cost is absorbed by a lower cost per page of actual printing, if that makes sense.

btw I use a Konica Biz Hub c284e

[cabmandone]

I went black only laser. In my office I don't print color copies because I don't care how pretty my invoices look. I bought this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0764P8F5J/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

In my house I have a color inkjet simply because the school my kids attend hasn't figured out how to do projects on a thumb drive so they are all printed.

[JackDidley]

Originally Posted by cabmando

I went black only laser. In my office I don't print color copies because I don't care how pretty my invoices look. I bought this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0764P8F5J/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Black laserjet here also. Toner cartridge never just dries out. I do not print much and inkjet printer was always a problem. It seemed like every time I needed to print, the inkjet cartidge was dead from age.

[azasadny]

Laser - cost per page is much lower...

[GH85Carrera]

Laser!

I have a color laser printer. It is a copier, fax, scanner and printer. It does the Apple print or wi-fi printing. A new set of cartridges comes with two black and one each of the CMY is a whopping 30 bucks delivered to my door. I just use bond paper, but it makes great color prints, and I worked in a professional color photo lab for most of my life. It takes me over a year to use up a set of cartridges. They never dry up or go bad, or at least after a year or more.

[stevej37]

Thanks for the answers.
I was leaning to 'laser' because of all the ink jet cartridges that have dried up on me over the years. (cheaper to just buy a new printer)
Went online and saw my local Walmart had a Canon Image Class..3 in 1 black laser...on sale for $99
Called the store and she said they had one left..so I grabbed my face mask and bought it.
I don't think I'll regret not getting a color one...most of the time with my ink-jet one of the color cart would be dried up and the colors would all be off anyways.
I noticed on the box that it comes with a 'starter' cartridge. I wonder how many sheets that will last for?

[zakthor]

I give my parents pool side concierge tech support. Sky is the limit. Except for printers.

Absolutely wont touch them or help at all unless its a network postscript printer server, which means laser printer.

My father insists on getting some all in one deal every few years, a good deal at costco, its a fax, a scanner, a color printer, compact, wifi enabled, etc Endless driver problems, functionality problems. They last about two years each.

Weve had a xerox phaser color laser for many years now and love it. Plugs into router and everyone can print to it. Big black ink cartridges. When it dies we'll get another similar item.

We have a color laser and wish it was monochrome. The phaser 3330 looks good to me, $219!

[peppy]

We use a Brother all in one laser that we bought a few years ago from Sam's. It has been the best printer I have owned. It has been invaluable during this homeschooling crisis!

[RANDY P]

What's inkjet? Heck the price you spend on toners after a few hundred pages will buy you a decent running laser all-in-one.

Case in point- I bought a new laser All-in-one (Samsung) with my new house in 2017, probably have at least 100 pages printed thru it by now- Cost me $130, still on the original toner it came with.

[RANDY P]

Originally Posted by peppy

We use a Brother all in one laser that we bought a few years ago from Sam's. It has been the best printer I have owned. It has been invaluable during this homeschooling crisis!

I've had similar experience with the last Brother all-in-one laser I bought.

rjp

[dad911]

I price toner when I decide on a printer. For B&W I also ended up with Brother. Home and small office. Their phone app is great too, for printing and scanning from phone.

For color, I bought Dell, believe it or not. Same thing, inexpensive toner.

I've actually thrown away 'bargain' color printers, when the consumables cost more than the printer.

[jyl]

I bit the bullet and bought a Kyocera office printer. Found a good price, about $3K. Fast, really cheap per page (like 1 cent for B&W?). It is one of the TaskAlfa models, 3253 or something like that. I print maybe 50 pg/day. The toner tank costs about $100 and is rated for 20K pages. I pay more than that due to the service contract.

[flipper35]

Originally Posted by zakthor

I give my parents pool side concierge tech support. Sky is the limit. Except for printers.

Absolutely wont touch them or help at all unless its a network postscript printer server, which means laser printer.

My father insists on getting some all in one deal every few years, a good deal at costco, its a fax, a scanner, a color printer, compact, wifi enabled, etc Endless driver problems, functionality problems. They last about two years each.

