New Printer - Laser/Inkjet NOT Sublimation

[Justin]

Looking for a new printer, pretty much just for letters onto letter-headed paper really. I'd decided to get letter heads made and buy a cheap mono laser printer but wonder if a decent inkjet would be better and print my own letterheads?

If I go the laser route, looking for a small footprint and carts that won't break the bank....something like these maybe...

http://www.ebuyer.com/176590-samsung-ml-1910-mono-laser-printer-toner-included-ml-1910-see

http://www.ebuyer.com/200488-dell-1130-mono-laser-printer-210-31795

Used older Samsung before and really liked them, even managed to refil the toner which saved a fortune.

Considered a colour laser but having used one a few years back and finding the replacement toners incredibly expensive I feel a little weary of going this route.

This one looks ok, not too expensive on toners....

http://www.printerbase.co.uk/acatalog/samsung-clp320-printer.php?gclid=CJrdpJiNp6sCFUUNfAod3DNs2A

[barryslip]

Hi Justin

I have the Samsung clp-320 and I thinks its quite good value. I only use it for printing flyers, price list and letters but is perfectly fine for that.

In fact I have 2 of them! Bought one initially as I hoped to use TMT paper with it. Bad move! The paper glued itself to the fuser unit! I'd only printed a dozen pages before that, so decided to buy another and use the toner cartridges from the broken one.

The price you have found is a great price. I got the same price from www.oyyy.co.uk.

Hope that helps :)

[JSR]

Looking for a new printer, pretty much just for letters onto letter-headed paper really. I'd decided to get letter heads made and buy a cheap mono laser printer but wonder if a decent inkjet would be better and print my own letterheads?

If I go the laser route, looking for a small footprint and carts that won't break the bank....something like these maybe...

http://www.ebuyer.com/176590-samsung-ml-1910-mono-laser-printer-toner-included-ml-1910-see

http://www.ebuyer.com/200488-dell-1130-mono-laser-printer-210-31795

Used older Samsung before and really liked them, even managed to refil the toner which saved a fortune.

Considered a colour laser but having used one a few years back and finding the replacement toners incredibly expensive I feel a little weary of going this route.

This one looks ok, not too expensive on toners....

http://www.printerbase.co.uk/acatalog/samsung-clp320-printer.php?gclid=CJrdpJiNp6sCFUUNfAod3DNs2A

Unless you can buy refill toner, I wouldn't touch the CLP-3xx printers with a barge pole. The toner costs are extortionate. £35 for a toner that prints 1,000 pages? What planet are they on? If I bought OEM ink for my A3 Brother inkjet printer, it'd cost me £15 for 900 pages of black and £10 for 750 pages of colour - that's about a third of the price per page compared to the laser printer.

The laser would cost £145 for all four colours, while the inkjet would cost £45 for almost the same number of pages.

The ML-1910 is almost as bad. £52 for a toner that lasts 2,500 pages - 25% more than it would cost for my Brother inkjet.

From what I can gather, the Dell is even worse. £66 for a toner that lasts just 1,500 pages - well over twice the page-price of an inkjet.

Laser printers are sold using the inkjet model these days. The initial price looks cheap, but running cost is huge. I have two colour lasers here - neither of which have much toner in them because it's cheaper to run my inkjets! Crazy world.

Also, consider that laser printers have hidden costs - such as photoconductor units, or waste containers, or transfer belts. Typically photoconductor units will cost the price of the printer and then some - so check how soon the photoconductor unit will need replacing, and plan to buy a new printer when it happens. Laser printers are throwaway items these days. Landfill waiting to happen.

Unless you have a real desire to go for a laser printer, look for something with better running costs. And if you really do need a laser, look at spending a few hundred quid up-front... then maybe you'll be able to afford the running costs.

