Need helping picking a new printer

[jhellwig]

Originally Posted by diyjake
Originally Posted by dogememe
Avoid HP. And avoid Canon. I worked at a computer store and e-waste recycling place for 7 years. For printers, a Brother laser it's where it's at. Personally here at home I have a Brother black and white and a Dell color. Both are laser printers. 0 Problems. No ink to dry up. The Dell I got for free from a family member's business going out of business and the Brother I purchased refurbished from Amazon.


Thanks for the info! Just curious any experience with the Epson Ecotank printers?

I have one at work. Et4750 is the model I believe. The print quality isn't the best and doesn't seam to want to stay aligned. I have to clean the print head more than I think I should. The document feeder on the scanner is junk and jams constantly. Scanning isn't very good quality. It doesn't like to feed blank paper unless it is perfectly flat.

I would not buy another one.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted by dishdude
You've got that right!

Ironically, that scene from that movie was on the TV when I was getting ready to leave the house.

 

[diyjake]

Seems like they all have their problems. Why can't there be a Toyota printer that just runs.

 

[Garak]

There are. They just stopped being made years ago. LaserJet 4 and the Panasonic KX-P1124 spring to mind immediately. They'll be remembered as the equivalent of the IBM Selectronic in the land of printers.

 

[nthach]

Originally Posted by Garak
There are. They just stopped being made years ago. LaserJet 4 and the Panasonic KX-P1124 spring to mind immediately. They'll be remembered as the equivalent of the IBM Selectronic in the land of printers.

The HP LaserJet 4/5/4000 series were pretty [censored] rock solid. My work still uses a 4050, 5000 and 5200 series. We "scrapped" a HP LaserJet 2400 since the printer guy at work thought the paper pickup assembly was shot and he couldn't get it to work. Turned out they needed a little persuasion to get the roller's shaft to engage with the roller. A quick 30 second job and a friend has that printer at his bike shop.

 

[Garak]

Long before laser printers, the Panasonic was in use at my high school computer lab. It withstood terrible abuse and ridiculous throughput, with rarely changed cheap OEM ribbons and no jams. I used to see the 4 series LaserJet in a number of CS labs later on. They aren't small, but they sure worked well.

 

[billt460]

The last printer I bought was a $49.00 Canon for my wife's desktop from Office Max. It runs fine, prints beautifully, and was easy to hook up and get up and running. I just noticed the replacement ink cartridges are $34.00 for color, and $18.00 for black & white. And that was at Wal-Mart. It came with 2 cartridges that she's still using. When it needs new ink, I think I'll just throw the whole printer out and buy a new one. It's a cheaper proposition. $49.00 for a new printer and ink vs. $52.00 to replace both of the cartridges.

These companies are not in the printer business. They're in the paper and ink business.

 

[Garak]

That's exactly it. My HP LaserJet at home (monochrome, purchased for like $100) has toner that costs about twice as much as the toner for the LaserJet at the office, which wasn't a $100 consumer grade printer. Now, with your inkjet (or any laser printer even), one does have to realize they usually fit them with a starter ink cartridge or toner cartridge, which never lasts nearly as long as a replacement.

I don't print a huge amount at home, and I think I've bought only one toner cartridge, maybe two, since I bought the printer.

 

[Sierra048]

Garak,

I bought a Canon MG5420 printer five years ago. It has worked flawlessly. It was also easy to setup with Linux Mint when I wiped out Windows from my computer. And I really didn't know what I was doing after switching and it still connected by wireless. Having said that, it's getting a little long in the tooth and I would like to get a reasonably priced B&W laser printer since I don't print in color as a rule. Is there a good quality, reasonably priced laser printer you could recommend that would work with with Linux Mint without any hassles. Thanks.

 

[Garak]

I can't recommend a specific model, since I'm not running any current model. I'd recommend taking a look at a reasonably priced B&W laser that would be available to you, and then cross reference to one of the lists. This list shows the HP printers, current and legacy, that work with Linux. The list isn't perfect. My printer at home shows on the list that it needs a driver plugin, but that is not correct; it is only optional. A basic printer probably won't need the proprietary driver unless you're trying the more proprietary things like manual duplexing or monitoring toner levels. I tried the proprietary driver, but never used those functions, so when upgrading the OS, never bothered to do that. I found that rather than plug it in and have it detect, I plugged it in, then used seek printer, and that worked best; print quality was inexplicably better.

Anyhow, there are other resources, besides the HP list. Open Printing has a searchable list, so you can compare any printer you're considering against their database, any brand. Their list may have a couple errors as well. It lists my printer as being only partially compatible, whereas HP says it's fully compatible.

Here is a fairly recent article covering a couple recent printers. He lists some current ones in different price ranges, and also lists a few resources to help determine printer compatibility.

As always, I'd also recommend to watch the price of consumables. I don't print a lot at home. I don't care about wireless, networking, and can live without automatic (or even manual) duplex printing and don't really need a scanner or fax at home. I do prefer a separate envelope feed, since I still use postal mail frequently enough.

 

[Sierra048]

Great information Garak. As always, your input is valued and appreciated.

 

[Garak]

Not a problem at all. That's all I did. I found something I liked with my features and price range, and then checked the lists, and all worked out.

 

[Garak]

Bumping in respect to my remarks about the HP proprietary software, I had the need to print something two sided at home the other day. I was going to leave it for the office, but decided to try at home. Manual duplexing is available, with the same orientation done through HP's own software at the office, on my Linux computer at home just using kernel drivers. So, the functionality appears to be 100% except for toner level, which I really don't need to be monitoring by software.

 

[mk378]

Originally Posted by Sierra048
Garak,

I bought a Canon MG5420 printer five years ago. It has worked flawlessly. It was also easy to setup with Linux Mint when I wiped out Windows from my computer. And I really didn't know what I was doing after switching and it still connected by wireless. Having said that, it's getting a little long in the tooth and I would like to get a reasonably priced B&W laser printer since I don't print in color as a rule. Is there a good quality, reasonably priced laser printer you could recommend that would work with with Linux Mint without any hassles. Thanks.

Definitely one of the little Brothers. They're low first cost, cheap toner, and stand up well to both heavy use or long periods of non-use. Pay a little extra for one with an Ethernet port. The one that is USB or Wifi only will require a Windows machine to set it up.