Slashdot Mirror
Finding a Reliable Laser Printer?
SpottedKuh asks: "Perhaps the days of sturdy laser printers are over, or perhaps it is just my bad luck. I've recently been the proud owner of two paperweights: First, an HP LaserJet 1100, which continually misfed papers and smeared toner. After selling that printer, I foolishly purchased a LaserJet 1012, not realizing just how poorly it played with my BSD systems. Naturally, I've learned my lesson about checking LinuxPrinting.org; but, more than that, I'm gun-shy about purchasing yet another printer to replace my current LaserJet. I look at one of my friends who has had a LaserJet 4P for probably around ten years, and it's still going strong. Are the days of such quality gone, or am I just looking in the wrong places?"
"Though compatibility with *nix is a must, it is not all that I want. I want a printer that will be sturdy and reliable, with few toner smears and jams. Also, if I'm going to be dropping all this money again, a duplexing printer is a must! I've heard that there are a lot of design problems with the LaserJet 1320, mainly regarding the manual feed mechanism. Maybe the LaserJet 1*** printers just aren't well-built? So I'm thinking of purchasing a LaserJet 2420d; but, I haven't been able to find many reviews of that printer.
Can the Slashdot community provide me with feedback regarding the printers I have mentioned, or any other reliable duplexing laser for in my home office?"
Can the Slashdot community provide me with feedback regarding the printers I have mentioned, or any other reliable duplexing laser for in my home office?"
It's also about maintainence. If rollers get dusty / toner-ized, you'll get constant jams. I have a LaserJet 4+ I bought new in '94. Like you said, still going strong. Haven't replaced rollers on it, and i am not in front of it, but, probably a good 75k prints on it maybe? I only use it with a Windowz box and have it networked through a print server router.
"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
I have a brother 1270N network laser I got for a few hundred bucks about 5 years ago that still works, though I haven't had need of it in some time. Hard copies are for old people.
I can't speak to the 2400 directly, but I have an 7 year old 2100 that has yet to fail at all.
My office has used 23xx printers for (I think) 2 years without issue. My understanding is the 24xx is that it's the next generation of the 2300.
Definitely check out the Samsung ML-1750 (and the cheaper ML-1710 although I believe that is not a PCL printer). I have the 1750 and it plays well with Linux, OS X, and Windows. I have printed off thousands of pages and it has never smeared, and only had two or three paper jams.
Buy a LaserJet 4000 or 4050. If you want a faster one get a 4100.
They're cheap, last a long time, and they don't require much maintenance.
You can find them on eBay for $400 with very low page counts ( 100,000 pages)
They do PCL and Postscript. Get one with a JetDirect card so you can plug it in your LAN and you'll be all set. Works great with Linux, Mac, Windows...
I'd go with an oldie if possible.
I have a laserjet 4MP and just love it. (you mentioned one of the 4 series and I've found them to be quite reliable)
So... how about something used?
Here is one and there is an optional duplexing unit on the bottom of the page.
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
Seriously, I've gotten Samsung's Linux drivers to work in OpenBSD with out emulation. Their printers work like a charm with cups + ghostscript. Even works with Windows via Samba. Something like this: Samsung ML-2250 is what I would recommend because it supports PCL6 and has memory upgradable using standard SODIMM laptop ram. The GDI printers work great too they just offload too much work on to the CPU.
We have a Samsung 2151N, which is a networked laser printer. I think it was under $500. Works like a champ, does duplex, I can print to it over the wireless network. Life is good. It has a built-in Postscript language emulator, which makes interfacing with real computers a breeze. A friend has an older Samsung that doesn't have duplex or networking, and it's printing like a champ - she printed about 500 pages on it yesterday.
:'(
Having said that, I had exactly the same experience with the HP1100A. HP eventually released a fix for it, which they shipped to me for free, and a friend of mine is still using that HP1100A on a very regular basis - she's using Windows printer sharing to print from her Mac, and she prints in quantity with no jams. It took HP a year or two to come out with the kit, which was a real bummer, and I have to say I didn't expect it to work, but it turns out that it did.
Unfortunately, they're not offering it anymore.
I bought a LaserJet 5m and duplexer off eBay for less than $200. The older LaserJet's are built like tanks, and with the design of the toner cartridges, they really don't wear out.
600dpi, Postscript, built-in network adapter, compatible with Linux. Just because newer printers print at higher resolutions with more pages per minute doesn't necessarily make them better in my view.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
I had a LaserJet 1100 I grabbed from a giveaway at my school, where I knew for a fact that it had just been donated and never used since it was donated.
