Laser printers

[timber]

Has any one an idea as to what is the best laser printer --black print only-- for Less than £100
Thanks

 

[Noel]

May depend on what your print output is likely to be but I think your main consideration should be cost of toner . Keep in mind that any laser printer you buy at that price will only have a "starter" cartridge and your next full cartridge is likely to be £50 plus. That's where the money is for the printer manufacturers, no different from the ink jet racket. Certainly you could try 3rd party toner, or refill on a DIY basis.

 

[clanger]

Keep in mind that any laser printer you buy at that price will only have a "starter" cartridge

It's been a couple of years since I bought one, but my HP Laser came with a fully loaded cartridge that lasted just as long as the (genuine) replacements that I have had since.

HTH,

Chris

 

[Droogs]

if you can find one second hand get a sharp JX96XX (XX can vary) series printer. best ever made as far as I'm concerned. Army used thousands of these in all its offices berfore being forced to change. i still have one that is now 22 years old, spares are still available for it as are consumables and a full toner cartridge usually lasts for around 15000 pages at 70% coverage. I've seen them dropped out of planes, down stairs and fallen (literally) off the back of a 4 tonner and keep working.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Ditto for HP 4000 and 5000 series. You can still get actual spares for most of them, and with ingenuity refill the cartridges too.

I have a 5000 with a network card, which does double-sided A3 (very handy for woodwork templates, etc.), and keeps the study warm-ish too. I usually buy bottles of copier toner...

E.

PS: Canon made most of the earlier HP Laserjet chassis and mechanics (there was a technology partnership). Those designs are pretty bomb proof, including my LJ5000, but I'm not sure for how long after mine the partnership continued. I suspect the Sharp ones are similar in being modular: the basic printer has one paper tray and you add things like a duplexer (d/s printing), extra memory and network cards, and paper trays. Although around 20 years old, mine has a web server and all the kit in the house can print to it (pretty much) over the network.

 

[sunnybob]

I've just been down this road.
My 20 year old HP ink jet died. i went to the biggest store around (our version of pc world, but smaller) and talked to the guy. He said if all I wanted was text printing I would be mad to buy laser.
The laser printer was twice the price of the ink jet, and the cartridges were slightly more than twice.

I very rarely print pictures (not even one a year on average) so it was a no brainer.
I'm now sitting next to another HP deskjet. This one is a 3855. And the new technology is amazing. I can wi fi print from anywhere on the property, it has its own little on board computer and screen, and I cant fault it.
Cost me 60 euros. new ink is 17 euros a pop. I was paying 22 euros for ink on the old machine so I'm a happy chappy.

 

[timber]

Thanks for that Sunny bob
Mine is a HP3520 and has not been the best. Will go to a store and have a look again for a new one. 3855 maybe
Also thanks to all who replied
Timber

 

[timber]

Hi Sunybob
I can't find any mention of that number HP3855 for sale over here

 

[AES]

Hi Sunybob
I can't find any mention of that number HP3855 for sale over here

Based on my own experience of travel to weird and wonderful places (before I retired) it happens quite often in different places that HP product numbers (and I guess other manufacturers too?) vary quite a lot. This applies to both printers themselves, and to HP cartridges. What you need is a major retailer ("Office World"? I dunno) who will look up on the HP dealers web site for the local equivalent of the number sunnybob's quoting. I don't think (not sure) that you can find it yourself by looking at HP's web site (I couldn't when I tried that here, but my local big store could).

HTH

AES

P.S. While there's a lot of sense (cost) in the above posts about replacing an old inkjet with a new, personally I'm about to replace an inkjet with a B&W laser. Why? Inkjet is fine if you use it virtually every day, but if not, and if it's left unused for a while, the cartridges dry out, leaving you with higher overall cost than a laser, which doesn't "die" if not regularly used.

AES

 

[Harbo]

I’ve read that if you are only printing text then lasers are the cheaper option.
Ink jets better for photos etc

Rod

 

[AES]

I’ve read that if you are only printing text then lasers are the cheaper option.
Ink jets better for photos etc

Rod

Yeah, I think so (not sure though). I'm keeping a separate inkjet just for photos, the new B&W laser will be just for text, scroll saw templates, etc.

AES

 

[whatknot]

Having had several ink jet printers, which invariably clogged up and cost a small fortune in cartridges, and rarely worked when required first time, I got fed up with that and bought a Samsung mono laser for £50 from Argos

I just checked back and it was December 2010 !

