I need a new printer. My HP LaserJet 5P, which has served me well for what feels like ten years, is finally dead and gone. It has pseudo died several times in the past, but I always managed to fix it.
At any rate, I am looking around and there just don’t seem to be many printers comparable to it. I don’t mind buying a color printer, but I don’t want to end up buying something that requires me to buy hundreds of dollars of ink cartridges every few months. I was quite happy with the printer I had, which was a little slow with the printing, but I could go several years without a new toner cartridge.
Any suggestions? I don’t want to spend a bazillion dollars, but I will pay for quality.
*** Update ***
Ugh. I guess I missed the premiere of Dollhouse last night. Will it be showing again?
Jim Pharo
I have a HP 2600n, which I got for $300 at Staples. The cartridges run $40-80 per (black + three color, 4 total), but as I only print color rarely, it’s worked out well. Fast to start printing, fast printing, easy to use envelopes, etc.
It’s da bomb.
I also have a wireless inkjet which I have in my home and anyone who on the wireless network can use it — and it needn’t have a computer. It sits on a bookshelf in the living room all by itself. $140 or so, with cartridges $30-40 (one black, one color).
Andrew J. Lazarus
HP 1320 monochrome Laser is probably the most similar.
Stay away from the HP 1100 series unless you verify it’s a real Postscript printer.
MattF
Choices– Color/BW, laser/inkjet, all-in-one (i.e., print/scan/copy/fax/photoprint)/just print.
I ended up getting an HP Officejet J6480, which is a relatively inexpensive all-in-one color inkjet & I’m happy with it. But if I needed laser-quality BW printing, I’d be a lot less happy.
Linkmeister
Questions to ask oneself when considering printers:
1. How many pages per day/week/month?
2. If the answer to 1 is "many," then how many pages per minute?
3. Color: important or nice to have?
4. More than one computer needs to access it? If so, wireless?
5. Footprint on desk/tabletop
Michael D.
I have an HP LaserJet 3050, which is a printer, scanner, copier and fax.
A bit large, but works great and it was cheap.
Amy Robertson
We are very happy with the HP Laserjet 1020. It’s b&w and does not do anything but print, but is a good reliable replacement for the 5P.
KRK
Anybody have a recommendation for a good basic duplex printer?
Oliver's Neck
Re: Dollhouse
Watch online: http://www.hulu.com/watch/57885/dollhouse-ghost
Fern
@KRK:
I have a Brother HL-52 that I like very well – it duplexes beautifully and was quite inexpensive – well under 300CDN – less in the US. Have had it over a year though, so who knows if it is still available.
I switched from HP in a state of pissed-offedness when they did not provide a printer driver for Vista and I had to replace a perfectly good Laserjet.
But I actually prefer the Brother – feeds better, prints well, and duplexes without jamming.
John Cole
@Fern: I had to network my old computer and print that way since I got my Vista machine last summer. Pain in the ass, but I really just hate throwing out equipment that still works, plus, all these old computers and industrial waste have to go somewhere, so I try to make things last.
Fern
@John Cole:
I gave my old one to my brother who was still running XP, so all was not lost.
srv
Whatever happened to the paperless desktop? We had men orbiting the Moon 40 years ago. Why do you and everyone else here keep clinging to your local copies and hate trees?
A big-wig professor like you would have remote printing resources at the University. They’ll be there for you. Just wait a year for the portable e-ink displays or the computer-to-kindle port.
Fwiffo
It only got a 2.0/6 in the demo last night, so if it gets canceled, it’s all your fault.
Sarcastro
I just got a 13 year old Apple Laserwriter 16/600 PS at a yard-sale for $5 American. New toner cart and it works like a charm. I still have four of these things in use as workgroup printers at my workplace. They’re virtually indestructable. Dropped one down half a flight of stairs once. Cracked the case and broke the paper cart but the damned thing kept right on printing once I cannibalized a cart from a spare (I think someone spilled coffee into that one). And Staples still carries the toner!
In lieu of that, get the cheapest HP that meets your needs.
Do not get a Ricoh 3500N. I do believe every single part of that accursed printer is a consumable.
Face
Apple sucks.
Fern
@srv:
Because I can’t edit long documents on the computer? Because clients like hard copy at project team meetings? Because there are situations when students need hard-copy handouts?
Just for starters.
Frank
I’m very happy with my HP Office Jet L7680. It uses the nano-ink technology, and the cartridges last a long time. It’s a four-cartridge box.