It printed like a dream for the first few hundred pages, and then it ate a page. Since then, the printout was smeared, and an attempt to fix it rendered the printer unreassemblable.
No, seriously. It ate a page. It spooled in one end, did not come out the other, and the printer reported clear. Opening the printer showed no sign of said paper [It wrapped around one of the rollers].
We've got a Brother HL-1440 in the lab now, and it's not faultered once.
It's only an insult if it's not true.
HP used to be the source for quality hardware. No longer.
"First, an HP LaserJet 1100, which continually misfed papers and smeared toner"
Misfed paper is a sign of a few possible things:
- incorrect paper weight or thickness.
- dirty pick-up mechanism.
By far, incorrect paper turns up far too often. If the paper is too thin or light, it's likely to slip. If the paper is too thick or heavy, it's likely to stick. Also make sure you load the paper into the printer the correct way up! Look at the ream of paper when you buy it, and on one end there will be an arrow indicating what side you should be printing on.
For the smeared toner, try to find out where in the printer it's smearing. Primarily, is it between the drum and the fuser, or after the fuser. If it's the former, then clean that part of the printer throughly! If it's after the fuser, then your fuser is malfunctioning (unfortunetly fusers often cost a lot of money to replace).
I'm the proud owner of a LaserJet 4L that's more than 10 years old. I've gone thru 7 toner units, and had a single hardware failure - the power supply, and it worked perfectly fine after that was replaced.
However it wasn't keeping up with the demand for printing, so I also got an HP LaserJet 2100TN.
ICQ# : 30269588
"I used to be an idealist, but I got mugged by reality."
I set up a centralized print server this year for my job. We have a collection of GCC Elite 12/600 and Apple LaserWriter 16/600 for most of our printers. Yeah, they're old, but they're frickin' TANKS and they run forever.
They're pretty well supported (LPD interface for network printing), though they have some bugs (international character sets, job name length, complex PS2 commands). Also, they're getting old, so they're slow(er), and low on memory.
We've started replacing them with the HP2420dn. I've only had them on the network for a few months, but no complaints as of yet. They talk IPP to our CUPS server beautifully, and the speed and print quality is fine for our needs. I don't know how well the parallel interface works on them (I only use ethernet), but for the moment, things are looking good.
I run a small dual-boot internet cafe. My old school HP DeskJet died, so I found a used HP LaserJet for $100. Only had it a few months, but it works great and plays very nicely with CUPS.
Hope this helps,
Greg
Personally its not God I dislike, its his fan club I cant stand (bash.org)
Don't look on eBay for old LaserJet 4's -- the shipping cost will kill you. But if you live in or near a major city (or even a medium one), chances are there's a regularly-scheduled computer show, where the mom-and-pop shops and the used-gear dealers all show up.
I picked up a LaserJet 4M plus a newly-refurbished toner cartridge at a MarketPro computer show for $150 about a year and a half ago. Probably the last time I'll ever buy a printer.
We can believe in you for 3 minutes, but beyond that, even the King of All Cosmos can't be expected to wait.
For a while now the Brother HL-1440 has been Consumer Report's higest-rated laser printer. My business partner has one, and had no trouble setting it up with CUPS under Red Hat. It's fast, not too loud, good quality, and less than $200.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Hrm,
The one sitting on my desk is nearly 2 years old.
It only misfeeds when the humidity is extremely high.
Cant say it has been a problem.
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
Workin like a champ next to my Epson injet printer. No duplexer I know of but every flavor of *nix works and looks good enough.
Do NOT include the 1100 series, nor the cheap 4L, 5L, or 6L. I have no knowledge of the 1320, but the previously mentioned are all junk with respect to their page-pickers. HP had a free fix, but I guess it was only temporary, and the offer ended years ago.
The 1200 was good (PS for Linux/BSD/MAC). For those who only may need 600 dpi, the 4, 5, 6 M/P series printers are still available in good condition used....
After owning a 4L, 6L and 1100, I will stick with the 1200 I have now at all costs.
I've had really good luck with Samsung's low end laser printers. They are built a lot better than the $500 HPs and cost around $100-$150. I have an old ML-1210 yet. It's a vertical feed printer and it hasn't had a single paper jam in the last 2 years! It has official Linux drivers from Samsung.
In short: I think HP is one of those companies that used to be good, but now just make low-end crap.
Indeed, the Samsung line is pretty nice; we've got one here at work, and it works great with both Windows and Linux. Definitely the brand I'll be buying for my one at home.
The choice these days seems to come down to Samsung vs Brother. Each has strengths and weaknesses, so check the specs and decide based on your particulars.
