Thinking about a colour laser printer

silk186 · 4 Sep 2019 at 22:52

I've been using Brother mono laser printers for more than a decade and I'm thinking about upgrading my workhorse. My main hesitation is the toner cost as I can print B/W daily. Toner is really cheap with my current mono laser Brother HL-2250DN, 2x TN-2220 is £12.99. Any advice? Are these good prices or do they go lower some times?

MFC-L3710CW 4-in-1 wireless colour LED laser printer £150
HP Colour LaserJet Pro MFP M281fdw Wireless Multifunction Printer with Fax £137.99

Bluecube · 4 Sep 2019 at 23:17

Your prices don’t tally with what’s on the web pages.

Quartz · 4 Sep 2019 at 23:24

silk186 said:
My main hesitation is the toner cost as I can print B/W daily.

So have two printers: one mono and one colour. I have a Brother DCP-9020CDW MFD and it's great for my needs. The only thing you need to beware is that it can use colour toner to enhance blacks unless you tell it to print in greyscale.

silk186 · 5 Sep 2019 at 16:01

Bluecube said:
Your prices don’t tally with what’s on the web pages.

They do if you add in manufacturer discounts. HP, Samsung and Brother are all running discount programs.

HP Colour LaserJet Pro MFP M281fdw Wireless Multifunction Printer with Fax - £197.99
T6B82A HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M281fdw £60.00 22/08/2019 - 31/10/2019
£197.99 - £60.00 = £137.99
If you have a student ID it is £197.10 directly from HP which may make the discount easier.
Claim up to £100 cashback On selected HP Printers.
Brother latest promotions

silk186 · 5 Sep 2019 at 16:02

Quartz said:
So have two printers: one mono and one colour. I have a Brother DCP-9020CDW MFD and it's great for my needs. The only thing you need to beware is that it can use colour toner to enhance blacks unless you tell it to print in greyscale.

I don't really have space in my flat for 2 laser printers in my flat, unfortunately.
I don't print colour often enough for a dedicated colour printer either.
Do you know how to tell if these are compatible with non-OEM toner cartridges?

Quartz · 5 Sep 2019 at 16:10

silk186 said:
Do you know how to tell if these are compatible with non-OEM toner cartridges?

My Brother is working just fine with third-party toner cartridges.

iraiguana · 8 Sep 2019 at 22:36

I have a Brother colour laser printer and it has been great the past year or so. I am yet to need more toner, and generally has just worked.

Avalon · 20 Sep 2019 at 12:22

iraiguana said:
I have a Brother colour laser printer and it has been great the past year or so. I am yet to need more toner, and generally has just worked.

So you don’t tell us the model, you have never had to test replacement cartridge quality/price/availability/compatibility and clearly you print very few pages, but ‘it’s been great’. Can you see how that may not be quite as useful to the op as you probably hoped?

For the op - what you have now is cheap and likely bordering on disposable, if you don’t need CMYK daily/weekly, you’re going to have to spend a relatively large amount of money to allow you to do relatively few prints, also newer printers tend to be less friendly to compatible cartridges.

Destination · 21 Sep 2019 at 21:50

I've an EPSON aculaser C1750 and I find it superb.

a1ex2001 · 10 Nov 2019 at 21:15

Just went through a very similar process I’d been using an old Samsung ML1710 for over a decade without issue but we decided we needed a colour option after getting sick of the ink drying out in the inkjet we kept in the cupboard so after much deliberation I got a Brother HL-L3230 CDW it was really well priced, decently reviewed, compact and plenty of cheap third party toner out there. Can’t fault it so far the wireless printing and duplex option is great as well for the flexibility to do things like print straight from your phone etc.

EssexBoy · 11 Nov 2019 at 09:14

Looking out for a nice b&w to at the moment seen a few around £99

Phil2008 · 28 Dec 2019 at 11:13

I love brother inkjet printers as they very rarly clog up because the printer checks the heads every so often, regardless if the printer is switched on or not. Also the ink carts lasts for yonks, I used my last printer as a workhorse(mfc-j410) and a set of good compatibles lasted me about 6months at £15 a set..

I have just upgrade the printer to the mfc-j5730dw as the heads finally gave up the ghost after about 6-7 years of abuse. the ink cartridges on this new printer are larger, so cross fingers it will be as efficient or better on ink then my other printer.

Plus with this new printer it prints out a4 pages sideways, so a page prints out within seconds.

About a year ago I did try a small Epson all in one printer for about 6months but it just drank the ink like no ones business. A set of compatibles were £35 and lasted a few weeks of heavy use.. so it was costing silly money to use.