
Ask HN: What printer do you use? - paloaltokid
Currently having one of those &quot;I&#x27;m about to throw this thing out the window&quot; moments with my current printer. What printer works for you, is reliable, joins the network easily, and has a customer-friendly ink refill policy?
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dangrossman
Cost to print 5,000 B&W pages on my HP inkjet: $300 ($12 per 200-page generic
ink refill).

Cost to print 5,000 B&W pages on my Brother laser: $25 ($12.50 per 2600-page
generic toner).

Inkjets make no sense if you can put up the extra $50-100 up front for a laser
printer. B&W is at least 10x cheaper, color is at least 5x cheaper, per page.

I have a Brother HL-2270DW for B&W printing, and an HP M251nw for color. Both
are wireless, easy to set up.

Bonuses: Print 5 reams of paper before you need to swap a toner cartridge,
instead of 3+ ink cartridges per ream. If you don't print anything for a few
weeks, you won't need to throw out a dried out cartridge to use the printer
again.

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teslabox
> Cost to print 5,000 B&W pages on my Brother laser: $25 ($12.50 per 2600-page
> generic toner).

I found an unused HP P2015dn at a family member's office. It came loaded with
an aftermarket cartridge. I also found a new-in-box HP toner. Pages printed
with the genuine HP part are much sharper. Maybe some generic cartridges are
better than others... ?

The paper doesn't feed from the drawer anymore, but it feeds fine from the
fold-down tray. It's got a wired network connection too, which works pretty
well, except I can't print auto-duplex (manual-duplex only) over the network
unless I'm printing from Chrome's printing dialogue (wth?).

    
    
      Total pages printed: 	60387
      Duplex pages printed: 	4279
      Pages mispicked in printer: 	783
      Pages jammed in printer: 	29
      PCL6 pages printed: 	48916
      PS pages printed: 	505
      PCL pages printed: 	12937
    

edit: rephrased my statement about generic cartridges

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teh_klev
* Brother HL-5140 b/w laser printer. Purchased new in November 2004 and has been a trouble free workhorse the whole time I've owned it.

According to the printer's status sheet it's printed 7298 pages so far and
jammed just nine times.

The printer is still running on its original fuser and drum units and it's on
its second toner cartridge. I think it cost me GBP150.00.

It's connected directly to my Windows 10 workstation via USB and is "shared".
Fairly certain I could get some sort of WiFi arrangement rigged up, but this
PC is rarely switched off.

* Canon MG5500

Got this as a freebie. I use it now and again as a scanner and to print high
quality Hubble pics onto high quality printer paper. It's set up over WiFi
which was ridiculously easy to do. It even scans over WiFi which gave me a
certain sense of _wow that 's clever_ even though it shouldn't have :)

In parting, I'd say that the economics of a half decent laser printer are a
bit of a no-brainer if its mostly b/w printing you do.