Didn't you pay a mint for the printer that lasted 5 years, and next to nothing for the new one. Hrm.
I picked up a Brother 1250 off ebay for £50 quid a couple of years ago. My other half gives it some stick while doing her law degree, printing off zillions of statutes and cases.
Toner is very reasonably priced too. £45 for 6000 sheets.
This has been an absolute joy. I bought it for a client about three years ago. In linux it works great out of the box using lpr. Using CUPS, advanced features like duplex printing and multiple copies per page work fast and easy.
The printer has held up well.
-MS2k
Yes, I believe that the quality is unfortunately gone.
Might I suggest that you get on ebay and pick up something like an IBM/Lexmark 4036 16. Built like tanks, are pretty cheap, and one of the Marathon toner cartrides will last years. My IBM 4039 currently has a page count of 149,000, and it is still going strong. All I ever replaces was a pickup wheel. Yes they are heavy and shipping may be pricey, but perhaps you can find one close by or do cheap FedEX groud shipping.
"The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
I use "belt dressing" on the rollers after cleaning them.
...or something else in this line/vein; of course just my $.02-
The 2200dn has some great features for a 'smallish' B/W laser: 19ppm, 600dpi, duplexer, 10/100 ethernet. Have had this printer for over 5 years without a problem. My spouse and I are teachers with a high 'hard-copy' need, and this has been a great workhorse for us.
In fact, it almost works "too well," since we're now getting the itch for a color laser. But since the 2200dn won't die, I don't have a 'good' excuse to look at a new one. We ended up borrowing a HP LaserJet 2500n, which unfortunately doesn't have a duplexer. Still keeping my eye out for an appropriate color laser though...
"Sometimes the only thing left to say is 'Oops'" -- debbers
paperweight? fuck you. my 1100 works fine since 2001, printing out at least 10 pages every day, and has absolutely no problems with multifeeding or anything. and to prove how much it rules, I took it apart and re assemblied it. i got 4 extra screws in the process. no idea where these should go, but the machine still prints.
I even sneaked a peek into the optical unit. so simple and yet so effective.
it only multifeeds if I feed it with paper right out of the box. If I ventilate the paper, like the manual says (as anyone who works with printers should), it prints great. I even refilled the original cartridge. twice already.
I gave HP some cash and they gave me a shit printer. Then I gave them some more cash and I got another shit printer. Which HP printer should I get next?
ObAskSlashdot: I'm thinking of starting a business. How can I find people as gullible as this? I'd be able to retire in double-quick time.
I've had a Personal LaserWriter since 1990 and it still runs great. Only 300 dpi though, but good enough for most tasks. Oh, and RS-422 of course.
On a possibly related note - anyone need a good LaserWriter?
- Jim
#include "humorous_pop_culture_reference.h"
I have an HP* LaserJet 1320 myself, and it works quite nicely. The print is extremely crisp, and the duplexing works great. Grayscale graphics are a little "splotchy" (very slight variations in tone), but that's not what you get a laser printer for. The feed from the paper tray works fine--it's only jammed one page, and that was because I accidentally grabbed it after it came out halfway for duplexing and it went back in crooked. I have tried the manual feed (which is what I hear is screwed up on it) and it does have a little trouble with whole sheets*, but it works well with envelopes. The Mac OS X driver works identically with Linux, since they both run CUPS or you can use hpijs. All in all, I'd say it's a great printer, unless you do a lot of full-page manual feed stuff (like transparencies, but I doubt Slashdot users still use overhead projectors).
I am quite frustrated, as are other owners, that in a $400 printer, they include neither a USB nor a serial cable, and give you only a regular-size toner cartridge--I really can't see how it saves them that much money. But this isn't unique to HP; all printer makers have been skimping on stuff for a while. At least they didn't skimp on the actual printer itself.
* HP: I wonder if Carly made HP lowercase because they aren't her initials.
* Manual feed: I jammed the front-door-closed limit switch with a pen cap and figured out what the problem is. It's three things:
If you shove the paper in straight and quickly, it will work fine. If you dawdle and put it in slowly (perhaps trying to align it) the printer will not grip it.
Tired of free iPod sigs? Subscribe to my blacklist
I have a Lexmark e210, bought three years ago and in (rather light) use since then. Just about plug-n-play (I've generally set it up with the KDE printer control center), well-supported under Linux, built not like a tank but reasonably sturdy and I have no complaints on that count. For $30/year (and going), it's been a good deal :) There are some bum models (not to slag on HP, but some of their tiny "consumer" oriented ones have extensions that looks like they're begging to be snapped off by accident or by naughty teenagers*), but overall, monochrome laser printers are pretty satisfying these days. (And the color ones have plunged in price, too, which is nice to see.)
