I'm fed up with the fact that my Inkjet keeps drying up, and I've decided that I don't need to print in colour anyway.

So, any recommendations for home/home office laser printers? It'd be used primarily from a Windows box. I'm not going to be printing that frequently, and rarely more than a couple of pages at a time.

Whatever you get don't get a Tally, consumables cost more than the printers.

My family is still using an HP Laserjet 3p from something like 15 years ago. I had to replace the scanning mirror once and it's still working like a charm.

I've had good experiences of both Kyocera and HP machines, but a bit heavier usage than Rogers anticipating. At the cheaper end I've found most of them fail after a few years, the worst I ever bought was a Brother, complete pile of crap.

I'm using an HP 5L at home. They can be found very cheap on ebay. The main reason people are selling them is the "multiple feed problem". But if you get a repair kit, you can probably have a great printer and buy a new toner for under 100-120$. Toner, like most laser printers, last for ever.

Don't know about new ones, but I guess that with HP, you can't really go bad.

Do you need duplex? Networked or will USB do?

I've got a Samsung ML-1750.

It's small, fast and cheap.

And when the toner runs out you can buy a jar of toner for £7 and pour it into to the cartidge. I'm on my 3rd jar now and it'st stil printing perfectly.

A Samsung ML1610 is pretty cheap. Only USB and no duplex however. Official toner is about £50. Third party toner which comes in a bottle is about £11 or so.

I have a Samsung too, it's a nice printer but I find if it's been stood a while the print outs are quite faded to start with.

We have a cheap Brother at work, it's a couple of years old and I would choose this over the Samsung, but it was twice the price.

With the cheap lasers check the price of the toner before buying, sometimes they are as much as a new printer

Cheers

Cris.

Don't forget the cost of drums. Many non hp printers do not include the drum as part of the cartridge. Brothers are very expensive on supplies.

The HP laserjet printers I have seen out on the market all show a duplexing option in the driver. If the printer doesn't have an actual duplexing unit, it will print out the odd pages in an orientation that you just grab them off the top and put them in the paper tray. Once there, you hit a button and it then prints out the even pages. It's been handy on my color laserjet I got for home, since I don't have to manually remember to print only the odd and such.

The Laserjet 1022 seems to be the entry level printer we have now. A friend of mine just got his recently, I'll have to see how he likes it so far.

I'd second the HP 5L if you want cheap, but it is slow, the paper feed rollers need replacing once every 5 years or so (so far) and it isn't the best with Non Windows boxes (my SGI machines sometimes have issues with it)

I have an HP2100TN. I've used HP lasers for years, and I think they are far and away the best and most reliable. I would not consider anything other than an HP laser. You can get brand new ones for under $300 now, and they have a consumer color laser for $600 now. If you want one that will print for the next decade (literally) get the one that's one step up from consumer grade.

My printer is the ancestor of the current HP2400 Series , which is a 1200x1200 DPI engine like mine is. This line has been 2100, 2200, 2300 and now the 2400. A friend of mine got a 2100 around the same time as me and has put 165,000 pages through it and has only needed to buy toner. You get about 5000 pages from the toner cartridge that comes with it and 10,000 or so pages for each additional cartridge.

The options are described by the letters following the model number:

D - duplex
T - 2nd paper tray
N - Ethernet ready (built-in network print server)

So, you can get a 2400N, or 2400DN, or whatever. If I were you, I would get a 2400N or 2400TN (if you need to print on letterhead, the extra tray is nice).

This is a great machine and will last you forever. The best part of this series is the 1200dpi engine. Most affordable printers you will look at will be only 600x600dpi, which is only a quarter of the resolution. The print quality difference at 1200dpi is quite impressive, especially with small type and greyscale images.

This series is fast (30 or 35 ppm; they have two levels), quiet, 1200dpi and has an automatic power saving mode. They are bulletproof reliable. I have literally never had a paper jam or double-feed in over 30,000 pages printed. The envelope feed works 100% of the time and makes printing envelopes a breeze.

Its about a $550 printer and well worth the extra couple hundred over other options.

Hope this helps,

Jim

One newer letter used in the HP printer models is W for Wireless networking built in.

Here's a vote for the inexpensive Brother HL-2040. Works great and is really cheap. I got mine last year to replace my Epson with the amazing dry-up ink cartridges and I couldn't be happier.

any recommendations for home/home office laser printers?

Depends on your priorities.

If you are primarily printing text, and cost is important, you absolutely will not do better than Kyocera. Their claim to fame is cost per page, and they deliver. Typical cost per page is less than half of that of a comparable Hewlett Packard printer.

So, big deal, right? You save three quarters of a penney per page... in a high volume environment like mine, that savings comes to thousands of dollars a year.

Initial cost of the printer should not be a consideration -- the number that matters is cost per page.

tanstaafl.

Brother HL-5140. The drum is good for 20,000 copies.
The printer does not include a network port, and the adaptor that Brother sells is overpriced compared the many network print servers available.
HL-5170DN Looks to have it all for about $50 more.

Well, here are my thoughts:

1. The 1200dpi is worth it if you can swing it.
2. The "d" option (duplex) adds a lot to the price. I don't think that double-sided printing is a big deal. As others have said, most software supports printing every other page and then reloading the paper.
3. The only difference between the 2420 vs. the 2430 is throughput, and going the 2420 route saves you money.
4. You might be able to find a new 2300 or 2200 series on ebay. There was a brand new 2300dn for US$379.
5. I have a spare JetDirect card (the network print server card that makes the printer an "N") that you can have, but we'll need to make sure my model is compatible with the printer you buy.
6. The paper path is not straight on the 2xxx series, but I have sucessfully printed on cardstock.

If I were you, I really wouldn't consider anything other than an HP. Drivers, reliability, performance, postscript support, multiple OS support -- everything points to HP. The exception, of course, is price per page. For home use, however, I feel that features and performance outweigh cost/page. If you were using it in an office and printing lots of reports, well, that's different.

That said, if you don't want to go for a 2200 or 2300 or try to find a refurbished or cheap 24xx, I would definitely get an HP one model lower.

Finally, I can buy here and ship it to you, if you would like my help. I imagine that is pretty expensive, but it might save you some money overall. There may be mains power issues with that also...

FWIW,

Jim

I strongly second the HP LaserJet 2100 (or 2200, which is nearly identical). Get one off eBay and optionally add more RAM and a JetDirect card (I forget the compatible models off hand).

You can get recycled toner for these "older" LaserJet printers at great prices. 2100/2200 uses 4096A (std capacity) or 4096X (high capacity). Find a few local toner recyclers and buy a toner from each to make sure their drums and toner work for you. I had one supplier whose cart somehow left speckles all over the page; toner was staying dusted to the drum. But in many years, that's been my only complaint.

I don't recommend current LaserJet printers just yet. Perhaps "they aren't built like they used to be", but I'll know for sure after a few months of using my new 1320 at the office. That has nearly the same specs as the 2100 but it seems less sturdy. We'll see.

For cheap toner, I can recommend Mega Toners. We use their knock-off LaserJet 4000 carts at work and they seem really nice for the price. We've been using them for the past 2 or 3 years.