Laser printer suggestions?

Mad Maxx

Mad Maxx

Supreme [H]ardness
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My last inkjet died over the weekend. It will be the last inkjet I ever buy. Any suggestions for a decent laser printer with scan/copy functions? Wanna keep it under $150. Tons of reviews over at Amazon and Newegg, but they range so wildly (for the exact same printer, no less) that it's damn near impossible to know what to believe.
 
Looking for color or monochrome? I picked up one of these a few months ago, and while it's over your budget, it's a hell of a nice printer and I've got zero regrets. Photo printing isn't quite as good as my Canon inkjet on photo paper, but I so rarely do that it's a non-issue.

Here's what looks like a monochrome version of the same thing for $149.00.

I'm over inkjets, as well. I'm very happy with my Samsung laser printer, it's been great.
 
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Oh, yeah. Probably would'a helped if I specified mono or color. I only need mono, and will check out that $149 Samsung. Tanx!
 
Hp LaserJet 5P
Absolutely the best, most reliable and indestructible BW laserjet I've ever serviced or worked around. And I HATE printers and faxes with a fucking passion. But the 5P gets glowing accolades in my books. I've seen them survive for 12+ years at a highschool.

Those bitches would survive a nuclear war and could probably be used as anti tank defences.

Enough said.
 
Bought that monochrome Samsung. It does everything I want and costs just $30 more than the Canon inkjet that died on me after less than six months. Thanks for the input!
 
Have had good luck with Brother and Samsung branded laser printers, those drums last forever. We were still using the "starter" drum that the Brother printer came with 3 years later.
 
I agree with the Samsung printer, I bought the 3405w laser printer 1.5 years ago, have printed hundreds
of pages from starter drum and still works ...

What concerns me is I bought a replacement drum same
day as the printer and the expiration date has come and gone. I didn't realize the starter drum would last
so long, otherwise I would've waited on buying the spare drum.
 
I don't think toners expire, it's not like milk.

Each toner also has a little clear part on the sides that the printer shines a laser through to determine remaining toner amount. I've found that even when my printer says toner is low, if I tape that little hole, I can still print hundreds of pages before I can truly see a difference in the printed material. The low toner warning on most printers are way too aggressive, and they are that way so companies make money on toner sales.
 
ok, well , my toner date is may 2014.... so I called Samsung and talked to rep
she said the date on their toner is the born on date and good for 1 year after that...
 
The way Samsung and any other printer maker makes money is through toner/ink post-sale. It's in their best interest for you to buy toner as frequently as possible. Again, toner isn't like milk, it doesn't just go sour. Them saying it's good for "1 year" is just marketing talk.
 
Been using my new Samsung M2885 for a few days and love it. Should have jumped to laser years ago.



Thanks, again, to BlindedByScience for the suggestion! (y)
 
I also gave up on inkjets when a printer refused to SCAN when it was "out of yellow" ink. It met a brick wall with force and I bought a color laser and never looked back. I dont print often, but when I do it tends to be data sheets, MSDS, notes & research material. Lasers don't print photos well (unless you pay $,$$$s) but *I* don't print photos. Also learn how to reset the toner count on your printer, but you wont find it on the manufacturers website. I had the starter cartridges for my Brother 9325 LAN printer popup the toner low 5 times before I seen a visible impact. Reset the counters and got 780 pages, 470 full page color photo prints using the starter cartidges. My girlfriends mom started using my printer when her inkjet died.

Another trick I did was painted the the clear end with black model paint. A sharpie works too. When you see the print start to degrade, add toner. I have 2 sets of carridges and I always keep one set filled. When this set runs out, I'll put in the full set and refill the others. Forget that retail toner price, learn to refill yours and save a lot of cash.

Welcome to the world of laser printing.
 
BlindedByScience said:
Looking for color or monochrome? I picked up one of these a few months ago, and while it's over your budget, it's a hell of a nice printer and I've got zero regrets. Photo printing isn't quite as good as my Canon inkjet on photo paper, but I so rarely do that it's a non-issue.

I'm over inkjets, as well. I'm very happy with my Samsung laser printer, it's been great.
Click to expand...

Agreed completely. I've got the same one. The thing is phenomenal. I'll never buy another inkjet again. It's perfect for everything except photos which are better done professionally anyway, IMO.
 
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ill throw in my vote for Samsung and brother as a second choice. never had a prob with either brand.
 
never used a samsung, have two brother monochrome in my office and they've lasted a long time. The color laser I had from them was a pain tho, it seemed to eat thru toner, drum and waste toner frequently enough to annoyed the hell out of me.
 
I've been very happy with Brother, both monochrome and color laser.

I've only encountered one annoying bug on my Brother color laser, and that's that on wireless it doesn't always wake up from sleep. But running ethernet fixes that.

My previous monochrome wireless printer had no such issues.
 
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