Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Do You Print Too Little?
shanen writes: How many of you don't print much these days? What is the best solution to only printing a few pages every once in a while? Here are some dimensions of the problem...
Inexpensive printers: The cost of new printers is quite low, but how long can the printer sit there without printing before it dies? Lexmark and HP used to offer an expensive solution with integrated ink cartridges that also included new print heads, but... Should I just buy a cheap Canon or Epson and plan to throw it away in a couple of years, probably after printing less than a 100 pages?
Printing services: They're mostly focused on photos, but there are companies where you can take your data for printing. My main concerns here are actually with the costs and the tweaks. Each print is expensive because you are covering their overhead way beyond the cost of the printing itself. Also, most of the time my first print or three isn't exactly what I want. It rarely comes out perfectly on paper the first time.
Social printing: For example, are any of you sharing one printer with your neighbors via Wi-Fi? Do you just sneak a bit of personal printing onto a printer at your office? Do you travel across town to borrow your brother-in-law's printer?
Inexpensive printers: The cost of new printers is quite low, but how long can the printer sit there without printing before it dies? Lexmark and HP used to offer an expensive solution with integrated ink cartridges that also included new print heads, but... Should I just buy a cheap Canon or Epson and plan to throw it away in a couple of years, probably after printing less than a 100 pages?
Printing services: They're mostly focused on photos, but there are companies where you can take your data for printing. My main concerns here are actually with the costs and the tweaks. Each print is expensive because you are covering their overhead way beyond the cost of the printing itself. Also, most of the time my first print or three isn't exactly what I want. It rarely comes out perfectly on paper the first time.
Social printing: For example, are any of you sharing one printer with your neighbors via Wi-Fi? Do you just sneak a bit of personal printing onto a printer at your office? Do you travel across town to borrow your brother-in-law's printer?
A laser-printer. I mean, the powder doesn't dry, it won't clog the nozzles and it's useable even 10 years later.
If you only print once or twice a month, the printhead will dry out. And buying anything with printheads built into the cartridge will still cost almost as much to resolve when dried out as a new printer. Go for a black and white laser. Printing services for anything else.
I print just enough with my inkjet to be OK.
If you don't get much, get yourself a cheaper black-only laser printer. There's some for ~$100 now if you shop around. The problem with inkjets is that the print heads dry out and clog if you don't use it regularly. And if you do use it regularly, then the ink cartridges cost a lot.
Don't get me wrong, inkjet printers are fantastic for some purposes--but they are rather expensive to maintain.
Seriously, just get a cheap laser printer, throw it in a corner somewhere, and don't worry about it. They even make small cheap ones.
Ink jets dry out over time, and the ink costs more than the printer itself.
Laser toner basically lasts forever, and can print far more pages. As a bonus, its easier to find laser printers with longer-lived interface protocols.
I guesd it depends on where you live; here in Sweden it's fairly common that libraries has printers and copiers where you can print for a few cents per copy. Just bring it o a memory stick or so.
That's what the office printer is for.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Get a laser printer, they can sit around for years in-between prints and will keep working just fine.
Get a laser printer from amazon for around 100$
I'm thinking of getting a cheap laser printer because I'm under the impression they wont dry out like an inkjet. It'd be black and white only, and then I'd print color somewhere else if I really needed to, but at least I'd have something I could print out documents on in a pinch.
Some medical forms now and then. A ticket or a confirmation. Some maps if I'm unsure about cell coverage. But reports and paperwork? No... Sorry HP, I don't need to print every day, and even giving out free ink isn't going to sway me.
Every place I've worked at has been ok with a couple of pages every few months, so long as it doesn't become excessive.
Get laser, toner does not have this problem.
i got a b/w laser printer for $30 on sale once.
for about $150 - 250 you can get a color laser.
the ink savings alone are worth it.
Dan
I have a multi-function printer that scans/copies/prints. I rarely use it. Maybe one a month or so. By far the biggest thing I use it for is concert tickets I can't bring up on my phone. In a distance second is printing something out to sign and send back to some entity who doesn't know what digital signatures are.
I print maybe one document a month, it would be less than that if I didn't play D&D on the regular.