Back when I got it, I was doing a lot of color printing (training materials with lots of pictures). New cartridges for the old Lexmark at $80 plus per set once a week or more; with an equivalent workload, I was replacing the HP’s cartridges less than once a month.
The savings on cartridges paid for it in less than six months.
Plus it can do about 30 pages a minute.
For Linux users, it’s supported in the current CUPS release; a PPD file is available for earlier CUPS releases.
blogreeder
@John
John, your reluctance to throw things out reminds me of a website things my girlfriend and I have argued about:
Punchy
I’m kwite sho O’bomba’s stimuless pakage payz fer new printahs, noob.
demkat620
What is Dollhouse? Is this like the Wire? Cause, I don’t know why but I could never get in to that.
John Harrold
Check out the Xerox Phaser 8560. These are pretty fast and have excellent quality. They use these little cubes of wax, and if I remember correctly they were quite affordable.
reid
We have a canon all-in-one B&W laser printer that also prints duplex. MF4150, probably replaced by newer models. So far it’s been great, and duplex is big for a tree-hugger. Works with linux, too! We’re irregular printers, and I got fed up with inkjets clogging with disuse. Or just clogging and streaking because they could.
Dollhouse? What kind of name is that? They were pushing it too much with the Terminator bird last night for me to think it’s any good.
Colonel Danite
When unemployment hits 12-15%, you can hire a scribe to make copies for you for pennies a page. Just provide a chair, inkwell and quill.
Blue Shark
…Absolutely stick with HP at whatever price you can afford.
…Like buying a Toyota…you will be happy with the performance and quality.
L. Ron Obama
I really like the Brother 5250DN, which replaced our HP Laserjet 5L. It is networked (you don’t need a computer to control it), fast, prints double-sided, supports native Postscript (stupid proprietary drivers not required), can be controlled via a webpage, and I threw in some old unused laptop memory to bring it from 32MB to 160MB. Checking the webpage now, it indicates I have used 1847 of 25000 pages before I need a new drum, and I guess toner change will be at about 3,500 pages.
It is $250 at Amazon. I got mine from OfficeMax.
Inkjets are shit unless you are printing photos or lots of color. If you are printing text (especially coming from a laser), you will probably hate an inkjet.
smiley
@demkat620: New Joss Whedon show. First episode was last night. Didn’t watch.
Michael G
There’s always "the better option". Let’s face it, you should have taped it but just forgot. If you had a friend who taped it, you would borrow the tape without a second thought. And it turns out on the internet you have a lot of friends who taped it.
Scratch that, it’s on hulu. "Presented with limited commercial interruption–by the Ad Council". Weird.
John H. Farr
Nobody’s mentioned Epson. Why is that?
I have a rather old Epson Stylus Photo 870 which used to print wonderful photos (and a few other things), but it’s taken to printing text with overlapping characters. Not good, so I need a new one, too. But I DO need to be able to print occasional photos at 8.5 x 11.
(Recommend away.)
Meanwhile, I have no idea what to tell John C. My main problem now is that I can get a goddamn FREE printer if I buy a new computer, which I also need but can’t afford. It would gripe me to hell and back to actually pay for a printer, in other words, so here I sit, not being able to print a thing. Something’s gotta give.
demkat620
@smiley: Thanks. I have never heard of it.
bvac
I found a Lexmark C532dn color laser printer in the street in working condition and with four fully loaded toner cartridges. I suggest you do the same.
camchuck
@KRK:
Try this
malraux
My general printer recommendations: First, buy a quality printer. Not having to worry about things going wrong is a big nicety. Second, do not buy an inkjet printer. Those inevitably have problems with sucking ink dry, taking forever to print because it decided to run a cleaning cycle first, deciding to screw you on consumables, etc.
In specific, I’d recommend a networkable duplexing B/W printer. In general, networked printers just seem to work better IME. The drivers seem to be less picky. Also, it means one printer for the whole household, instead of one per computer. Duplex, because it saves paper, looks better, and manual duplexing is a pain in the butt. Finally, B/W because color tends to run up the cost per page, even if you don’t use the color. Of course, if you need color, then look at color printers.
I personally have had good luck with brother brand printers, but really, the only one I’d avoid is lexmark.
dmsilev
For an inexpensive yet reliable black&white laser, I’ve been very happy with my Brother HL-2070N. It seems to have been superseded by a new model (the 2140), which runs about $120 or so.