...
timothy
* As of a few years ago, anyhow. Not in the market lately
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Samsung laser printers are very cheap (I got mine for eighty dollars) and it has worked incredibly well. I have not tried printing to it with linux though.
Well it could be that new printers are as yet untested,
or it could be that as the market has matured quality has been sacrificed for economics.
We just don't know.
In fact we need research on the matter. On my part regarding research donations, paypal is accepted but with no guarantees.
Then again, maybe I'd pick up an old printer with the cheapest toner refills and go from there.
A blog I run for the wealth
I bought an HP 8550N from an online Enron auction. It's worked great. Granted the lights dim a bit when the fuser warms up but still, it was an excellent price even after shipping the behemouth. I've been thinking about selling it for closer to what it's worth and picking up something that better fits my needs. I mean, it's a freaking color laser printer the size of a copier. ;-)
Ah, the good old HP 1100. Good printer, a few problems...
I've worked on these so many times I can now fix them blindfolded. Dis-assemble printer, fix printer, and re-assemble printer... (best time repairing one; 15 minutes (seperator pad, pickup roller, cleaning, fuser roller replacement))Most common problem on these printers; Separator pad and pickup rollers go bad. Short and easy fix. Yes, HP had a 'fix' for them a couple years ago, but that was just a patch (little post-it-note with a seperation pad on it) till they got the new model printers out.
If you want to fix this printer yourself, you can find the parts you need here: http://partsurfer.hp.com/cgi-bin/spi/main
Just search for your printer model (Number or Name) to get a parts list. Next, find a local repair shop that will sell you the parts (or, heck see how much they will charge to fix it).
You hit that one on the head. What a dimwit!
Dear Ask Slashdot,
I received an e-mail from MALLAM ADAMU MUSA CIROMA in which he proposed paying for my help in transferring funds out of the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN). To make a long story short, he got me to send him $25,000 and I've not heard from him since. Some weeks later, I got e-mail from Prince Soki Mobutu of Zaire. He offered me $2.1 million to help him claim family money from a vault in holland. After sending him over $17,000, he disappeared and e-mails to him bounce.
Now I've just received an e-mail from Mr. Bayo Adeoni, Bank Manager of Union Bank Plc of Nigeria. He is offering me 40% of $20 million dollars if I pose as next of kin to the person who left the money in the bank account. He just needs money up front to pay taxes or fees of some kind. Should I send cash in an envelope or just give him my bank account number? What do the Slashdot readers think?
The 5MP is 6ppm, and the "MP" designates that it speaks Postscript. The 6MP does 8ppm.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
However there is this one that someone bought years ago for thousands of dollars (several hundred in todays market) and it works great.
What is wrong with the printer market
I'll tell you what is wrong - consumer printers are crap - it is cheaper to replace the printer than the toner when it runs out (not quite, but almost) - these things are engineered to be CHEAP.
If you want a printer that will last - fork out the 1500 bucks (give or take a bit - or play the eBay discount and hope you get lucky) for a high end printer - you buy it and keep it for 10 years rather than pay 150 bucks a year for a disposable printer
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
Are you sure it really was the printer that was to blame in both cases?
I just bought a new box of off-brand discount laser/copier paper from the local wholesaler, and suddenly my veteran HPLJ-IIID is jamming on every page. If I put the old paper in, it works fine; but the new paper doesn't want to be pulled out of the tray - the eccentric rubber rollers which grab onto it just can't seem to get a purchase on it.
Sure there is bound to be some wear on these parts so that an overhaul and some judicious parts replacement might enable the machine to cope, but it's quite telling when the machine only seems to have problems with certain makes of paper.
dont print, they puch cards...
You should definitely upgrade at least to the LJ2xxx series. The LJ1xxxs are cheap, intended to be the barest entry to laser printing HP sells. You're trying to compare it to things like the LJ4, which were built for much higher volume business use. If that's the kind of printing you do, go with the LJ2xxxs or better.
Look at the estimated duty cycles on each, and you'll see that the LJ2xxx meets a much higher spec.
How about we all just go back to dot matrix printers. I still have one, works better then my ink jet, and is much cheaper to run ($20 for a new ribbon compaired to $90 for 2 new cartriges).
I'll Find You Peer, If It's The Last Thing I Do!!!!
And you obviously don't know how to use google. The HP LaserJet 1100 has a well known, well documented paper feed issue.