A decent laser printer and its toner can be put in storage for ages without having any issues coming back online, at least from personal experience. I like having it in reserve the same way I like having a scanner in reserve, good to have when u need it
A cheap-o inkjet will develop serious clogs in storage, not to mention ink carts just expiring (again, experience).
Going to a actual shop to print stuff is always an option, there are plenty of places that do it, how secure they are I can't say.
Roll the dice
I had this problem, not printing enough. I scan more often than printing. After the last in a series of color HP inkjet printers died, I had enough. Enough of the exorbitant ink prices, "expiring" cartridges, clogged printheads, inability to print in black if some stupid "light cyan" is too low, having to clear error messages all the time about the ink is too old or too low or whatever....
I bought a multifunction Brother MFC-L2740DW and have not looked back. Laser printer, black and white. It just works. The toner lasts forever and never expires. It works with third-party cartridges just fine. The pages print quickly with almost no "warm up" time and the ink doesn't smear and is waterproof. And on top of that, Linux support was excellent, and it has a myriad of useful features (even a color touchscreen and autonomous PDF creation). Double-sided printing, fax (how quaint), TWO SIDED scanning in one pass, ADF, and all for under $300!
So if you can live without color, jump to a networked B&W laser printer and don't look back.
Inexpensive printers: The cost of new printers is quite low, but how long can the printer sit there without printing before it dies? Most every inkjet printer has a function which will flush a little ink to keep the head from clogging when not used regularly. You just must remember to not leave it powered off accidentally. According to tests Lexmark and HP use up quite a bit of ink for this process. Brother printers wasted the least ink during periods of inactivity
I think you should go the cheap printer route and just keep occasionally using it until it dies. Don't plan on replacing it ever. I know HP has a 2.99 a month (for the smallest 50 page a month or less plan) service that will detect your ink health and send you new cartridges when you need them. Maybe that would be worth considering in this case? Around 36 dollars a year to make sure your ink is good to go used with a cheap HP printer? They call it the HP Instant Ink program.
For those rare times I ever need to print anything anymore I hand cut and beat papyrus over a rock until it's nice and flat. Then scroll the desired text using squid ink and feather quills.
Look, this is not that hard and hardly /. worthy. Must be s slow news day...
Forget about cheap inkjet printers. If you only use them occasionally you'll find the print heads dried up and useless every time you have a print emergency. Get a cheap laser printer (they really are cheaper now). Un-plug it when you're not using it to save power. It'll last a life time and pay for itself many times in printing costs over that lifetime.
I make very few attempts to print hardcopies of documents these days and when I do the printer usually develops some problem. I am now pondering the hypothesis that printers are malevolent sentient robots who don't like me and pretend to break down every time I try to print a hardcopy of anything at all
I bought an HP LaserJet P1102w mid-2014, which sits on my desk and is rarely ever used, for about $150
I just went to see how much it cost today and they've doubled in price. I wonder if it's because sales volume have dropped so much?
Anyway with the laser it's a powder not a liquid like inkjet so it doesn't dry out over time if left unused.
I've replace the toner once in the time I've had it (which was roughly 3/4 the cost of the printer itself)
I'm struggling to remember what I use it for. Mostly things my kids want printed out. :) ;)
Their favourite colouring in picture which I've scanned from it's book - yeah I'm cheap.
Oh, I just remembered! I printed my tickets, after booking online, for "The Last Jedi" last week.
I bought a $50 laser printer almost a decade ago. It still prints the few time a year I need to print. It's said "toner low" for over two years now.
Stop using crappy inkjet printers and get a laser printer. They aren't very expensive and you don't have to worry about the toner drying out. Laser printouts last much longer than inkjet as well (lots of cheaper ink fades over time). Since you explicitly aren't printing photos you don't need one of the more expensive laser printers. I've been using the same laser printer for the last 17 years and it had 6 years of use in a school lab before I got it.
Put it on a thumb drive and go print it at Kinko's/Staples/Office Max
Best purchase I've made in a long time is a Brother MFC-9340CDW. Duplex full-colour printing when I need it, with the bonus of double-sided scanning and copying. I've used the sheet feeder on the scanner more times than I can count, and I never pause to think whether to print in black and white or draft mode... I just print. Two years in on the original toner cartridges and haven't got a low toner message yet.
