Help on buying a laser printer.

Admetos

Admetos

Admetos

Soldato
Joined
19 Jun 2009
Posts
4,026
I'm in the market for a new printer, and looking at the cost of laser printers this looks the correct direction to go. First however some background.

The new printer will be replacing a HP 520 Inkjet printer, it was a great printer used mainly for text printing, not to expensive on ink either. Yesterday after 15 years it broke, a moments silence please.

Last time I looked at printers (15 years ago), mono laser printers cost £3k, I look today and there from £50, as you can see it's been a while since I selected a printer.

Main concern is not falling into the trap of purchasing a printer that's expensive on ink. Colour would be nice but not if it means ink will drastically raise in cost (even for mono printing).

So here are the priorities.

1) Budget for printer upto £200
2) Print speed not important
3) Must be cost effective for Mono printing
4) Good build quality and should last a few years
5) Popular model, in years to come need to still source ink ok.
6) Just a printer (no scanner / fax etc)
7) Colour printing nice, but not if it impacts on Mono printing costs

Thanks for the help
 
Have you thought about going second hand?

Lots of second hand refurbished laser printers available from companies that have upgraded. you are then getting a commercial quality printer often for less than the price of some new cartridges. I got a second hand Zerox, only a year old or so for less than a £100. The story the seller gave me is that the bank that was using it upgraded from mono to colour a couple of months after buying it so it appears to have only been used to print about two thousand or so pages. As the cartridge is rated for 12,000 pages I think I did ok.
 
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Colour is more expensive to run. If you print mostly black ,then just get a mono one. Is it for home/pffice, and whats the print volume like?
 
I had similar considerations and I went for a Kyocera fs 1030d - had it for around a year now and it's very reliable, duplex, sharp, small footprint. Don't know if there is a newer model out, so might be worth checking. There were very fabourable reviews for it.
 
We just binned our old E232 Lexmark one after 5 years of hard use, the replacement I spent quite a time looking for is an E120N which has lots of positive reviews and seems to be doing the job nicely for a shade over £120
Comes with onboard network support, you just plug it into your router.
 
I can't advise on brands or models as I've not pursued one myself. I, however, do know a colleague who had a bit of a saga finding a laser printer that doesn't curl paper. So yeah, watch out for lasers that curl paper. My colleague's saga has made out that printers that don't curl paper are few and far inbetween.
 
Have a look at the Samsung range we got a samsung Mono laser (ML-1510), several years ago and still haven't had to replace the toner. We have since purchased a colour laser (also Samsung but we don't use that a lot as putting paper in the tray feeder needs micrometer type precison or it jams.

. The other (more expensive option) is the hp range try to get one with an 'n' at the end of the number if you want to network it.

My current recommendation would be the SAMSUNG ML-1640 mono which Staples are selling at just under £60, giving lots of budget for toners.

Kelvin
 
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