HP was taken to task for it in early to mid 2001, and were forced to offer a free repair kit (which you could order off their web site). The last time I ordered a kit from them was around 2002, so I'm not sure if they still offer them now. Might be worth looking into, though.
--Life may have no meaning, or, even worse, it may have a meaning of which you disapprove.
Mine is printing this, which is massively fubarred (68k image). Can anyone diagnose it? Everything comes out like that... Its a Lexmark Optra R+ series, would be nice if it still worked.
If I could just buy another toner, that'd be great; these ink cartridges are like $15 for 40 pages on a good day with very conservative ink usage settings. I'd even be willing to buy other random parts, but I know diagnostic costs more than I can afford.
Many thanks, thread hijacked for a good cause I hope.
Myren
"Use something that will mosturise the rubber, soft and supple is key here."
True, soft and supple is what you want. How do you achieve that? Can you recommend a product?
Isopropyl alcohol degrades rubber. In this case, that works. The alcohol takes off the hard outer glaze, leaving the softer rubber underneath bare. The alcohol is only there for a minute, and then evaporates. It is not there long enough to penetrate the entire roller.
In my experience, alcohol works well enough that the printer is replaced because of better technology before any problems with the rollers occur.
In really bad cases, it may be useful to achieve more "grab" by buffing the rubber with emery paper.
Carly Fiorina is living proof of the John Sculley law that a non-technical manager cannot successfully manage a technical company. It's like horses who do arithmetic, it may look like it works, but underneath it is just a series of tricks.
Before you second and third the "sad" sentiment about what HP used to be, realize something first: Realize that you are to blame. Why? Because you (i.e. the consumer) demands cheaper products each year. HP would love to build "old school" products of the same quality upon which its reputation was built back in the days of the LaserJet Series II... but unfortuantely the consumer public won't let HP do that. If consumers were willing to pay a fair price for a well built product, then there wouldn't be a problem. But unfortunately the new "Walmart Economy" in which we all now live has single-handedly made it virtually impossible for companies (like HP) to survive by making the "best" products. Consumers no longer demand the "best" products - they demand the cheapest possible product that will accomplish the task for which the product is designed. Many people complain about HP's products not being as good as they once were... But HP doesn't just randomly choose to squeeze every possible penny of cost out of a printer just because they want to sabatoge their once-loyal customer base... They do it becuase that once-loyal customer base demands it. If Lexmark didn't exist, and Dell didn't exist, then it might be possible for HP to continue building "LaserJet Series II"-quality printers because consumers wouldn't have a lower cost alternative for these devices. But because consumers demand low cost, and Dell & Lexmark are there to answer those demands, HP has unforunately been pulled down to lower & lower pricepoints. It's a fascinating study in economics, and believe me it is one that I wish could be changed... but unfortunately consumers have proven that those who win in the marketplace are those that provide the cheapest goods. It's that simple formula that has made Walmart the largest company in the world (yearly revenue of over $250B, larger than IBM, DELL, HP, and SUN combined). This isn't just about 2-gallon jars of pickles and $40 DVD players. This is about ever item you buy, including laser printers for your office. Welcome to the Walmart Age.
More about the sad case of a salesperson running a technical company: Backfire.
The most important shortage in the world is the shortage of leaders. Technical companies suffer more because few people who want to be leaders are technically knowledgeable.
Even before Fiorina, HPs reputation began dying a sad, slow, ugly death, dragging with it millions of customers who depended on the past.
Look at many of the posts to this story. People are buying old HP printers because the new ones are poorly made.
I've found that as a broad generalization that HP has had far too many quality control issues to roll that dice again. Since they started farming out manufacturing to the lowest bidder HP's have gone from acceptable to roundly junk. Every now and then you'll come across a HP that works well and reliably for a long time, but for every one of those there are four or five others that shouldn't have made it off of the shipping docks.
In recent years HP has started to farm out the designs to the lowest bidder too. So not only is the manufacturing flawed, what it is that is being made isn't that great either.
I know that people like the name, and that the name invokes familiarity, but avoid HP like the plague. You'll be glad you did.
The ______ Agenda
Here is a pretty decent review of most of the mainstream color laser printers.
Creative Demolition
Try to buy a professional printer. Not those with a big bright "professional" label, tools with such labels aren't "professional". Look at the vendor web pages what printers they offer for business ("enterprise") use. They may be ugly, big and expensive, but they offer better quality and longer a lifespan than those toys sold for SOHO use.
