Laser printers.

fobose · 16 Mar 2008 at 12:05

Found a really nice brother laser printer with ethernet. I want it to serve 2 PC's and 2 laptops. However, my last printer I had which was an inkjet broke after I left it turned off for a long period of time (6+ months) - the ink dried out.

I know that the laser toners are a powder, but will leaving the unit off for prolonged periods of time deteriorate the quality of the printer at all? It might sound like a stupid question but I just want to be 100% sure.

A[L]C · 16 Mar 2008 at 12:18

Laser printers are so cheap nowadays it doesnt really matter lol. You can buy a HP color laserjet for £100 now. But no, not had any problems with my laser deteriorating.

fobose · 16 Mar 2008 at 12:33

Thanks for the reply. I have just been looking at the HP colour laser printers and the cheapest one I can find is about £170 (HP Color LaserJet 2600n) with built in ethernet (which is a must have).

However the HP uses a lot less power than the brother one I was looking at (Brother HL 2070N - which is only monochrome). The reason I was looking at this brother one was because it is very small, networked and its black (preference really).

A[L]C · 16 Mar 2008 at 12:42

No ethernet on the one I was on about unfortunately (HP Colour LaserJet 1600 from a well known high street store for £100)

Ive got the 2600n and had no problems with it.

Theguy · 16 Mar 2008 at 13:42

It might be 'cheaper' if you say buy the cheapy HP and then buy a print server?

IAmATeaf · 16 Mar 2008 at 13:56

I've been using a HP Laserjet 4m now for years and have never had any problems with the toner on it. The only real problem Ihad which was my own fault was that when I moved from Edinburgh to London I had it shipped but left the toner in place rather then taking it out and when it got to London there was toner all over the place, in the end I had to buy a new toner cart as no matter how much I cleaned it there was always another bit of toner somewhere which would ruin the prints.

fobose · 16 Mar 2008 at 14:03

Hmm. The cheapest monochrome HP laserjet is £70 and the cheapest print server I can find is on OcUK which is £36 - this isn't cheaper than the brother printer I was originally looking at which is £98. I always thought brother were a good brand for laserjet printers, or have I been mistaken?

K.C. Leblanc · 16 Mar 2008 at 14:46

I've used lasers that have been sat for months and they're fine.

Brother laser are ok but HP are better. I've used the 2070n a few times before and they're not bad although they do feel a bit flimsy.

Bare in mind some really cheap lasers don't work well with print servers, since they often more of the processing on the the printer.

fobose · 16 Mar 2008 at 15:16

Thanks for the replies guys. I think I will stick with the brother 2070n then. The toners are only about £30 to replace too - although the one with the printer says approx 1500 pages, I seriously doubt I will be buying a toner for a very long time.

At the end of the day I just want something that doesn't take up to much space, looks good (black), is able to connect to the network and prints good quality text - dont care about pictures.

Another question I would like to ask is regarding the resolution. Which is better, 2400x600 or 1200x1200? Does it make much difference?