-dms
Chuck Butcher
My HP5650 Deskjet does a pretty good job. All it does is print, I have a flatbed scanner and I don’t like multi function since increased complication invites problems in one element that kill the others. My printer doesn’t do photo quality pictures, I don’t care. It was pretty cheap, doesn’t abuse ink, and the cartridges are "reasonable."
donovong
Canon MP830 – great print ability, along with scan, fax, etc. Very good picture print if you do that. Ink is not too costly, although it uses five different cartridges.
Whatever you do, do not buy one of the new Kodak printers. Pain in the ass and POS.
Lavocat
I agree w/ Frank @ 17, above.
I swear by my HP Officejet Pro L7680 All-in-One with the fat black cartridges (2500+ pages of ink).
The speed is amazing when you consider how great the quality is.
Also, I think they’re now around (or under) $200.00.
Pretty sweet deal.
BruceJ
HP’s laser printers are good, as are Brother’s. Don’t buy a 1xxx series HP, though, the real low end are crappy. the 2xxx series have held up very well in pretty heavy daily use that we have where I work (as an IT guy). So have the Brother printers.
I do feel for you, though, my own printer is an HP4M+, been chugging along since 1994, although in the last few days it’s decided to start chewing on the left side of the page.
Epson inkjets are no good at all unless you make sure to print in color every day or so, the printheads clog up.
The Xerox Phaser mentioned above are very nice printers, but they have a drawback. They take a long time to warm up, and left running all the time to avoid that, they suck a lot of electricity keeping the wax hot.
RAM
Why not just go on eBay and by another 5P? There’s no learning curve, and they’re cheap and you can use your old toner cart, too. I haven’t bought a new laser printer in seven or eight years, and I buy for our newspaper and our local museum as well as my own home use. Those old HPs are built like tanks; the new ones are basically crap.
GuyFromOhio
@Amy Robertson:
When my old HP LJIII died, I went for a 1012, and its been a workhorse. It lacks a network card, its only downfall.
Lesley
I hear Canons are good.
Re Dollhouse. Unless you’re looking for a show about prostitutes (in this case, android-like human females programmed and reprogrammed to fulfill the various sexual fantasies of rich men) in yet another dumbass crime show, you really didn’t miss anything. I am sorely disappointed in Whedon. Maybe he’s going through a mid-life crisis.
Will
I dig my HPC4180 Photosmart All-In-One (that’s printing, scanning, copying). I’ve had it for three years and rarely have to change the print cartridges. Also, it’s pretty compact, so it doesn’t take up much space. I run it on Vista and don’t have to network it. It does have a helluva lot of features I never use involving pictures, media etc. It ran about $200 back in ’06.
Jeffrey Boser
I’d like to put in a vote for Sumsungs. They make some inexpensive laser printers, including a color one. The drivers are not as crazy as HP’s, they often work great with linux. B/W toner is pretty cheap.
I’ll never, ever, buy another inkjet.
Squirrel2634
I replaced my Laserjet 5P with the LaserJet P2015d about a few months ago. I loved the 5P, but it just completely died, finally. I like the P2015d, it’s a helluva lot faster than the 5P and has more memory, but it is a bit harder to clear out errors and paper jams. I get about 6000 pages out of a high capacity cartridge.
L. Ron Obama
I guess bvac wins.
cleek
i have an HP6180 all-in one (printing, copying, fax, scanning) that i like a lot. it’s network-ready, can do a Wifi connection to the network, is pretty good with ink.
the only problem i have is that inkjet ink is water soluble, so a little water will totally destroy a document – makes you think twice about mailing things you’ve printed with it…
mawado
Second the Cannon 4150 recommendation.
I really like a few things about it: it didn’t install a bunch of crap software while installing the driver (*cough* HP *cough*), has a decent scanner built in with a document feeder, and the cartridges last a good long time. It also has a fax built in, but I’ve never used it.
I got mine from amazon for about $200.
Luck
bago
Paper. pfeh.
If it’s not online, indexed, and searchable, what good is it?
anonevent
@L. Ron Obama
I have the same printer. It’s worked well, and Brother even supplies the ppd files for Linux.
Sirkowski
Pick any 200$ HP, as long it’s only a printer (no fax, scan, bundled crap), black and white laser, no color, I don’t think you can go wrong.
I looked into a color printer recently. I knew the cartridges were expensive, but never thought it was so ridiculous. I’ll keep getting my color prints at the shop.
KRK
@camchuck:
Thank you! That looks like what I need.
Glocksman
For photo printers, I’ve had very good luck with Canons and shitty luck with Epsons (print head clogging) and HP (inks faded rapidly).
