Laser printers and running costs

[Bruno 10]

Hi guys I'm wanting a laser printer, it's a minefield out there and I don't know which to compare.

I understand buying one for let's say £100 means it's going to be costly on toner.

 

Is there any recommendations for something around £300 that isn't going to cost a fortune when I need to replace toner? Any help appreciated.

[Ghozer 112]

If you're not bothered about colour...

 

look for the Samsung ranges, I like the SL-M2835DW, it has NFC printing (so can go from phone/tablet etc with NFC) as well as all the usual stuff, and the toners cost around £25-30 new...

 

http://www.viking-direct.co.uk/catalog/catalogSku.do?id=6602814&PR=QCA&cm_mmc=Google-_-pla_gen_google-shopping_paper-and-printing-_-paper-and-printing-_-6602814&s2m_channel=544&_%24ja=tsid:34770|cid:242833937|agid:16600084457|tid:pla-91678072217|crid:55356844457|nw:g|rnd:11433112016371345459|dvc:c|adp:1o2&gclid=Cj0KEQjwoau9BRDMvsnv5MCh24UBEiQAKOqcfa-BeB9obVNIIqBv2mrCC_ZYgSWqlfrgVfW2Bh27-5waAuw08P8HAQ

 

Obviously the same toner won't work for ALL Samsung printers, but printer price vs toner price, they are one of the best imho...

[Bruno 10]

Thanks for your reply Ghozer, I forgot to add that it's a colour laser I want

[martin6 10]

I think the answer is no, you can't pay more for a colour laser in order to drop printing prices. The HP 550's I have at work cost nearly £400 to fully refill with a yield of 2000 pages on each colour, cost price of printer £200

[AlexAtkin 10]

It really depends how heavily you are going to use it.

 

No point spending a fortune on a high grade printer if you aren't going to use enough toner to offset the savings.

 

As a home user, I'm still on the starter toners on my HP Laserjet Pro 200 M276n All-in-One that I bought on 3 October 2013. It says they are very low but no quality drop yet and HP finally got the message and do not force you to replace very low toner any more, you do it when you deem the quality too poor.

 

Sure, for the cost of replacing the toner I could almost buy a whole new printer but those toners are also larger capacity than the starters and not necessarily all need replacing at exactly the same time.

Edited August 13, 2016 by AlexAtkin

[Arthur Ritus 30]

It does depend on what printing you want to do and how often.

 

I only print only very occasionally, I had owned a couple of inkjets in the past but the grief was unbearable, every time i came to use them the heads would be dried up, its like leaving a pen with the top off. I would use tons more ink cleaning the heads than actually printing plus a single sheet would take half an hour at least to print by the time you had finished messing. After a couple of months you could never get all the jets clean so quality would get poor. I have had relatives and friends with the same problem so i cannot be unique, the scanner i use is an all in one inkjet i had given to me as the heads were blocked after hardly any use, that person has now gone down the laser printer route (2nd hand black only) and never regretted it.

 

About 10 years ago i bought a black only canon laser for £30 from pc world, it has worked every time i needed it, just switch on and print perfectly on any paper, i can even use it to etch pcb boards. It came with an half cartridge which i had to replace a couple of months ago (the replacement was just over £20 about 5 years ago), in ten years i reckon i would have used quite a few hundred pounds of inkjet ink and gained a lot more grey hair.

The only issue is with technoware that lasts so long is as windows keep changing and you have to upgrade eventually, the manufacturers stop doing updated drivers for the older models, once i get it working on linux i should be fine. Its odd really the mechanical thing with the wearing parts is outlasting the solid state stuff.

 

I would love a colour one but i cannot justify the cost, if i need photos printing i do them at boots. Its surprising how many printed items are ok in the grayscale, its just circuit diagrams with me - i have to colour them in afterwards.

 

I promised my self years ago no inkjet will ever cross my threshold again and i am sticking to it.

[AlexAtkin 10]

That's another reason I have always stuck with HP, as their high-end business printers and low end home/small office printers are based off the same tech, I have never once had a driver issue.

 

They are more expensive to run but in my experience the quality is worth it.

 

I was seriously considering a Samsung instead when I got my latest printer but all the reviews said the quality of the HP was much better.

[davyboy 19]

I was given a fairly new Kodak all in one inkjet which I used infrequently to print documents in black only.

After replacing the dried out printhead twice I scrapped it and bought a £50 Brother laser printer which gives excellent results for text.

Not much good for photos though.

[Bruno 10]

Thanks for your input guys, I ended up getting this one

 

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing-accessories/printers-scanners-and-ink/printers/samsung-xpress-c480w-all-in-one-wireless-laser-printer-10135154-pdt.html