Best value (printer itself and future toner purchases) in a workhorse monochrome laser printer

[David Jensen]

Our old reliable HP4 is starting to show signs of wear and I am looking at a
replacement. With the HP4 it was nice because, due to the huge volumes of
them sold, high capacity, reasonably priced, replacement toner was readily
available from many sources.

I see printers have advanced greatly since the HP4 and are much faster now.
I want to make sure that I don't get a printer that has a high cost per page
for toner. It also needs to be reliable so that I am not paying for repairs
and down time.

Does any one particular manufacture stand out as having products that tend
to have lower operating costs due to readily available, high capacity toner
(OEM or Non-OEM)? Have manufactures segmented their products so that each
of their various models have a dedicated toner or is there a manufacture
that uses the same cartridges in various printer models for several years?
I ask this since it seems that toner would be available at a better price
than some specialty cartridge.

Is there a particular brand and model that you can give a personal
recommendation on? An Ethernet enabled printer would be ideal but not
critical. Faster is more desirable than slower.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[Ron Martell]

Our old reliable HP4 is starting to show signs of wear and I am looking at a
replacement. With the HP4 it was nice because, due to the huge volumes of
them sold, high capacity, reasonably priced, replacement toner was readily
available from many sources.

I see printers have advanced greatly since the HP4 and are much faster now.
I want to make sure that I don't get a printer that has a high cost per page
for toner. It also needs to be reliable so that I am not paying for repairs
and down time.

Does any one particular manufacture stand out as having products that tend
to have lower operating costs due to readily available, high capacity toner
(OEM or Non-OEM)? Have manufactures segmented their products so that each
of their various models have a dedicated toner or is there a manufacture
that uses the same cartridges in various printer models for several years?
I ask this since it seems that toner would be available at a better price
than some specialty cartridge.

Is there a particular brand and model that you can give a personal
recommendation on? An Ethernet enabled printer would be ideal but not
critical. Faster is more desirable than slower.

Thanks for your thoughts.

I would give some serious consideration to a medium to high end
digital photocopier with computer interface capabilities.

These often come with a service contract on a per-copy basis including
toner and other consumables (not paper) for rates in the 1.3 to 1.7
cents per page range.

With these copiers you also often get large format printing (11 x 17)
and/or duplex printing capabilities included as well.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."