[Justin]

Yes, I appreciate that the initial cost is probably the cheapest part, toners, drums etc. have to be factored in. Print quality doesn't seem to increase on more expensive printers but the toners last longer, that said the price rockets for toners that last 2.5k etc.

I guess a decent inkjet with very good paper would be ok but would this print as well as the laser? Been a long time since I used either outside of Sublimation!

I've often fancied a go with the Canon Pixma printers such as this one http://www.ebuyer.com/281308-canon-p...inter-5287b008 but not sure about running costs, will check cart prices. I'm told the Kodak printers are currently the cheapest on ink costs. Personally I hate all in ones.

edit: The Canon looks ok on ink/paper costs and top the PCPro list which is always reassuring. Anyone using a Canon? Wondering what paper would work well for letterheads etc?

[Justin]

Going to have a go with one of these Canons, see how good they are :-)

[Ian M]

Wasn't the Epson D120 designed for such as doing letters etc quickly with that extra black cartridge? I wonder what happend to them.

[Justin]

Gave my D120 to my folks, still working a treat with a bulk ink system. Always got on well with the D120 but many others had problems. Thought I'd try something different with the Canon this time :-)

[JSR]

Quality from inkjets these days is pretty good.

We have two "office" printers here. An HP OfficeJet K550DTN which we got at a good price - complete with duplex unit and extra paper tray. It prints very fast and the OEM cartridges hold a lot of ink, making it much cheaper to run than a laser. It frequently gets confused with the network, though.

The second one is a Brother MFC-5890CN which prints up to A3. I have 3rd party ink in it which cost £10 for 400ml of ink (100ml of each colour) which I use in giant size cartridges. Since filling it up months ago, I've printed tons of stuff from it and haven't had to bother about the ink even once. I use it for everything from invoices to casual stuff. Never once had a nozzle check problem and, unlike the HP, it doesn't get confused by the network.

When our HP dies (or the printheads need replacing), we'll be replacing it with a cheap A4 Brother printer using the same ink and cartridge system. I've checked many of the current range of printers, but no OEM ink is affordable - so going third party makes the only kind of sense. Since having that set up on the A3, ink has become an absolute non-issue. No messing about with small refillables, or unknown "compatibles", and no mess with tubes from a CISS. Absolutely the ideal office printer. Would be nice to have a larger paper tray and duplex printing, but the lack of stress more than makes up for the lack of gimmicks.

[JSR]

Running costs on that Canon seem reasonable. It appears to have a very large black dye ink tank (the pigment black is much smaller for some reason). If that works as it should, that should be a cheap runner.

edit: The Canon looks ok on ink/paper costs and top the PCPro list which is always reassuring. Anyone using a Canon? Wondering what paper would work well for letterheads etc?

I'm surprised that you find PCPro reassuring. I still recall when they supposedly did an in-depth test of inkjet printers, and yet they commissioned an outside agency that was an obvious shill for HP. No Epson printer was included in the test, because that outside agency didn't test Epson printers. The test was an utter farce.

[djhutton]

Had two samsung printers (ML1610) for 4 or 5 years and they seem reliable, haven't really costed pages etc but seem to go on for ages. Currently refilling with toner and seems to work very well for very little money (needs a reset fuse, but that come with the kit). BTW I've found that a few lazer printers I've had can be reset by replacing a small fuse and the printer thinks it has a new cartidge, thus printing loads more pages (although they will start to get fainter when you actually run out of toner (rather than when the printer thinks you have)

One really useful feature that isn't advertised and I find really useful is the ability to print an 'overlay' at the same time as your current page. This means that for invoice printing you can print a 'headed' page for the customer with all the tidy lines and watermarks etc, and a plain copy for records, thus saving loads of toner and also makes it clear which one is to go to the customer. You can use any overlay that you already have set up so different headers for different types of customer/company, really handy and have only found that in the samsung driver, not any others I've had. You can do this from any program, could well be classed as a gimmick but I've found it handy :-)

Just my 2ps worth.

DJ