Inkjets are for people who want to line Epson or HP's pockets with money to pay for dried out ink cartridges.
No. Next question?
Table-ized A.I.
I print maybe a few dozen pages a year, but I wanted it to be easy to use, good quality and reliable. I'm using a Brother black-and-white laser multifunction, with a built-in duplexer and wifi in addition to the normal fax/scanner stuff. I think it cost around $200, and I've had it for several years and it's had no problems at all. Even the management software to receive scans, etc. is pretty lightweight on Windows and you can use most of the core functions without it using the OS standard drivers.
I print about 3 or 4 pages a year, in a big year. Not worth owning a printer. In an emergency, I'll go to FedEx.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I am running Linux Mint 17.2 (i.e. the lastest), anyone know if there are driver problems with these cheap laser printers?
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Get a small mono laser printer for the occasional job at home. I'm not sure why the submitter seems to have forgotten that these exist--the "drying out" problem is unique to inkjets. There are several lasers under $100 USD (e.g., the Brother HL-L2300D) and even the starter toner will probably last years if you print so infrequently. (Though I'd probably opt for an MFD myself so I can get a scanner, too--comes in handy.)
Then, if you do want to print photos or fancy color, etc., use a service. Maybe even test a B&W draft at home first now that you can. This is what I did before I bought a color laser printer (again not too expensive, though if I printed more often the toner would probably get me).
R.Mo
About 2 years ago. I went to the library with a memory stick. Cost about $,.50 for all my printing needs.
Back in the day, paper was cheaper than storage, Now I just copy things to my phone or tablet or laptop I don't use paper unless I'm starting a fire...
I have the HL-L2300D or whatever the equivalent was from 8 years ago. I've run ~1500 pages of boarding passes, tickets, tax forms and whatnot through it. haul it out of the closet, plug it in to any computer, and it will have drivers, it will print what you want and not bother you.
I suspect it will last forever. Oh, and it was $45 when I bought it. keep an eye out for sales.
-and occasionaly a giant moose.
I got one of these
https://www.which.co.uk/review...
It's a laser so the it doesn't have the problem of the ink drying out like my old HP multifunction color inkjet. It prints and scans with my Windows 7 machine, my Mac and my Android devices. The toner cartridges are cheap and last 1000 pages.
The only downside is that, unlike my old HP inkjet it doesn't do color. But, realistically, how many times do you need that? And if I did I could get printed somewhere else.
Basically don't buy an inkjet - they cost a fortune in ink cartridges if you only use them infrequently. Buy a cheap mono laser printer or a mono laser multifunction device if you do a lot of scanning.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Then buy color laser printer with profits.
My dad has a side business, and he uses a dot matrix printer for the invoices. He's been using the same printer for over 25 years, and I believe he's on his second printer ribbon. The printing isn't very dark, but it's perfectly readable.
I had a $200 Brother laser printer for seven years before the laser drum gave up the ghost after 30,000+ pages. The replacement cost of the laser drum was $200. I got a newer model of the same laser printer for $100 (a Labor Day special). I haven't gone through a case of paper in the last three years. The publishing industry is almost entirely paperless these days.
Or should we say copying services take anything from school work and photos to technical drawings and books. They take PDFs among others which you can format, print to a file and check before sending. The reason for using them is usually commercial: your prints are paid by your client, part of a legislative or legal process, or you need something special like a roll or an A0 prints. That said, I once got my full color primary school work printed on the side with my father's A0 drawings. Foils of Lascaux cave paintings with deep, professional level colors were really nice thing to present.
Your local "print shop" or shipping store will print stuff from one page to hundreds. I use them all the time.
I have a tiny 3D printer (101Hero).
Printing is cheaper than going to a office store and if the ink messes up, they won't dare charge you for it and tax dollars make sure they always have ink and paper; it is a library after all and all counties have a few of them. Or, you can go to a local community college and print for free as a student if it's for "class."
buy a Brother printer. They're boxy but good. Oh, and you can get the toner carts for $10 bucks if you buy off brand and they work fine. For the once a year I need color I spend $5 bucks getting it printed on the color laser at Kinkos.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I bought a printer with toner that doesn't dry out.
e waste i.e. throw away printers, monitor and the like end up in dumps in Asia where people melt them down for gold and poison themselves. Just create a cron job or calendar event remind you to 'exercise' your printer once a month. I have three and use one on a regular basis. The other two are an office application, scanner, fax copier, and color printer and one that prints well on CD and DVDs. I exercise them also.