Weve had a xerox phaser color laser for many years now and love it. Plugs into router and everyone can print to it. Big black ink cartridges. When it dies we'll get another similar item.

We have a color laser and wish it was monochrome. The phaser 3330 looks good to me, $219!

We have a Canon RX300 inkjet that has lasted 15 years and it still gets used. It also prints on CD/DVD/BR Disks which my wife used to do in a former life. It also does much better color photos than an laser. We also have a newer Canon all in one that pugs into the switch in the basement. Works great still after 6 or 7 years.

My old, old job we had a Xerox Phaser hybrid that they printed all the manuals with. great printer. We have different model one at my current job and it stinks. I think we still have a Laserjet 4250 in one of the offices. It is 15 years old. We have Canon Image Runners for most places and a big Kyocera that works well. We have a Sharp MX-M654N no one likes.

All that said, for home use if you don't print photos a black laser is the best option. Cheap price per page and maintenance is easy. You will need a fuser and maintenance kit eventually, but it would be easier to replace the whole printer by then.

[stevej37]

Just now got it hooked up. It spits out full pages in half the time of my old ink-jet.
Had a small problem getting it to print. Somehow there ended up being two different choices for the printer in the window that drops down for selecting which printer. Of course, the one I saw was not the defaulted one. Fixed that...it's working great.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by stevej37

Thanks for the answers.
I was leaning to 'laser' because of all the ink jet cartridges that have dried up on me over the years. (cheaper to just buy a new printer)
Went online and saw my local Walmart had a Canon Image Class..3 in 1 black laser...on sale for $99
Called the store and she said they had one left..so I grabbed my face mask and bought it.
I don't think I'll regret not getting a color one...most of the time with my ink-jet one of the color cart would be dried up and the colors would all be off anyways.
I noticed on the box that it comes with a 'starter' cartridge. I wonder how many sheets that will last for?

Originally Posted by stevej37

Just now got it hooked up. It spits out full pages in half the time of my old ink-jet.
Had a small problem getting it to print. Somehow there ended up being two different choices for the printer in the window that drops down for selecting which printer. Of course, the one I saw was not the defaulted one. Fixed that...it's working great.

Like so much technology of today the prices and performance is astonishing.

(Geezer voice) Why back in the day....

I bought a HP Laser Jet II for my desktop publishing side business. It was over $2,500 and printed at 8 pages per minute, 300 DPI. Heck I paid over $700 for my Dual band modem that I used for my BBS. I used Ventura Publisher and a 8086 based computer with 640K of ram and a 10 MB hard drive. Not even a full MB of RAM. It really taught me to be patient with computers.

That old HP was HUGE, and felt like it was filled with lead is was so heavy. Of course just a printer cable and no intern connect, because there was no such thing as the internet.

It served me well for 15 years or so. Having it repaired was silly when I could buy a new printer that was 600 or even 1200 DPI and faster and better in every way. I don't remember who I gave it to, but they were happy to have a printer with a slight line in every print for free.

[stevej37]

^^^ I think it was less than three years ago when I bought my 65 in Vizio for $999
A couple weeks back, I see 65 in Vizio smart tv's for $497 at the same place.
Remember how heavy a 25 inch tv was in the 80's?

[flipper35]

Originally Posted by stevej37

^^^ I think it was less than three years ago when I bought my 65 in Vizio for $999
A couple weeks back, I see 65 in Vizio smart tv's for $497 at the same place.
Remember how heavy a 25 inch tv was in the 80's?

Yeah, you needed a fork truck to put it in the entertainment center.

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by stevej37

My HP Envy jet printer is giving me trouble with the wifi hook-up. It won't find it unless I restart the printer. (pia)
Never owned a laser printer...thinking of going to one next.
Any reasons for or against? Main use is occasional printing...maybe 20 pages/week.

1st sentence makes me think you want to get a long Ethernet or USB cable

Laser gives cheaper cost/page, slower to print 1st page, faster for bulk jobs

There are some ink jets that use cheaper cartridges but I forget who came out with those.

Ink Jets will also clog if not used periodically.