I got my Canon Pixma iP6700d on sale at Staples for $99 and it’s wonderful for photo work, but as the review said, text work isn’t as sharp as it could be.
For a laser, I’ve had my HP 1200 for almost 8 years, and I’m on the third cartridge.
1200×1200 real resolution (not software interpolation), 72MB RAM, and reliable.
What’s not to love?
That said, if I had to replace it I’d look at an inexpensive Brother like this one from newegg.
A couple of friends have the predecessor model of that printer and swear by it.
Allen
An inexpensive laser printer is definitely what you want. The initial cost is higher for lasers, but you don’t have to buy ink (or toner in this case) nearly as often. If you don’t need to print color, a black-and-white laser will be fine, and arguably will print better than an inkjet (although only "font nerds" will really notice).
If you want the capability to print color, but only need small amounts of color printing, then a color laser only costs a bit more. The black-and-white print from it will still be better than an inkjet. If you needed color printing extensively, inkjets–particularly some of the multi-cartridge picture printers–will do a much better job on color printing.
Eric
John:
With all due respect to clowns, don’t listen to any of these clowns recommending inkjet printers. Get a color laser printer–monochromes are for losers who want to be cutting edge 10 years ago.
Laser printers, while more expensive up front, ultimately save you boatloads of cash in consumables. Laser toner will cost you significantly less over time than the consumables in an inkjet printer. Don’t get me wrong: inkjet printers have their place; but for everyday, garden-variety, run-of-the-mill, same-ol’ same-ol’ printing, you’ll want a color laser printer.
With all due respect to BruceJ, my 1xxx series HP has been working great for the last year and a half. I have an HP 1600dn (the "d" meaning duplex and "n" meaning networkable), and I haven’t thought about it since I plugged it in and turned it on.
For a quality color laser, look to spend around $400 new; or look online for new-in-box older models for less on eBay or other online retailers. HPs are generally regarded to be better printers, but other manufacturers, like Oki-Data make excellent printers too. I would only recommend staying away from Brother. I’ve had several and they’ve been crappy, plus their customer support is atrocious.
Color laser printers are like HDTV: once you get one, you’ll wonder how you ever got by without one. :)
CalD
I’m a fan of the Brother HL-5250 DN so far too. It seems pretty well put together and I really like the duplex printing feature. It not only tickles my green gene but also makes it one hell of a lot easier to get a staple through a 20-page research paper.
When I went looking for a new SOHO network printer to replace our old HP last summer I was initially a little put off by the price of this one, thinking it had to be too cheap to hold up very well. But the cheapest HP I could find with an ethernet port was more than I wanted to pay and there didn’t seem to be much else in the middle. Customer satisfaction with this line of printers and Brother’s small lasers in general also seems impressively high. So I finally convinced myself and it’s given me no cause for regret as of yet.
BTW, speaking of green, if your town doesn’t have a recycling program for office electronics you can send the old one back to HP for proper disposal. The printer and the cartridge are recycled separately. You can print out a prepaid shipping label for the cartridge from HP’s web site if you don’t have the one that came with it. If you send them the printer you have to pay the freight but there was no fee other than that when I did it and the old printer fit nicely in the box the Brother came in.
Deb Tinsley
Check out Kodak Easy Share All-in-ones – mine’s a 5300. I bought it because the ink cartridges are cheap. The Black only runs $10.
Glocksman
The reason HP is so generous about disposing of used toner carts is because they don’t want third parties refilling and reselling them (frequently for less than half of HP’s new price) .
Personally I’d turn my empty HP carts over to a local remanufacturer before I’d send them back to HP to crush.
Just sayin’.
soonergrunt
I just bought five HP OfficeJet Pro 7780 all in one networked copier/scanner/fax/printers for the satellite offices of my company. They’re wireless. They use separate cartridges for CMYK printing, and they auto duplex. They’re currently on sale for $350 + s/h. They can print from memory cards without the computer.
The Other Steve
One more recommendation for the Canon MF4150. I got mine for like $200 at Office Depot about two years back, and it’s a fantastic printer. I had a Lexmark E312L before this, and every time it would print the lights would dim. The MF4150 no lights dimming, and the page is out almost immediately… no warm up time.
As reid mentioned, it also does duplex which is awesome.
My only advice… do not buy a printer where the paper goes in from the back. It’ll just collect cat hair. Cat hair plus toner equals bad printing.