If you're spending $200 on a printer every couple of years, and only printing 100 or so pages during its lifetime, that's $2/page. Kinkos is probably looking like a cheaper alternative.
Make it easy on yourself and get an HP, or Lexmark laser printer.
If you have the money buy HP, and if you don't buy Lexmark.
Stay the hell away from Ink Jet printers their crap..
As others have pointed out, inkjet printers have issues with infrequent use. Laser printer toner doesn't have this problem.
Laser printers are also a lot faster. When you are in a hurry, the inkjet printers are way too slow. You don't have to worry about moisture causing your printouts to run. It's great for UPS labels, concert tickets, and boarding passes.
When pricing printers, remember to look at the cost of replacing ink/toner cartridges.
I use a Lexmark dot matrix forms printer, which was being trown away, it has both parallel and USB, no need to warmup like a laser and ribbons (which also don't stop you from printing when they're wornout) can be had for the price of a single inkjet cartridge.
Only downsides are the noise and that there doesn't seem to be a driver on Linux/CUPS
Anything I need I can either photo with my phone and send or get printed at FedEx Office from Washington State to New York to Florida to Southern California. A printer is a waste of money and space, unless you are a business.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
There's a long time copy and stationary shop walking distance that's still under priced.
n/t
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
It's within walking distance of my place, costs $0.13 cents a page to print black and white. A printer would be more than $100, so that's about 700 pages before it ceases to be cost effective. I print less than 100 pages a year. If I bought a printer it would take 7 years to recoup my investment. Not including paper and ink costs.
If I ever have to print more than 100 pages at one time, then I would buy a printer. But as long as I am printing on average 20 pages a month, I use staples.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I currently have a laserjet 4050 and print 5 or less pages a day. I haven't changed the toner since at least 2010.
lose != loose
It's incredible that people dismiss heavy use of inkjets when they don't bother to use a Continuous Ink System (CIS), or haven't even heard of them. With our CIS attached to a regular cheapo printer, my family prints HUNDREDS of pages per month, full color with no problem at all. The ink is cheap and easy to top up. Since it is used so regularly it almost never needs a printhead clean operation. Take a look on eBay to see if there is a CIS for your model printer.
I don't bother with the all of the Laser Printers I have anymore. Too much trouble to warm up, takes a lot of desk space and there's the carcinogenic airborne micro particles from the toner fuser I don't want to breathe.
Remember: inkjet without a CIS = madness BUT Inkjet with CIS = absolutely brilliantly wonderful.
Some library systems in Canada and USA have free printing (x pages per day) with your library card.
Social printing:
Printing services:
I involves getting up from the couch and putting something on other than underwear, so no.
Inexpensive printers:
Get a refurbished iPad (if you haven't one already) and print to a PDF.
This is the 3. millennium after all.
I bought a P 1006 on sale for ~$100 around ten years ago. I finally ran out of toner a month or two ago, and need to replace it.
That thing is a beast of a machine. Fast, cheap, and it just works. There's a lot of stuff it won't do with B&W @100 DPI, but it does everything I need.
Now to replace the original toner cartridge.
All hooked up over USB to a Linux box. Meant to turn it into a CUPS-based print server. That didn't work. Ended up using the free version of VirtualHere to connect the printers to my desktop over LAN. It's effective but hacky.
I've been building up my equipment towards the goal of a creating a startup business, but the going is slow. I think that's the only legitimate use of printers these days is to do business startup-ey things like print receipts, invoices, and labels for physical packages going into the mail. Haven't had a use for a 3D printer. My experience with inkjets is that they chew through ink like no tomorrow. Laserjets can sit around for years and still work like a champ when you fire them up. I saw an article recently comparing laserjet to inkjet and showed that laser costs less per page than inkjet. However, dot matrix apparently beat both ink and laser in cost but only if you do a crapton of low-quality, fixed-width printing.
