Printer advice? [Matthew's Journal]

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We need a new printer. Can anyone make any suggestions as to what is good / what should be avoided?

In an ideal world, it would fit the following criteria:

Happy to only be used occasionally (I think this means laser not inkjet)
Works well with linux (which I suspect means "can be driven without needing to configure cups")
network or parallel or USB (I suspect the latter might cause issues, given I'm running a 2.4 series kernel, and don't do much USB) - I have a spare ethernet port I could hang it off to provide access control (assuming lpd can handle networked printers...)
not painfully slow
duplex
likely to be reliable
not vastly expensive to get new toner/ink for
Not hugely expensive

I don't much care about colour.

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There are 19 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

I agree that you want laser not inkjet here, especially since you don't want colour. Network would definitely be the best option IMHO. No specific recommendations, but have you considered getting a cheap HP laserjet off ebay? I reckon that's more likely to fit the 'reliable' criterion than any random cheap new one...

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Older printers will also lack the evil fuse electronics in the toner cartridges that makes it hard to get them refilled by a third party. Provided the drum isn't integrated into the cartridge (in which case you really do need to replace the whole thing) that could be another saving.

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Even the drum-in-cartridge kind you can get cheapo third-party refurbished cartridges. For instance the ones used by the Laserjet II are 70 quid for official HP and less than 20 for refurbs.

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Spend more on a printer which uses cheaper cartridges. I got a Canon this time- it was about £80, but the cartridges are relatively cheap. If you were up here I could reccomend a computer shop, but don't know anything about the ones in your area.

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Nick and I absolutely love our Brother printer, and I think our criteria were quite similar to yours.

(And it is now fixed - their engineers are extremely competent.)

Not sure about the Linux thing. But yes, would recommend them.

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Linux is no problem with Brother printers.
I've got a Brother laser hanging off my PowerMac, runing Ubuntu 7.10.
And it's very happy.

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Hmm…

I also need to get a printer one of these days. What do you mean by occasional use, out of interest? I think I want a printer I can use for something silly like twenty pages a year, in which case it's just about worth paying, say, fifty quid to avoid the hassle of hand-copying from the screen.

On the other hand, at that kind of volume the cost of consumables is irrelevant compared with the initial outlay because I'll never run out. Similarly, duplex would be an utter waste since it would only save me ten pieces of paper a year.

That's… even more occasional than your intended use, right? (-8

Your remark about inkjets intrigues me. Are you saying an inkjet printer would dry up, clog or what-have-you if subjected to usage rates as low as the one I envisage? Most of the things I want to print are maps, so colour would be nice in my case.

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My experience is that inkjets clog up if not used for a month or three, yes. (I haven't tried any newer ones, but logic suggests that something which squirts liquid ink through tiny nozzles is going to be more susceptible to this than a toner powder based system.)

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Mmm.

On the other hand, glancing at the website of my favourite computer shop I see that their cheapest inkjet printers are £50 and cheapest laser printers are £100. If the problem is clogged nozzles rather than ink drying out, at a page cost of somewhere in the 5-10p range having cron print a picture of a kitten every fortnight would only cost about £2 a year so it's really not worth spending £50 extra on a printer that won't clog.

However, I fear the ink in the cartridge itself might dry out given a year or so, which is a trickier problem to circumvent. Even then, new cartridges would only be £25 a year so you'd have to run the thing for three years before a laser printer broke even.

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What price do you set on the hassle factor of having the printer fail to print when you want to print something, requiring you to faff about, possibly replace the cartridge, etc, etc? And if you're trying to keep costs to a minimum you probably want to be looking at ebay prices anyway...

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I used to have a colour Canon bubblejet, which dried out rather than clogging up. I'd fit new ink cartridges, print a page or two (with negligible impact on the ink levels), and then a couple of months later I'd come back to it and find all four cartridges were completely empty. Presumably all the rest of the ink in them had gone into the atmosphere.

That was almost worrying just for the thought of how many ink cartridges I must have inhaled the entire contents of, never mind the abysmal cost per page!

I went laser in 2001 and have never looked back.

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Happy to only be used occasionally (I think this means laser not inkjet)

I think you're right.

Works well with linux (which I suspect means "can be driven without needing to configure cups")

More-or-less anything by HP; their Linux support is very good.

network or parallel or USB (I suspect the latter might ca
use issues, given I'm running a 2.4 series kernel, and don't do much USB) - I have a spare ethernet port I could hang it off to provide access control (assuming lpd can handle networked printers...)

USB isn't likely to be an issue, especially if you're only plugging one printer in at a time. Integrated Ethernet is good but still relatively expensive; external Ethernet with something like a Netgear PS101 is cheap but means you have an extra box. Parallel is still supported by almost everything.

duplex, not vastly expensive to get new toner/ink for

I use an HP LaserJet 1320n, which works well for me. A quick look online suggests this might now be obsolete, though. Toner is much cheaper online than in the shops (£70 for the 6000-page high capacity cartridge online, vs £70 for the 2500-page standard cartridge in the shops).

Not hugely expensive

What do you mean by that? <£100? <£200?

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From my experince check with www.linuxprinting.org for the availability of drivers. When I got mine it was helpful in ruling some options out. For what it is worth I use a Samsung ML2510 monochrome laser - unfortunately it doesn't duplex.

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I'm another one with a mono, non-duplex Samsung (ML1210). It's not the most reliable of things, but my gut instinct is to blame that on the Linux drivers (ghostscript -gdi IIRC) since it seems to do better as a network printer with the supplied Windows driver or the OS X native providing raw input rather than PostScript. (Expect it's completely disfunctional at the moment as I have no server and it doesn't have enough toner to be useful.)

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Cambridge Computer Resale, in Mill Road, will do you a second-hand HP Laserjet, complete with toner, for £40-£60 quid (one with an ethernet port will be nearer the £60 mark). They give you a month's warranty on their refurbished stuff, which is better than you'll get on eBay. HP Laserjets are built like tanks and interact painlessly with Linux.

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Hmmm... since I too have been in need of a printer for at least a year, and walk within 100 yards of CCR twice a day, that might be worth looking into.

Thanks for that...

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I can't give you much advice on what *to* buy. Our HP is very good and sits often, as does the lexmark.

However, I will say that if you don't want expensive cartridges you should avoid lexmark, as (we've tried) the printers generally only take proper lexmark brand cartridges, not any other brand, and those don't come cheap.

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naath occasionally bugs me to get a usable printer, so I'll be interested to hear what you get and how you get on with it.

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Oli has an HPdeskjet6127, and we're on linux.
It's an inkjet with network stuff.
And it's been good and reliable and well built and prints nicely and does double sided etc.

I think it's good. No idea how much it cost him though...

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Matthew's Journal

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