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Choosing a Personal Printer For the Long Haul
The Optimizer writes "After 16 years of service, my laser printer, a NEC Silentwriter 95, is finally wearing its internals out, and I need to find a replacement. It's printed over 30,000 pages and survived a half-dozen long-distance moves without giving me any trouble. I believe it's done so well for two reasons. First, it's sturdily built and hails from an era when every fraction of a penny didn't have to be cost-cut out of manufacturing. The other reason was its software. Since it supported postscript Level II, it wasn't bound to a specific operating system or hardware platform, so long as a basic postscript level 2 driver was available. A new color laser printer with postscript 3 seems like a logical replacement, and numerous inexpensive printers are available. I'd rather get a smaller, personal-size printer than a heavy workgroup printer. Most of all, I would like it to still be usable and running well with Windows 9, OS X 11, and whatever else we will be using in 2020. Can anyone recommend a brand or series of printers that is built to last and isn't going to be completely dependent on OS specific proprietary drivers?"
The problem is that you are assuming that printers made today have any sort of longterm lifespan. They do not. They are cheaply-made and will not last you more than a couple years at the longest.
Add to this that you would lose the ability to buy toner after a few years due to planned obsolescence, and your dream of buying a cheap personal printer that will last you two generations of Windows is simply impossible.
Most of the stuff out there now is cheap plastic crap for "personal size" printers.
You get 18-24 months of moderate use out of them before they die, and ALL of them are proprietary drivers.
If you want more flexibility and longer lifespan, you pretty much HAVE to go up to workgroup printers.
As to a specific model, again, I'm not someone who goes through printers that often. I'm fairly happy with my LaserJet 3005x though.
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THANK GOD!!!
Find several models that have been around at least a year, preferably two, then search for their reputations.
You might try consumer-product-rating magazines and web sites that have a reputation for independence.
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Find a nice used laserjet or color laserjet, these printers last for decades, they will have replacement parts available for that long, and they are platform independent supporting either poststript or PCL.
Why used? If you are looking to save money (I assume this is what " I'd rather get a smaller, personal-size printer than a heavy workgroup printer" means) this is the way to go. If you are looking for an all around smaller printer, get a cheap disposable color inkjet and save yourself the trouble of maintaining a cheap color laser printer. Unless you get a workhorse, it probably won't last no matter what kind you buy.
30,000 is a measly 60 reams of paper. All but the cheapest, lowest-end piece of crap should be able to handle more than six cases of paper before kicking the bucket. If standards are that low, just about any SOHO printer should do the trick.
SirWired
Don't just look at the ticket price of the printer itself. if you're planning on printing another 30,000 pages with the new printer over 16 years (hint: you won't - modern stuff just won't last) the paper, toner, drums and even electricity consumed. will far exceed the cost of the hardware.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
You obviously dont actually understand how a real office works, do you?
In the day of eBay and world reaching online marketplaces, the easy answer is to get another one just like what you had. It met all your requirements and the only thing that you state has changed is it has worn out. I'm sure there is a brand new or nearly new one out there waiting to be found. Also, it should be cheap since it is so old. Yuo may find though, that you don't get as lucky as you did the first one. Some people have cars for 15+ years also, then get a replacement that only lasts 5.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
This was back in a time when people expected printers to last for many years of high-volume use and didn't buy anything from the company ever again if they didn't. Companies like HP made a name in this market by charging a premium but providing good value for money. They didn't need to try to cut costs, because they could pass their costs on to the customer, and the customer would be happy because it meant less downtime.
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This is a PERSONAL printer, not an office printer.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Here's the problem I have with color inkjets. I rarely print in color. I do a lot of black and white printing. What I was finding was when I needed color the ink had dried out. So I was running out to the office store to buy more ink. I can't imagine what the cost per page was.
A little over two years ago I bought a Xerox color laser for Costco. Nice printer, with built in network support, quiet and able to run heavy paper stock out of the tray. No problems printing to it via Mac, Windows or Linux. Still on the original toner with plenty to spare.
I think Samsung makes an okay B&W laser, but we tried using an entry level color laser at the office. The color toner had serious issue adhering to the paper.
Actually, we can recommend something: a laser printer. The manufacturer probably doesn't matter as much as the fact that you go laser, which seem to have far longer lifespans than inkjet printers. Other commenters below recommend HPs, but I doubt it really matters; I have a Brother HL 2040 and have for about four years, and it's given me no problems.
Companies like HP made a name in this market by charging a premium but providing good value for money. They didn't need to try to cut costs, because they could pass their costs on to the customer, and the customer would be happy because it meant less downtime.
This is so true re HP. I bought my LaserJet 5MP about 1994 for $700.00 (a lot in those days) and it has been completely trouble-free for 15 years. Replacement toner carts are as easy to get as the day it was made.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
A used laserjet 4. Suckers last friggin forever and anyone can write a driver for one...
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
You've discovered one of the dirty secrets of inkjets.
Under optimal conditions, the cost per page tends to be a few times that of a laser. But for many users, who only print occasionally, and have to deal with the dry-ink problem, the cost per page skyrockets. For my mother, who just had to have the printer but ends up printing 2 or 3 photos a year and nothing else, it's probably about 10 euro.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
I have a Laserjet 4/4M Plus with the duplex unit, extra paper tray and Postscript support. It works like a charm still though sadly it looks like Windows 7 dropped support for this printer. Thankfully Linux still supports it.
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Have you tried lying to Windows, pretend it's a LJ5 or LJ4.
I remember back 5 or 10, maybe even 15 years years ago: Lots of folks sounded just like you do now. "Oh, yeah. Those old HP machines were great. The new ones are all flimsy and hard to work on and break down all the time."
Except, now that we've in Teh Future, the heavy 5-year-old printers you're reminiscing so fondly of today about were yesterday's new-product, flimsy HP garbage.
I submit the following as fact:
Some printers last a long time. Some do not. Some are maintained. Some are not. Some are abused. Some are not. Some are properly budgeted[!]. Some are not. Some are remembered. Some are not.
A couple of years back, I retired an HP Laserjet III due to power supply problems, after it had printed something like 1.2 million pages over more than 16 years. Do I miss that durable, old workhorse printer? Fuck no! It was slow, it was noisy, it was expensive to power, it had lousy output even when it was working properly, it was way heavy, it always did smell funny when printing, and it was hard to work on! It was pretty reliable, of course, but that doesn't make up for the fact that it was generally a lousy fucking printer.
And it was expensive when it was new: $2,395 list, in 1990 dollars...which accounting for inflation, is something like $3,900 in 2008. $3,900! Holy fuck, batman! No wonder it got 1.2 million pages out before it got kicked to the curb.
Your memories are clouded. And most printers these days are so inexpensive that a direct comparison to the products of old is useless anyway.
However I must say that I, for one, am much happier with modern HP machines, where a neatly printed sheet of paper emerges within a few short seconds of clicking "print" than any of the lumbering antiques that morons like yourself seem to have always worshiped as time marches on.
Kid-proof tablet..