Search for a printer with Postscript support. It makes life easy with any OS (*BSD, Linux, MacOS, MacOS X, and even DOS and Windows can print on Postscript printers), and at the same time you can be sure that the printer has a real CPU and not just a chip that does nothing more interfacing the printer's hardware to a Windows-only "GDI" driver. Make sure the printer has some RAM, 8 MBytes is the absolute minimum, better try to get 32 MBytes.
The printer should have a build-in (ethernet) print server, or at least an external print server from the same manufacturer. I've seen HP printers refusing to do more than the absolute minimum work (unidirectional printing without any status reporting) until they have been connected to an HP print server. The reason for the print server: Ethernet does not die, it justs becomes faster. Parallel ports become more and more rare these days, many laptops already omit them. USB will some day be as obsolete as ISA is today. USB limits you to 2m printer cable, a parallel port may work with up to 5m, but ethernet gives you 100m. Plus you can share the printer with as many computers as you like, without the need to power up a dedicated computer for printing. And as a nice extra: With a WLAN access point or WLAN router, you can even print wireless.
My Hardware: HP Laserjet 1200N, a LJ1200 with 16 MB RAM plus an external ethernet to USB print server in the box. Yes, it's a SOHO toy (with Postscript support), and I would prefer a LJ 4000/4050/4100, but I got it for free. I've printed 1500 pages without any problems, from Windows, Linux and MacOS 9.
Tux2000
Denken hilft.
Check your corona wire. Also check the drum as well. Make certain your contrast isn't too high. How old is the printer? What has been done to the printer (printer history)?
I am the very lucky owner of an HP Laserjet 4P laserprinter. It works. That is the only thing I can say of it; I turn it on, I ask a print, she prints. Tens of thousands of pages she has served me, and tens of thousands more will follow.
How is it then possible that today's printers don't do that? Allmost all my colleagues and friends have printers with problems that are described in the various posts above.
I will tell you how this is possible. You know what I payed for my HP Laserjet 4P? Around 800$. Which would be 1200$. Really. You can buy a very nice color laser printer with network interface currently for that money. But, more options = less reliability.
So, when you want to buy a reliable printer, don't spend your money on options, but on quality.
I don't have
- colour
- network interface
- A3
- double sided
- speedy printing
- all in one (scanning, copying, faxing, whatever)
- and all those other options that they sell you
But I have
- a quality printer (can't remember a paper jam)
- which is sturdy
- that still works after 10 years
- and will still work the next 10 years
Mark
Rock solid printer for the price. Works with Linux, OS X, Windows - although I'd add a bit of memory to the base (3MB off the top of my head) if you're going to be printing anything but text.
T.J. Schmitz - the man, the myth, the legend - o
i've been using a brother hl-1440 laser printer for a couple of years and never had the slightest problem with it.
We've had good luck with the the 42xx and 43xx HP laser printers, especially the 4300s. Some of our 4300s are approacthing a million pages (we expect two million pages out of our printers before we retire them), and our problems have been limited to some defective fusers (replaced by HP under warranty), and excessive paper feed roller wear (also replaced by HP under warranty). They are fast printers (45 ppm for the 4300s, 200,000 pages a month) and offer duplexing. Downsides are you only get 8.5" by 14" or smaller paper into them, and they are around $999. Buuuuttt, if you need a reliable HP, it's your printer.
-Ryan
Early in the market, most products are either under or over-engineered. Consumers quickly find out who sells which, so in the computer field, there was only one way to go with such high-end, high-profile products.
Ask any printer service tech who has been around for at least 5 years and they will tell you:
1) printers aren'e made like they used to be
2) HP 3 and 4 were great, but too slow for people today
3) HP 4 and 5 series (excluding L type) were solid and dependable, and the 1100, 2100, 2200 and some of the early 4000s are almost as good, but were cheaper and faster, probably making up for a small drop in "durability"
4) HP 2300 and late 4000 series are the first noticeable step down from this benchmark level of quality
5) the rest of the HP stuff to date is approaching the quality of other manufacturers (and thier injet printer are only a mechanism to sell ink, little more)
Aside from replaced toner carts., the only 2 components on a printer which _should_ wear out are the pickup wheels (~$50 repair, 100-200k pages) and the fuser assembly (~$200-300 repair, 200-400k pages). My service tech says companies are really trying to hold on to these workhorses, because--with maintenance--they typically have no problem living 1-3 million pages. Of the ~15 printers I oversee, we have a 5MP and a 4000N which are both at ~500k pages, and all I have had done is the replacement of the two items mentioned above.
