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Looking for a printer

Z

zandor

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I've been borrowing a friend's printer for about three years. Now that he's moved back to the US (was living in London) he wants it back, so I'm looking for a printer. The catch is I haven't bought one since the mid 90s and don't really have any idea what's good anymore.
Are these $200 lasers any good? Or are they just rubbish that break down all the time? I don't have any real need for color and since I don't print much inkjets always seem to dry out and clog up between uses so I want a laser. It would be nice if it worked with Linux as well. Anyone have any reccomendations?
 
I have a HP LaserJet 1012 and I highly recommend it.

It's a black and white laser printer, very fast, great print quality and comes with a full 2500 page toner. And it has never jammed, not even once.

Plus it's on sale right now at Office Depot for $127.53 (after $20 off $100 coupon). Retail is $200 I think.
 
Sounds like a good option, and that's a nice price. Any other suggestions? I'll probably be buying later this week.
 
one thing I forgot to mention - the HP 1012 doesn't come with a USB cable, so you'll need to buy one
 
I just bought the HP Laser 1012 last week, for $140 incl-tax, and it is EXCELLENT for Windows uses.

However, if you plan on using this printer with Linux, DO NOT buy it.

This HP printer uses a modified PCL-type protocol that appears to be incompatible with most Linux drivers for HP printers.

The following page is a good resource for 1012 Linux info.

http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=HP-LaserJet_1012

I use a lot of Linux, but do most printing in Windows, so the benefits of cost and quality outweighed the fact of shoddy driver support in Linux.

If you are looking for a primary Linux printer, look elsewhere, to either another brand, or a different HP model.
 
Nuts.
Any other suggestions? I want to be able to print out source code and the occasional web page (mostly mapquest directions lol) in Linux, and it sounds like this one is a no-go for that. No graphics printing I could deal with, but text in Linux is a must have.
 
You can get a higher end laserjet than that for Linux if need be. Or find a good used one that's a bit older. Those should work fine. HP Laser printers last forever. We've still got Laserjet 4 Plus's at work that were bought in 1995 and are still working today after having over 1 million pages printed on them with very little service.
 
I have a hp laserjet 1012 also, and it works great. Got it during last years boxing day and no hitch yet. Easy install, easy to operate, no jams yet, good quality product. Don't believe I used to print with an ink jet printer :p
 
Ok, suddenly I have a second job interview today so perhaps price isn't so important. I'm leaving my current job, and needed a printer for job-hunt related things. Now all of a sudden I've found out I can get a color laser for $500 (after $100 MIR) from the Egg, and it's even got ethernet and has an open source Linux driver available. Sweetness.
I'll be back to the low cost B&W hunt if I don't get this job, but just in case I do get it anyone played with a Minolta 2300DL?
 
Woohoo! I got the job. Now as soon as I get the official offer letter I'm buying a printer. It's looking like an HP 2550Ln or 2550n now, since they're not a lot more & do postscript so I know they'll always be supported by whatever OS I'm using. Anyone have any other good suggestions for a color laser with built in postscript? Ethernet connectivity is nice as well. So far the HP seems like the best option.
 
Ok, I finally bought one. After much looking and comparing I went with a Samsung CLP-550N. Hopefully it won't be an unreliable turd, but it's got much better specs than the HP 2550 models. It's about the price of the 2550Ln, but has 2 paper trays like the fancier 2550n, plus it's got a duplexer for 2-sided printing and twice as much memory (128MB). As an added bonus, it uses <500W when printing vs. 1500W for the HPs. Might warm up a bit slower, but w/ a 1500W draw I'd worry about blowing circuit breakers. Like the HPs it's got Postscript 3 support, 10/100 ether, USB, and parallel.
 
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