As someone says like most printers it had a starter toner cartridge but that lasted to 2014 (I bought a replacement toner in Feb 2014 but didn't fit it for a while)

The replacement toner was £17

I am still using that replacement

Without fail, every single time I have gone to print something it has worked perfectly, every time, including this morning

No other consumables have been required in all that time bar paper

I print a fair amount although wouldn't class myself as a heavy user

If it died today I would go and buy another Samsung but colour this time

I also have an ink jet printer which never ever prints first time, and wastes oodles of ink every time when cleaning the heads

I believe the modern equivalent of my ML1665 is now £70 wired or £90 wi-fi

 

[Droogs]

There is a huge difference in costs when comparing printer types. From high to low they are Dye sublimation - Inkjet - Laser. A DS printer runs at roughly 3.2p per page (full colour)
An inkjet runs at roughly 1.5p per page
A laser at 0.015 per page (B&W) and 0.8p (Colour)

The storage life f or inkjets cartridges are roughly 2.4 years (some manufacturers actually disable the printers printhead after a set period of time)
DS is around 12 years in perfect conditions
And Toner for lasers is around 40 years plus.

There are sound economic reason that business use lasers and not inkjets for their documents. the best quality is DS but they are really useless for everyday printing and meant for art printing.

 

[AES]

Thanks for that Droogs. NOT being sarcastic (honest!) but it sounds like you know what your talking about. Care to tell us how you know all this please?

I can confirm one thing, "some manufacturers" (HP and Epson in my experience) definitely DO limit the life of their cartridges by some sort of software/electronic means. My HPs lasted about 2 years (if I recall correctly) AND even worse, if just one of the (3 total colour + 1 B&W) cartridges was out of time, then the printer just wouldn't work at all - not even a page of B&W text. Just a bloody rip-off IMO.

I realise it's very much a case of horses for courses (like so many other things) but for my own use I've already decided that apart from 1 off inkjet for pix (Epson in my case), my "day to day" printer is going to be a simple, no gimmicks, cable-connected B&W laser (no copier, no scanner,no wireless, etc ), with "just" the capability to print double sided by printing the odd numbered sides first, then taking the prints & reversing them for double sided (I need that rarely now). But as said, that's just me, "your mileage may vary".

So watching the replies here with interest - FWIW, I've done a bit of checking here and for about the equivalent of 60 to 70 quid (100 Swiss Francs) it looks like there's a choice of 4 small footprint lasers that fit my above "spec" - if I remember, HP, Canon, Epson, and I think Brother.

AES

 

[Droogs]

I used to be responsible for buying and repairing the Army's IT Hardware for all units in the north of England and Scotland and then after working for HP, IBM, Kyocera, OKI, and a few others went to work for Google in the Zurich HQ as their internal IT Hardware Deployment and Repair Manager for EMEA. Been on every repair course by all the manufacturers right up until I got out of the main IT game in 2012 to do some living instead

 

[Robbo3]

In reply to Timber's original post, practically any laser printer will do.
Things to look for are cost of the machine & cost of toner. Then connectivity. USB, ethernet or wi-fi or combination of these. Ethernet/wi-fi means the printer connects to the router & is available to anything else that connects to the router.
USB normally means the printer is connected to a desktop/laptop.

 

[Chris152]

My two-year-old Canon inkjet found its way into the 'off to the tip' pile in garden this weekend, I'd finally had enough of it failing to pick up paper properly and constant paper jamming.

Having read this thread I want to buy a laser printer. Apparently it needs to have colour. So I was thinking about this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-Color-Laser ... G7LZX&th=1
I have no idea about laser printers other than what I've read in this thread. Are the other options at that link the same printer but with a full set of inks (as opposed to the starter set it comes with)? Gets a tad expensive if so.

Thanks

edit - and if so, when the colour runs out, can i just carry on replacing the black and print b&w while leaving the colours empty?

 

[Racers]

We use HP printers at work they are very reliable.

It will stop working when a cartridge runs out laser printers are different to ink jets.

You can use cheaper compatible cartridges I know people who do with out any problems.

You are probably best buying cartridges as they run out you will find you get through the black one first, you don't want to end up with loft of spare colour ones.

Pete

 

[Chris152]

Thanks Pete.

So if the red runs out, it won't print plain b&w text? Sorry to be dim.

And, HP proudly announce on their website that 'Dynamic security enabled printer. Only intended to be used with cartridges using an HP original chip. Cartridges using a non-HP chip may not work, and those that work today may not work in the future.' Are manufacturers getting better at this or do you think that's just them trying to protect their lucrative after sales with some words?

 

[Racers]

Yes if the red (magenta) runs out it won't print, its to protect the printer as the paper will still be passing under the red (magenta) cartridge.

Weasel words to frighten you into buying genuine cartridges, our big printers at work had a firmware up date that knocked off the page remaining count at 10% remaining, you just get a message saying low instead of a page count, 10% is about 3000 pages.
I guess they want you to replace it before it runs out spending more money.

Pete