Thermal label printers are wonderful if you send a ton of packages through the mail. Consistent, crisp results. No worries about jamming up sticky label residue on the internal guts of the printer. Thermal labels cost a bit more than normal sheets of labels but are well worth the extra cost if you print lots of labels.
Japanese convenience stores almost universally have a internet connected combined copier/scanner/printer with associated touchscreen PC terminal (which has wifi/bluetooth, USB, and assorted card readers). They also (by store chain) have an associated internet printing service allowing you to send printjobs from a PC or smartphone.
Just send the printjob from home, roll into your nearest store, and buy some food/drink/snacks while you print. Reasonably high quality printing, from a machine that gets regularly maintained by contract technicians. Reasonable prices, and the store is usually a very short walk for most people, you were probably going to buy snacks anyways, so the convenience factor is hard to ignore.
I bought a LaserJet 1000 many years ago(17?) an I finally cleaned out the closet space this year and got rid of the printer. It still worked, it was still on it's first toner, but the onboard processor was emulated in the software driver and was discontinued after Windows XP so getting it to work seemed impossible(/not worth the time) and it would not just accept PCL because of that. :D
So I think they answer is, yes I don't print much.
L'Idiot
A few years ago I bought a colour laser network Brother printer.
Prints good
Hasn't broken down
No ink to dry out
Cheap printer
Cheap toner
Full-duplex printing
Builtin network
Drivers for windows, mac, linux. Apparently it works on Android and iPhones too.
Except this is an article about people who don't print enough to stop an inkjet printer from drying out.
These days there are plenty of options. There are "laser" printers (these days it's just LED) and there are a few Xerox wax printers. They run forever, have really cheap toner ($20/5000 pages for off-brand cartridges), often networked and really high quality prints both in text and photos. For the occasion you still want a printed photo, go to your local Walmart or any number of online printing services.
All-in-all though, I don't print very much anymore. I print perhaps some coloring pages for the kids and the odd document that I will need to present for legal reasons. I actually haven't connected my printer for about a year now.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
the more people print, the more trees there are..... without printing, we wouldn't manage the forests anymore.
I tell people at work, that if they care anything about the environment at all, that they'll print as much as they can.
I need to print something a couple of times a year. What I do is email the document to my local copy shop, then pick it up at my convenience.
Yup, this is the perfect solution for "low volume" I've done this for a "few" books.
Also, _why_ print when I have a 3840 x 2160 monitor in Portrait mode for reading (PDFs) ?
I only do hard-copy for the really important stuff.
I dropped ink-jet printing a couple of years ago when the constant issue of clogged nozzles were superseded by paper jams caused by aging rubber rollers. I replaced it with a B/W laser printer, since I've since long realized online print-shops would produce higher quality (and larger) prints at a reasonable cost overnight. Now I'm switching to a color laser printer, since I routinely print incoming invoices for book-keeping, screendumps for temporary use etc. The cost is ~1:30 SEK/page (14€c/15$c) Since I'm renting it for 3 years, I guess I'll replace it at the end of the rental period.
I have a inexpensive Canon printer. After getting clogged heads from previous printers sitting idle, I have learned that just printing the Google home page (or any other page with all the basic colors) once a week keeps the heads fresh and like new.
I rarely print anything else (a couple pages a month) but my printer still works like new after 2 1/2 years. A recently printed test grid came out perfect.
I think Lexmark are the creator of planned obsolescence.... HP still support older models than Lexmark.(Drivers are compatible with Win10 64 bits for HP PSC1315)
I print out every facebook post that appears in my newsfeed and I pin them up at all the local grocery stores - just to give recipe ideas to shoppers there.
My cursive isn't worth a damn.
This probably doesn't apply to everyone, but I found an old (ugly beige colored) HP laser jet printer at my University's surplus store for $.25. It took a bit of cleaning on the rollers, but I just hooked it into my LAN via an ethernet cable and it works great! I literally paid 12 times for the paper for what I did for the printer and she works like a champ :)
public library. 10 cents a page
Since I sell a lot of stuff on Etsy and eBay (2017 has been a great year for sales of various collectibles and other miscellany I deal in), I print stuff daily, except usually on the weekends when I let sales accumulate and then do my packaging and shipping on Monday. I use a networked HP LaserJet 4100 that my little brother gave me (along with enough refilled toner cartridges to last me a lifetime. I think I have only had to replace the cartridge once during the past decade I have had the printer...At least I think it has been that long).
