[Leica] OT: Home laser printer

[abridge at mac.com (Adam Bridge)]

I used to be a big fan of HP laser printers but no longer. My son, who is an 
IT consultant has been recommending Brother printers to his clients and to 
us when our HP printer packed it in. We have two and they seem to be working 
just fine. The initial toner cartridge isn?t exactly chock full but we don?t 
print oodles of pages any more either. 

Hope this helps.

Adam

On Dec 29, 2013, at 8:57 PM, Peter Klein <pklein at threshinc.com> wrote:

> I am contemplating buying a black and white home laser printer.  Our 
> vintage 1994 HP Deskjet 500 finally died.  I think I got my money's worth 
> out of that one.  :-)  So I turn to the infinite-seeming knowledge base of 
> this group.
> 
> Requirements:
> * My wife needs to be able to print a dozen pages per day, give or take, 
> of letter-size scratch documents for translation (not final copies, those 
> are emailed).
> * The printer must be able to print legal size (8.5x14) as well as 
> standard letter size. I don't mind if it must be fed from a secondary 
> manual-load tray.  I need to print music from PDFs or scanned documents, 
> at up to legal size (9x12" sheet music seems to print quite readably on 
> legal-size paper, slightly reduced). Any bigger than that, and I'll use my 
> Epson R1800 with carbon ink, or go to Kinko's.
> * Reliability is key. I don't want a cheap piece of junk pre-programmed to 
> die shortly after the warrantee expires, or to only take overly expensive 
> consumables (which is why Lexmark is out).
> * The printer should be networkable, preferably via wireless. I don't mind 
> networking via an external network/print box if it will save substantial 
> money.
> 
> I've pretty much decided on laser rather than inkjet. From what I've read, 
> laser means better quality and lower long-term cost (unless you folks have 
> different experience).  And no clogging.  I already have 2 photo inkjet 
> printers, an Epson R200 for color and an R1800 with cartridges hand-filled 
> with MIS Eboni carbon ink for B&W. The latter actually prints documents 
> nicely, but I don't want to be filling cartridges all the time for my 
> wife's language translation business.
> 
> I thought about getting an all-in-one (scan/fax/copy/print).  This would 
> be convenient some of the time.  But my experience at work is that the 
> all-in-one's tend to have complex problems. And if the scanner dies, it 
> may stop printing, too (firmware self-test failure).  Repair is not 
> economical, so you have to buy a new one. Also, the all-in-one's need for 
> you to install all the manufacturer's software, which in HPs case is 
> universally awful. I think I'd be better off with a simple laser printer 
> and getting a flatbed for music and old family photo scanning.
> 
> I'm inclined towards HP but will entertain other suggestions.  This week 
> Office Depot/Max and Best Buy all have sales going on.  There seem to be 
> three price-classes, $150, $250 and $300 on the B&W printer-only models, 
> with $30-$50 off this week.
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> --Peter
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information