Just gone back to Uni and I'll be printing a stack of work. I assume I should go with a laser printer right? If it's actually worth paying more I'd be okay to spend $250. What do you guys recommend? Maybe having a scanner included would be nice but not essential.
Solid printer for Uni use (mostly)
AlexTheKidd on 26/02/2015 - 17:20
Comments
Do you need colour or just B&W printing? If just B&W I suggest something like a [Dell B1265dnf] (http://accessories.ap.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=au&c…) for $240 delivered. Plenty of useful features (network printing, auto duplex, scanner, copier, reasonably priced toner, support for most common OSs, etc. etc.) and dell printers are usually reasonably good quality.
Try to avoid bargain basement printers (inkjets especially) as they're usually horrible.
Black & White would be fine. I'd like whichever printer you guys recommend me to not cost a small fortune to refill if at all possible :-)
Cool. Direct from Dell the toner for the model I suggested is $81.28 for a 1500 page cart and $107.29 for a 2500 (both include delivery) so I don't know if you consider that reasonable. Keep in mind it does come with a starter one, usually lasts anywhere from 600-1500 pages depending on how stingy the manufacturer is.
As always see what others suggest before you decide and RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH!
Buy two printers
- Get a brother mono laser printer for less than $50. Refill cartridges are around $20 on eBay. Mine is a HL-2132 which i got for $40 but you can get a much better model now, bought a $20 cartridge from eBay.
- Get a cheap inkjet when you have to print colour for assignments with graphs or pictures. Beats paying $1.10 a page in office works. I paid $20 for a cheap canon inkjet (Frist one) from MSY. http://www.msy.com.au/nsw/ultimo/peripherals/8402-canon-pixm…
http://www.msy.com.au/nsw/ultimo/home/12695-canon-pixma-mg25…
Scan in uni or buy a cheap inkjet that has a scanner as well.
*Print colour stuff at Uni and use your phone as a scanner
get a mono laser printer - a cheap one from officeworks. Don't worry about colour, either do it at uni, or officeworks.
Another vote for a cheap laser printer. I'll go for Brother or Fuji-Xerox as you can get cheap compatible toners for them easily on eBay — do research on the price of replacement toner first! As of occasional colour printing, just go to a print shop to do it. I guess I don't print enough colour to justify getting even a cheap inkjet.
Last year for uni my wife used a expensive ink jet multi function and it was nothing but grief. This year after reading loads of reviews we bought a Samsung SL-M2835DW from OfficeWorks. I can't fully recommend it yet but so far so good.
I've always liked the Canon MX series. Individual ink tanks including a separate big black tank for B&W printing.
We bought a Brother colour laser printer for around $350. It costs about the same to change the toner cartridges, but they'll last around two years of our usage, so it's far better value than our previous inkjet that was cheap, but poor quality and the ink cartridges lasted only a few months.
We also have a Brother mono laser printer and that's even cheaper again, and well worth it. But I often need to print colour, so we've made a decision that suits us. We used to do the black and white on the mono, then feed it into the inkjet and put on the colour. It was fiddly and wasteful, we often had to do it multiple times to get it right, plus the quality of the print on the inkjet was just woeful compared to the laser.
If you don't need colour, go mono laser, definitely.
If you might use colour a bit, consider upping your budget a little more, these days they are very budget friendly!
P.S. My colour laser is a multifunction - print, scan, copy, fax. As a student, it was a godsend last year!
My Canon inkjet (MX series) is a multifunction.
The printer started producing an error (printhead not recognised)…I didn't really use it for printing much, more for scanning and I love the Auto Duplex Feeder…but because of the error it rendered the whole unit inoperable.Not happy! But it had given me >5 years of good service and so I bought another one (MX970) and I love it (until the printhead fks up again).
Any particular good value sellers you recommend for Brother genuine or compatible toner cartridges?
We haven't been very happy with the compatible ones, but we get the genuine from Inkman.com.au. We bought our last printer (the one I'm raving about above) from them too, they had a really good price. However, it's come down even more at places like Officeworks and others.
Thanks very much for that, spersephone. Were the compatibles from inkman too? What was it about them that you were unhappy with?
We've bought a few from various places. We just felt the quality of printing was inferior, and the lifespan wasn't very good. They were prone to the streaks that make it pointless to have a laser printer, from which you would expect higher quality printing.
I recommend pick up an all in one printer with really cheap ink. Not necessarily laser. A good inkjet costs about the same as laser page for page nowadays + you get colour and can print good photos.It has a very good page and flatbed scanner to boot. Try something like the HP Officejet pro 8610 when they are on sale.