[edit] Forgot to mention that both printers happily talk to Fedora.

~~~
zer00eyz
I have a brother HL-L2320D (laser, love it). It doesn't have wireless and that
was a conscious choice at the time, as an old Raspberry PI got put to work as
the print server.

If you find something without networking it isn't hard to find a way to add it
on!

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alexdrans
I don't print that often, and very, very rarely do I need to print in colour
if so, so I have the Samsung ML-1660. A few years old, but the line of
products I would definitely recommend. There are colour versions too.

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stryk
I bought a Canon imageCLASS D530 in mid-2014 for $68 new, incl. shipping (and
it's a bit of a beast). B&W laser, color scanning, it's wired but no problem
for me. The "starter" toner cart that came with it is just now starting to
die, but if you take them out and give them a good shaking you can usually get
another 100+ pages out of them. Canon-brand toner carts are stupid expensive,
but third-party ones are everywhere, and they're $25 or under. I'm unsure
which brand to go with, as this is the first time I've needed one, but I'm
leaning towards Newegg's house brand (Rosewill, $18). It's either that or an
"Arthur Imaging" branded one on Amazon for $25 (great reviews, that is if you
take those seriously anymore)

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stephancoral
HP M252dw has been the most reliable home option for me. I run a small press
and have printed tens of thousands of pages in a span of about six months and
all it needed was new ink. Colors look great, text is crisp. You can print to
it via email which is really handy

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a3n
Depending on how sensitive your documents are, you can just upload them to
Staples, they print it, and you pick it up.

I have an inkjet at home, hardly use it.

When I want something to look nice, down to the ink on the paper, I use
Staples.

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danielvf
I have an old HP 4050N LaserJet. It was old when I got, and I've had it ten
years. It is a fantastic printer! Runs for years on a single toner cartridge.
Prints fast, always works.

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sundarurfriend
To kinda hijack this thread (but not really): I see Brother printers coming
highly recommended again and again, both here and on Reddit, but for some
reason they don't seem to be as prominent on the public mindshare as HP or
Dell or such major companies. Is it because the other companies can afford
higher marketing budgets, or is there some catch?

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codegeek
I bought a Canon imageCLASS MF227dw and it has been awesome. Laser
printer,wireless,scans multiple pages to PDF and a lot more.

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MWDYDOC/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MWDYDOC/)

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ljsocal
HP LaserJet All in one purchased in 2014. For my $, laser is the way to go.
They are economical on a cost per page basis and they last a long time. I
purchase a Canon laser printer but returned it after spending two hours
attempting (unsuccessfully) to get it set up to print.

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c22
I'm using an HP m401dn for about a year and a half that I am very satisfied
with. Laptops running Linux and android phones have been able to print to it
with no configuration. And while I admit to not doing a huge amount of
printing I have yet to buy more toner for it.

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theGREENsuit
HP Officejet 4630. It doesn't get a lot of use, so I'm using an IFTTT recipe
to print a test page on the first of each month. Trying to avoid having the
ink dry out. I've printed maybe 20 pages over the past 10 months.

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seanwilson
None! Can you not change things so you don't need to print anymore?

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NumberCruncher
Canon MX895 all in one inkjet with WiFi. I only print contracts I have to sign
so it's OK but cost per page seems to be too high for everyday usage.

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hooliews
Got a Xerox Phaser 3020. Wireless Setup is a little wonky, but it has worked
so far for the year I've had it and the print quality is good.

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kazinator
Brother HL-3170CDW color LED printer. Bought within the last year.

~~~
nataz
How good is the color printing quality?

~~~
kazinator
Honestly, I would say fair to awful. Some of the "awful" is due to driver
issues, I'm sure. I've seen an image come out too red looking, but it wouldn't
reproduce with the same image. I've been pleasantly surprised by _some_ of the
results, but not so pleasantly by others. To land a verdict in, I would have
to try something on proper glossy paper.

Anyway, to me, it's really a pointless question; if you want good color, take
your files to a pro printing shop. You're not going to get good color at home.

Printing photographs (e.g.) at home is a silly waste of money.

Firstly, it requires ink, not toner. (Rules out a LED or laser printer like
this). Toner is colored plastic powder: the three colors don't blend properly.
On a given pixel, more of one toner is going to end up on top, and even though
it's melted by heat, it's not going to produce the right effect, like when
drops of liquid ink blend together.

Ink requires an inkjet, and an inkjet is a silly thing to own. The ink is used
up quickly and is expensive. You have to print quite regularly otherwise they
dry up and clog. If you try to refill the cartridges yourself (e.g. open holes
in them and syringe in the ink), you risk introducing particles of impurities
which will clog the heads, and then the unit is kaput.

After all that, the cheap inkjets that people buy for home use don't compare
to big, professional printing units. You will end up pay more per image than
if you send out for it.

I have this printer for printing documents and the occasional image (perhaps
embedded in a document). Color adds a nice dimension to docs, and doesn't have
to be correct.

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qaq
Canon MF8500C aftermarket cartridges are dirt cheap