So when it comes down to it, ebay may not be bad for an older, reliable printer, but do beware, because the page counts _can_ be reset. And although these older printers accept remanufactured carts., "HP printers just like HP carts", as my tech likes to say.
First off ditto to everyone who's mentioned the HP 4M/MP printer. It was a rock-solid workhorse. I've still got two going strong, although they both reek of ozone when running and have been retired to backup duty.
I think that's where you're getting hung up. If you buy the low-end SOHO stuff, it's not going to handle high duty cycles or too much abuse, period.
If you buy cheap paper, expect it to jam.
Do you have high humidity in your workspace? High humidity means the paper will start to stick together and cause misfeeds / jams.
Of their current offerings, the LaserJet 1320 falls in the lowend & SOHO category, while the 4200TN is the workhorse designed to have the crap beat out of it.
There's a reason for the $1000 price difference between the two.
If you have the room, a 3Si or 4Si is your best bet. These printers where built like tanks. You can pick up low mileage (150K-200K prints) one for ~$100 on ebay. Try to find one local, because shipping could cost you another ~$100. ;)
Never had a paper jam, never had toner smear, never had any problem with it. I've had it for about 1.5 years.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Possibly, but there is always a market for the finer quality items. Even though you can buy a Kias and Hyundais, you can still buy BMWs and Mercedes. And I replace printers far more often than I replace cars.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Just works, PCL6 PS Level 3, network interface and built in duplex. Works with my Macs and Linux boxes out of the box with CUPS and of course windows boxes. I bought DNLT so I could get the second letter tray and maxxed out the memory. Total investiment a year ago was around $400.
I picked up an old-as-sin HP LaserJet 4si a year ago from a friendd cleaning out his old repair shop (got the beast for free)
A little dusting, cleaning a few rollers, and jurry-rigging some misc hardware to get the topp tray feeder to work, and one e-bay acquired legal tray and a $40 toner cartridge (8000 page practical yield), total spent: $70.
numbers:
2x 500 page paper trays (1 letter, 1 legal)
output bin: 500 page
15 PPM
Parellel interface
the damn thing dims the lights in the room when it spins up, but when printing 50 page sets several times a day, it can handle 3 sets without needing to be babysat, a 1200 OTOH has a 100 page output bin that overflows easily...
If you can find one, get one.
Logistical Chaos Officer http://www.slagg.org - LAN Gaming in Sarasota FL,USA
The feed rollers dry out. Check eBay and you'll see roller kits for the LJ 1100 series are all over the place, and quite easy to replace. However, even the new ones dry out sooner than they should.
If you want a solid, decent-for-home-use laser printer, a LaserJet 5P or 6P (both 600dpi, with relatively inexpensive toner) will do you fine.
I sold a pallet of these on eBay recently for around $30-$40 each, plus shipping, and never heard a negative word on any of them. You can't beat a $40 laser printer...
Those laserjets were not cheap in those days. They were mostly for business use, and occasional personal users would plunk down the money to get them because there weren't any cheap models.
Nowadays, the computers are so widespread that market for personal use is big, so it doesn't make sense to ask personal users to pay that money for occasional use (compared to business).
So vendors now come up with models geared for several different markets, from real cheap ones with parts from overseas for normal personal use, to expensive ones with quality parts.
I usually pick the one that is geared for personal to business (like homeoffice or something).
You just have to know which model targets which audience. Usually the price is an indicator, although not always since it depends on the market and inflation.
But there are some instances where a vendor sells a model geared for somewhere middle between two different markets, and see it eating away at their high-end market. They usually discontinue this model even though it was the best price/performance. It happens at the beginning of a changing market when they hadn't enough data to track the kinds of market that they can maximize their profit.
If you want quality, you pay higher price. The downside is that the market for high-end moved up and became more limited, so the price became higher than before for the same quality. And because the middle range product eats away this market, by intentionally not producing anything in this range, you get two extremes, cheap and expensive, but not much in the middle.
I have a Minolta PagePro 1250W, and it works fairly well, except for two things:
The input tray is REALLY FLIMSY. This means that I'm not really using the tray. Because of this, input isn't exactly straight.
Also, SOMETIMES, after a job, you can smell the ozone REALLY badly.
I can't speak for the 1350W, though. I do know that toner prices are much higher than those for, oh, Brother, but the Brother lasers I've seen kinda scare me, and fake brand refills for Minolta toner carts are REALLY FSCKING CHEAP. Ditto for fake brand carts.