Also have an old Kodak EasyShare photo printer hooked up to an XP box for when I want a framed color print of something. Probably about time to get this Scrooge McDuck piece finally printed out and framed for my workspace: https://cdn-ssl.s7.disneystore...
This space unintentionally left blank.
Definitely laser printer - similar to what everyone else said about the advantages (lasts, doesn't dry, etc).
In addition, you can find cheaper toners, and depending on where you are, refill existing ones at a fraction of a cost.
It used to cost me ~$5 to refill mine that prints up to 4,000 pages. Yes slight less in quality but who cares... It turned out cheaper to do that and print my PDFs than to buy the soft/hardback books.
My advice, search for second hand ones on the trading sites (gumtree, trademe, or whatever).. I managed to get mine for free from someone who donated his on one of those sites.
Alternatively, if you hardly print anything and just need a few pages, just print at a mate's house, or at work..
I am shocked and surprised that people still print. My family and friends and most of the people I have met don't print at all. Anything I have to print and I mean absolutely have to print I print to a folder I called "Virtual Printer" as a PDF. If I need that to go with me somewhere I just send it to my phone. There is no need to have a paper copy of it. If someone needs a copy I email it to them. Again this amazes me, I have been doing this for 6 years now and 3 or 4 years for everyone else. At my work we don't print at all, in fact there are no printers for the last 4 years, anything that needs to be circulated is sent by email. I really assumed printing was a thing of the past.
I haven't bought a printer in forever, I think the last one I bought was in the early '90s. I have been handed dozens over the years, I've managed to give most of them away, but I've still got quite a few. Ask around, somebody you know probably has a stack of color lasers. I know I do.
Every time I've tried to talk somebody into taking one lately, they've turned down a free printer. And we're not talking junk, the inkjets go straight to recycling, I don't even bother. Brother MFC-9840s, HP 4000s, that sort of thing I keep, but nobody wants one. I only need 4 or 5 printers myself, just so I don't have to walk to another room to pick up a printout if I feel lazy that day.
Seriously, ask around. Somebody you know probably has extras.
I avoid printing like it's the plague. I just don't want to file and store the damn paper. 98% of the time a PDF works just fine for me. I just print things out for people who insist it's still the 20th century. I have a decent HP laser I bought new about 5 years ago that I use most of the time when I'm forced to print something. I can also use my office's Minolta laser when needed.
I don't just print it, I wear it.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
I have an old laser all in one. I use it most for copying papers. I may only print 10 pages a year, but I seem to photocopy about 200 pages
Chances are it will be broken just after the warranty period ends, even if you have printed less than twenty pages.
Except that Traf-O is right; I've already mentioned Tank Printers in another response. I'll be finished printing out some 1500 pages by next Monday... and then I probably won't be printing much of anything again until April. By then some Canon Tank Printers may be on the Used Market at a reasonable price.
The Trick is keeping Air away from Inkjet Ink. Professionals back their Ink Tanks with Dry Nitrogen, and keep the Printheads moist between Runs. A droplet of Ethylene Glycol there helps. CIS also keeps Air out. Clogs don't just happen at the Printhead; they can form within the inks themselves.
At one time in the past, some HP Inkjet's ink was kept in ~100ml Bags. The Bags collapsed as the ink was used, keeping Air out. HP, in search of profits, discontinued the Bag system around 15 years ago, going for smaller disposable foam-filled Cartridges instead, like everybody else, that of course clogged on a regular basis. Profits assured.
I'm somewhat surprised, given the generally higher level of technological expertise here, that so many responses betray a fundamental ignorance about how Printers actually work. Which of course I explain in excruciatingly boring detail in some of those 1500 pages mentioned earlier...
Very enlightening discussion. Basically I had ignored the laser printer option because I thought the upfront cost was too high and also wanted the option to print photos.