Steve V
Dollhouse was just amazingly terrible. Reminded me quite a bit of the Bionic Woman remake, which was also amazingly terrible. Sometimes pilots of good shows can suck so maybe someone should give it a chance, but I won’t be hanging around to see if it improves.
Lesley
Top ten laser printers rated by PC World
http://www.pcworld.com/article/123839/article.html
Martin
My simple rule of thumb is to look at the duty cycle of the printer. They generally make two levels. HP has a mess of printers with 8000 page duty cycles and a mess with 50000 page cycles. You may never print much more than 8000 pages, but guess which one will break inside 18 months?
The duty cycle is pretty much the distinction between crap and good.
I’ve bought about 100 printers in my time and that spec is always my first cut. If you intend to use it with both your Mac and PC, make sure the Mac drivers aren’t shit. Most of the big mfgs are fine, but if you get a multifunction they can be a little dicey with the scan stuff. We’ve got an HP and the drivers are decent.
CalD
You mean 8000 pages per month? Also is that max or recommended volume?
CalD
Looks like that article was on color lasers only. But I also just figured out you can use their site to make a top 10 list of anything. Kinda cool (if you happen to be some kind of geek, I guess). Here’s one for their top rated black and white laser printers.
Martin
Doesn’t matter – the point is that there are shitty laser engines and good ones. Regardless of your printing volume, don’t buy the shitty engines.
T. Scheisskopf
A note about Epson Printers:
Epson inkjets cannot be beaten for printing quality in any format, from draft to photo printing. They have the quality that makes them the choice of professional photogs and computer artists.
That said, they are a huge pain in the ass.
They use a micro screen to disperse ink droplets onto the paper as part of their print head. That printhead is part of the printer, not the print cartridge. Woe betide the Epson owner who does not do regular cleaning cycles or prints regularly, because these screens will clog. Once clogged, lucky indeed is the user that can clean them with the standard cleaning cycle. There are cleaning cartridges and hypodermic syringe-based cleaning systems that use a mixture of water, glycerin and a little ETOH but they are also a crap shoot. Ultimately, the only fix is new print heads, a beastly expensive solution, or tossing the printer, which seems a shame.
Also, using anything but Epson ink only hastens the doom.
I have loved the Epsons I have had in the past and I love their quality, but I will stick with HP. It is my opinion as someone who fixes thing technological that Epsons are best left to the people who really need their exacting printing accuracy. Not us proles.
Eli Rabett
FWIW I agree with the PC world recommendation about the Dells. The joke is that you can buy a new one for less than the cost of a suite of cartridges (of course, you need a burial site for the old ones). OTOH, we have started refilling the cartridges. I figure the 4K cartridges can go 8K which halves the per page cost (toner is cheap)
Glocksman
Dell printers are merely rebranded Lexmarks, so if you don’t want a Dell printer, don’t buy a Lexmark.
I have a Lexmark laser that I got for $25 NIB, but a replacement toner cart is almost $90 if you buy a Lexmark cart.
That said, ‘reset chips’ and generic toner refill kits are cheap.
Of course I’ve had to completely disassemble it once to clear a jam, so YMMV.
Greg Porter
I’ve been quite happy with my color LaserJet 2605dn. Prints on both sides, beautiful color, comes with full toner cartridges rather than the half-empty "starter" type. The problem is, replacing the set of four toner carts costs as much as the printer. Which means you can just throw out the printer and buy a new one when it runs out…
Not being that wasteful a person, I just get a toner cart refill kit, which lets me refill all four colors for about the cost of one new cart.
HP seems to come out with a new printer with its own unique toner cart type every other month, so the 2605 series may be out of production by now, but I’ve never had any problem with HP laser printers. Been using ’em since the LaserJet first came out.
LongHairedWeirdo
If you can bear the upfront cost, nothing will beat the quality and longevity of a laser printer, and the *per page* costs tend to be the lowest. Equally important, I do not believe that toner degrades in reasonable time frames, whereas I’m never convinced that an inkjet won’t get dirty/gummy. (But that might just be my experience with old inkjets. It’s been a good many years, the tech has improved.)
But the upfront cost is a big gotcha; plus, when I bought an HP, I discovered that they had tiny little "starter" cartridges for toner, which added a few hundred to get real, normal sized toner cartridges for when the babies ran out.
David
I have had two Xero Textronix Paser printers, An 8400 and an 8560. Both had expensive repairs under waranty, still were never fixer right. I will look somewhere else next time. I had a 4 color HP laser that worked great, it was just slow.