GatewayRedbirds.com

Online reviews can certainly make buying decisions easier. Not when it comes to printers. The bad reviews make them all seem terrible.

Two reasons for this:

1. The general population doesn't have the technological expertise to install one of these complicated machines properly.

2. All printers are, indeed, terrible.

ZigZagCardsFan wrote:All printers are, indeed, terrible.

This is the basic problem.

I'm also in the market for a printer. Thinking of getting the cheap black and white laser printer recommended here. My ink jet crapped out, and the ink was costing a fortune anyway as it all gets wasted on the self-clean cycle.

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-cheap-printer/

Arthur Dent wrote:

ZigZagCardsFan wrote:All printers are, indeed, terrible.

This is the basic problem.

I'm also in the market for a printer. Thinking of getting the cheap black and white laser printer recommended here. My ink jet crapped out, and the ink was costing a fortune anyway as it all gets wasted on the self-clean cycle.

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-cheap-printer/

About a year or so ago the toner cartridge on my trusty cheap $99 HP B&W laser printer I bought 14 years ago in college finally ran out. I went to Staples to buy a new toner cartridge and was floored at the fact that they were $90! Apparently that old printer model has had some upgrades throughout the years so the toner cartridges are a lot bigger than they are now.

I walked over to the new laser printer section and bought a new B&W Brother laser printer that was on sale for $59 including the toner cartridge, and donated the old printer to Goodwill.

For color printers, we only have a rarely used HP InkJet. The last set of ink cartridges I bought for it came out messed up, so I'm seriously considering waiting for another big sale at Staples and buying a cheap color laser printer for like $149 or $199. Repeatedly paying $20-40 for ink that only lasts 50-100 pages is insane.

Arthur Dent wrote:I'm also in the market for a printer. Thinking of getting the cheap black and white laser printer recommended here. My ink jet crapped out, and the ink was costing a fortune anyway as it all gets wasted on the self-clean cycle.

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-cheap-printer/

I bought the model in the picture.

I print once a year.

Worth it.

the cheap b&w sounds good but I think the kid probably needs to have color.

I hate paying for all that ink waste though

I will never buy another printer unless tons of toner is included, or, there is some sort of toner service plan. You can buy a printer (that comes with toner) for the price on toner. Screw this business model.

Arthur Dent wrote:

ZigZagCardsFan wrote:All printers are, indeed, terrible.

This is the basic problem.

I'm also in the market for a printer. Thinking of getting the cheap black and white laser printer recommended here. My ink jet crapped out, and the ink was costing a fortune anyway as it all gets wasted on the self-clean cycle.

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-cheap-printer/

I have this exact printer, I think. If not, I have a very similar model. Wireless, duplex, about the same price on Amazon. It's served me well for two or three years now. Just look up the fact that when it tries to tell you the toner is low, there's some trick you can do to get it to use it until it's actually out. You can get much more out of it that way. Although it looks like now, if you buy it from Amazon, they have some new thing called "Dash" where your computer automatically orders new toner for you when it thinks you're running low. That's pretty [expletive], but I'm sure you can disable it.

But yeah, the high yield toner is always $43 or $44, and it's rated for 2,600 pages - but like I said, you'll get more. Beats the hell out of inkjet if you don't need color or scanning/faxing abilities.

lukethedrifter wrote:the cheap b&w sounds good but I think the kid probably needs to have color.

I hate paying for all that ink waste though

I'm not sure how much print at home color is a requirement for me. Nice certainly, but I'm curious to see how much I am actually annoyed by not having it. Can always take files to print elsewhere in those times when it's really needed.

I've been printer-free since a cross country move more than a year ago. I can print for free at the library and have done so a handful of times for things like tickets, but otherwise I haven't missed it. Not an option for everyone, but in my experience AD's hunch will prove correct that it's far less of a burden than you might think.