Wait, I almost never print a photo, but just send the link. Given that the low-end laser printers are so low, now I'm pretty sure I can find a really good value on a laser printer if I keep my eyes open for a few months... No rush that I know of.
Minor concerns do remain. WiFi printing from Windows 10, Mac OS, and Linux was not mentioned much. Also, not sure how much I should worry about the cartridge refill costs and long-term availability.
However, all in all there was a lot of useful information and many interesting testimonials here. My thanks to all the contributors, for what little that's worth. Gratitude and a couple of bucks can still get you a cup of coffee?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I've had to print maybe a handful of times the past decade, and in all cases it only cost me around $0.20 equivalent per page in my nations currency when I printed at the library.
Unless your workplace has crazy printing policy, just use their printer for your few pages a year.
I have totally given up printing at home, because it is far too expensive, both ink and hardware, and unless you go for a laser printer, ink and printer both will not last long enough to make use of it And laser printers are not indestructible.
Stupidity is the root of all evil.
Very few print jobs are totally recquired nowadays. This is true for work and home.
I don't need a printed memo. If it is important, the first thing I will do is scsan it for future reference, I don't need a printed letter from my bank so they send me emails or SMS, If I am going to send someone a letter, I will write it if it is personal or email it if at all possible for anything official.
Any company that does not deal with email, does not want my business. Any employer that insists on paper instead of electronic and is not CIA or MI5 type is a good one to move on from as they are embracing obsolescence.
I have the occasional difficulty persuading my Mother in Law that she does not need to print every email but that is probably an age thing.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Learn how to prioritize "systems of components", and this is an easy decision.
If you don't want a printer that prints a lot, don't get one designed to print a lot.
If you want a printer that will last for decades, buy a printer that will last for decades (and remember to amortize the price).
I print about a page a week, on average. Maybe two. So eight years ago, I bought a high-end consumer multi-function. I chose the laser, obviously, and the small toner version, obviously. I went multi-function for the occasional scanner. Network for the not caring about software part. Small paper tray, obviously.
It's been sitting there for eight years now. Once a year I print something stupid -- like wine bottle labels, or car club flyers, or address labels. Otherwise, for work, it's about under ten pages per month.
I configured it to clean itself vigorously. So it's quite slow. When the toner is below 50% on one of the colours, it'll clean itself between each and every page. It's insanely slow. But the toner lasts twice as long. And what do I care if two pages takes two minutes.
It also looks nice, because it's small and consumery. Which is nice in an expensive home office.
The point is, this isn't hard. Spend $100, and you'll throw it out. Buy an inkjet, and you'll throw it out. Buy a black and white printer-only, and you'll eventually need something more. Spend $300 on a scanner and colour and laser and a decent brand, and the most annoying part will be finding a/the box when you want to take it with you three houses later.
Ditto with laser. Particularly, multi-function colour lasers have dropped ridiculously in price. While not cheap-cheap per se, you can get a very good quality device that will cover all of your occasional needs (occasional color prints, sometimes a photocopy, etc). Even the crappiest ones are still good enough for basic use, and can be had for well less than 500 dollars. And it will probably be the past printer you ever buy.
I'm still using a black and white brother MFC that I purchased a decade ago. I had to replace the toner way back when cause I had to print a whole bunch of stuff once, but it's still good enough to this day.
Ilsa
Last tuesday my HP Laserjet 1100, which I purchased in the PENTIUM-III era, finally gave up.
Actually, it didn't. But the toner-cartridge I was using broke apart. If I buy a new one, it will probably work fine again, but the printer already have the front door broken, I have to carefully close it after clearing paper jams and I also have to feed one sheet at time otherwise it jams surely.
But, you see, fifteen years after, it still works, even in Windows 10.
Oh, and yesterday I updated to the Falls Creators Update and instantly lost support to my old Microsof Lifecam VX-1000. Fortunately I found out quickly how to rollback and did it, so my cam is back working again.
I hate when software vendors do this. Then people come with the "do not waste stuff, because we have to protect our planet". Perfecty fine things stop working because the industry wants to sell you new hardware and have the power to do so through software updates.
Yikes.
A set of ink carts costs more than a new printer. The industry seems bent on disposable hardware - the public mood is trending more towards obsolescence.