As for color, the 2300DL isn't that great from what I've seen. One died a couple days after we got it, and the other has firmware bugs (esp. in the DHCP part of the TCP/IP stack), and half of the time the XP Home box tries to print to it, the job doesn't go through, and the program that sent it crashes. I can't speak for the 2300W, the 2300DL via USB or Parallel, or the 2400W/2430DL.
Before you buy an Optra, price replacement toner cartridges for the specific model you're looking at. Some aren't bad, some are pretty outrageous.
Wow. Talk about kismet, CF has just been asked to resign. nytimes article Maybe I should start complaining about my boss on /. , get him fired too.
We just purchased an HP LaserJet 2420. It is one of the fastest & most compact printers I have ever seen. We've had it for about a month now without any problems, paper jams, etc.. Granted, our printing volume is not high (50-200 pages per day).
I'm running it on an external HP Jet Direct box in our Citrix environment. I have not done any printing from linux. All in all this is a great printer!
Life is a journey. . . enjoy it!
The problem with ratings is that they're pretty unreliable. The last two personal laser printers I've bought have both been awarding-winning, chosen after plenty of research, and yet still turned out not have serious problems.
The first, a Panasonic KX-P6300, was at the time by far the most recommended personal laser printer in not one but every PC magazine I looked in for several months. It was indeed a nice little printer: good print quality for the time, a convenient space-saving format, and remarkably cheap. Unfortunately, finding replacement toner was a nightmare -- despite it high profile, it wasn't mainstream enough for the office shops to stock its toner routinely, so mail order expenses crept in every time it needed a refill. Worse, Panasonic completely screwed its user base by not providing drivers for its "older" models on new OSes (y'know, like Windows 2000/XP, the former of which was out within about 2-3 years of my buying the printer). I imagine that was to force users to upgrade, and I did... but not to a Panasonic, from whom I won't be buying again any time soon after that little PR wonder.
The second, a Kyocera-Mita FS-1010, was also much-recommended as a box with decent print quality at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, it's made of tacky plastic. The manual feeder need practically wrenching into place and feels like it's going to snap, and even then it leaves toner smear at the top of the paper on the "straight through" paper path as often as not. (This is using heavy card but within the printer's spec, BTW -- in other words, it's exactly what that paper path is supposed to be for.) The Windows printer driver quality appears to suck as well; it never installs cleanly (I get the "new hardware" wizard every time I switch the printer on) and if the printer gets confused and needs powering off and on again then I have to completely restart Windows just to get it to notice the printer again. :-(
Next time, I'll be going for an workplace-class product (since anything "personal" or "SOHO" these days seems to be plastic junk, while office boxes do at least seem to have some sort of quality about them) from a big-name manufacturer with a good reputation for quality printer drivers, no matter how good the little guy's printer may be according to magazine/web site reviews.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I work on small recipt printers to larger lasers.
This is what *really* works, fuck alcohol & any others -
http://www.fedron.com/customer/home.php
Get a Samsung ML-2151N if you still can. I'm not 100% sure if they are still available.
Very sturdy. Very reliable. Duplex printing. Large paper tray. Talks both PCL or Postscript. Network-enabled, just plug in the 10-baseT and go. Also has USB, (not sure how well that works, never tried it). Also available with wireless network, but at extra cost.
It's an especially good choice for networks with a mixture of Windows/Linux machines.
Doesn't need a special driver for Unix, since it's native postscript. The windows drivers work great too. This is the only printer I've owned that works trouble free on both Linux and Windows, and doesn't need a PhD in driver psychology to get working.
It takes patience. I started complaining about Carly Fiorina at least 4 years ago. [grin]
Thanks.
That's a link that a large percentage of the people who commented on this story need.
We've had exceptional luck with a Brother HL-5070N printer. It has Postscript (they call it BR-Script); you'll want to max out the memory with a DIMM. The N model has an ethernet interface and is trivial to set up under CUPS. It also has a web interface...
The HL-5070N is cheap to purchase, very reliable, and the toner lasts a very long time. We use it heavily and never have had a problem with it.
The 5070 series is most cost effective as a networked, multi-user printer.
I got an 1100 from my father who replaced it with a color printer and found that it was jamming all of the time as well (misfeeding multiple pages). I contacted HP support about it and they mailed me a free repair kit. It included a piece of cardboard the size of a PDA with an angled piece of plastic covered with adhesive. I stuck the cardboard in the feeder, the plastic thingy stuck inside, and I have never again had a paper misfeed.
BMWs and Benzes have prestige written all over them, but somehow the only brand (I think) that has gained prestige in the computer industry is Apple. I guess it's the way you market your products - be elitist and enjoy the niche market of artsy-types or be a commoner to sell your products to the majority of the market.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!