Printer advice

[Spitfire77]

Im looking to get a printer for home use. It doesn't have to be colour or multi-functional just for basic printing. What can you advise?

Something not too expensive and ofcourse with a good page yield.

Do toners for laser printers really last longer then ink? Is the added cost justifiable?

Any advise or specific printer models appreciated

 

[HavocXphere]

Low end HP laser. 1XXX series. Avoid multi function ones.

 

[droid]

The cheaper your laser the more your cost per page.

Take a R800 laser (printer only - mono) Cartridge R650 Pages 2000

then take a more expensive laser

R4500 (printer only - mono) Cartridge R1200 Pages 8000

i.o.w a lower cost laser is really only lower cost if you are not intending to print that much.

Now about ink printers.
There are two ink printers on the market that claim to be more affordable then laser.
Personally i don't really know if the math add up.
You see even if set that printer to Draft mode black and white the colour cartridges still magically evaporate.
So instead of a R350 black ink only cartridge replacement you end up replacing 3-4 cartridges of R350 each. And the printer won't work if any other cartridges are empty. Even if your black cartridge is chock and block full and you only intend printing black and white documents.
So does it really cost you cheaper? I doubt it.

 

[RedRockSA]

I have a multi-function Lexmark inkjet.

I cannot believe the lengths they have gone to in order to "lock down" the printer at the faintest whiff of an ink cartridge drying out! The additional features are great - WiFi cloud printing, USB ports allowing review of media & documents on a plugged-in flash stick without the need for a connected PC, unique IP addresses on LAN, double sided printing no problem & usual fax, scanner, copier etc. etc.

All of which will not give you the time of day should even 1 cartridge be "low" ..... no scan, no fax, nothing - those do not even require ink! Then to add insult to injury a trip to local stockists leave you fuming when you have to purchase a R350 cartridge thats displayed next to another exactly the same for under R100 - how come? A previous model printer didn't sell well & was discontinued - so the exact same cartridges are labelled non-compatible yet sell for almost a quarter the price!

What makes them "non-compatible" - the RFID tag under the label (don't try swopping them out they have a counter measure in place) which is so suspicious of any "New" cartridge that it often deems geniune cartridges to be suspect & shows full ones as empty!

Forget refills - a cartridge that was in previously + reached 'empty' status can NOT be re-inserted even after refill.

My advice is to work this the other way around - first research which printer cartridges are easy to refill (numerous guides on web) then check those printers for required specs. Get the one you want & smile when you walk out the shop because you know you will never return for ink because you ordered 25L drums from China at the same price as the fools have for less than a teaspoon of the same stuff sitting on their shelves- and yes the smile on their faces are because they are thinking "see you sooner than you think sucker when your complimentary cartridges run out after completing the test prints"

 

[TJ99]

Post #4 is exactly why I despise inkjet printers, especially the "home" variety. Well that and their slow speed and poor quality especially for text.

Get a laser printer. They're not that much more expensive to buy and MUCH cheaper to run in the long term. Also better for home use since the toner won't dry up if you don't use it often like ink does.

I have a Lexmark E120, which is a little compact B&W laser printer with quite fast printing speeds and very nice quality. Cost about R1200 a few years ago and cartridges cost R600-700, print about 2000 pages. Recently I went looking for a scanner and after seeing the ridiculous prices standalone scanners go for, I got a Samsung CLX 3185, colour multifunction laser for less. It prints significantly slower (but nowhere near the ages an inkjet takes) but also has brilliant quality and each toner cartridge costs about R800. I haven't replaced one yet but they also reportedly do between 2000-3000 pages each.

For basic printing I can really recommend the Lexmark. It does 19ppm, is pretty quiet and has been very reliable over the 4 years I've had it, hasn't given me a days problem. Some of the basic HP's are supposedly also very good but I just can't bring myself to buy an HP product ever again, they left a really bad taste in the mouth.

There isn't enough Vaseline in the world for what printer companies do to you when you buy an inkjet printer.

Edit: I haven't had to replace the photoconductors in either printer yet, those can be quite expensive, apparently almost as much as a whole printer. However they last something like 100 000 pages so you'll probably never need to replace it for home use.