In the Universe of Printers, One Worth Talking About | Hacker News Reader

In the Universe of Printers, One Worth Talking About

pogue.blogs.nytimes.com

48 pointsgz536 comments

The idea that laser printers are a different world from the inkjet ripoffs is a myth from a time where they cost $1k+ and were thus targeted to professional users exclusively.

The toner in this $150 printer will come less than half full and a replacement is $78. The ratio alone tells you whats going on here.

Generic toner cartridges are cheap and work well. Printer manufacturers don't yet seem to be using the DRM tricks that they've used to prevent the refilling of inkjet cartridges.

Inkjets regularly waste ink to unblock the nozzles, so if you print only occasionally you may only get a handful of pages from an ink cartridge.

Cheap laser printers are a far better deal than inkjets.

You do have to be careful how cheap you go on 3rd party toner cartridges though. At a previous IT job they went a bit too cheap and at least 10-20% of the cartridges leaked toner, covering the inside of the printer with black that frequently ended up on the pages.

You can also buy toner by the bottle and refill your cartridge a few times before needing to replace it.

Although you're right that the razor-razorblade model still applies to these laser printers, the cost per page is far lower than inkjets -- and they are much more reliable. Like Pogue, I had one of this printer's predecessors, the HP 1012, and loved it. Look into re-manufactured toner for a better value. I usually use toners like http://www.4inkjets.com/CE278A-HP-Laser-Toner-Black-Compatib... and with that the costs fall to under 1.5 cents per page ($31 for ~2100 pages).

The Wirecutter[1] is a site that lists the best technology to buy. Like this article, it answers the question, "What is the best ____?". I wonder how the Hewlett-Packard Pro P1606dn competes with the Brother HL-2270DW[2].

[1]: http://thewirecutter.com/

[2]: http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/brother-hl-2270dw-best-lase...

The HL-2270 was the first printer I had ever felt I needed to evangelize for. It was so good, so cheap, and had just the right features. Printed quick, toner lasted forever, toner was surprisingly cheap ($40 for 4k pages), auto duplex, wireless. Set up and forget about it until you need it.

So good. Replacement toner is $25 and there's a reset procedure available for the included cheapie-cartridge. What's more, you can print from Android, iOS, Win and Mac no problem. All for just over a hundred bucks. I own one, bought one for my fiancee and her brother. They love 'em.

I ran a HL-2070N from 2005 to 2013 when it finally died, my only question when buying a new printer was which one of Brother's budget laser printers supported double-sided printing. Went with the HL-2270DW, couldn't be happier.

I gave the old one to my 8-year-old son to disassemble. He demonstrated what finally failed was one of the platens had actually separated from glue holding it to the axle. It was orange foam rubber, still pretty soft, I think it was for post-heating press.

I've bought the (cheaper? uglier?) cousin of the 2270, the HL-2170W. It's a fantastic printer with a 'good enough' web UI for configuration. Works for months without grief.

Have an upvote for brother love.

Edit: Curiosity got the best of me. The 2270 is the new version of the 2170. Adding automatic duplex, dual simultaneous networking, faster printing, and... that's about it. Not quite worth the upgrade, but when mine dies it's good to know there will be a replacement available.

Brother seems to have picked up where HP left off about a decade ago. I bought my wife one of the low-end lasers when she started law & grad school. She ran through about 10k pages/year (she'd even print front/back/upside down to "save" on paper) which was about 1.5 cartridges. It doesn't jam, it doesn't make noise except when printing, although it does take a few seconds to warm up from sleep.

I think we've been on the same cartridge since she graduated several years ago. I usually two-bag consumables, so there may be a really sludgy unopened cartridge in a closet.

Had it been expensive, I'd say you get what you pay for, but I don't think it was over $300 or $400 at the time.

I bought a Brother HL-5140 back in 2004 which cost me around GBP200.00 including taxes. It's still going strong with 7000 pages printed so far. I managed to squeeze out just under 5k pages on the original toner cartridge with some judicious horizontal shaking despite the lifespan stated in the manual as ~3500 pages.

I've only replaced the toner cartridge once (cost: GBP ~50.00) and the "new" one still has another 2500-3000 impressions left.

The diagnostics report that drum is still good for another 13k pages, the fuser for 73k pages and the and the "PF KIT 1" (I think that's the paper lift foot) for 43k pages.

I would definitely go back and buy another HL series of similar capability, they're damn fine work horses.

I bought the HL-2270DW based on the Wirecutter's recommendation. It's fine for the price, but it has a LOT of fan noise, which means it's mostly turned off in my home office. It's also pretty bad at printing dark images (lots of white stripes in the black).

Wow, what a great site. Thanks!

A few years ago, I bought a LaserJet 4200 used via EBay for < $200. Huge, probably sucks down a bit too much power in standby mode, and sort-of noisy. However, IT JUST WORKS. Because this series still is in offices all over (and a source of toner revenue for HP?), driver updates still seem frequent.

For those considering the printer mentioned in the article but need wireless connectivity, consider a cheapie dd-wrt router configured as a client. I use this set-up for my kids' computer in our kitchen, and it's been no problem.

I have a HP printer in the same series as this one and I can verify that it is rock solid in build-quality, reliability, and in producing fast clean black prints.

If you don't print often, or rarely print in color I would strongly recommend a laser printer (and just go to a print shop for the color prints). They are just so much more reliable. http://ask.metafilter.com/78830/Inkjet-or-laser-printer-for-...

I love FedEx/Kinko's printer drivers for color work. Laminate, bind, etc., and have it delivered or pick it up a few blocks away. It's a good half step between "low-fi" and "trade show presentation".

So I'm not sure why this is HN material, but as I have recently co-founded a company (www.sessionbox.com), and just purchased a new printer because of it, I'll pipe up.

When you start a company, there's a ton of paper involved:

- corporate paperwork, including founding documents, stock agreements, advisor forms, etc.

- business contracts: lawyers (corporate, IP, etc), recruiters, office space, etc.

- and most recently, your first big expense report once the seed money lands and you want to pay yourself back.

My old consumer cheapo printer died just when I was trying to get the offer letter out to our (soon-to-be) first employee. The printer just locked up, with all the led's blinking, and I kept power-cycling, to no avail.

While reviewing printers, I decided that the new one needed a "scan to email" feature. Be warned, however, that some cheap printers have a feature that they call "scan to email", but what they mean is: if you hook up our printer via usb to your pc, we'll open outlook for you and attach your scan to it. frak that, man.

What 'scan to email' should really mean is: I walk to the (wirelessly connected) printer/scanner; I put something in the doc feeder; I then use a little display to either a) punch in someone's email address or b) look up frequent email addresses. And then I hit a button, and it scans them, and the printer mails it to them. (As in, it speaks smtp.)

So I ended up with the HP 8600 Plus. The "plus" is important - the plain 8600 does not have scan to email. It's been fine so far, though my bar is probably low.

Hopefully HP has cleaned up their act when it comes to ultra-fine particles[1] ... (or was that paper debunked)?

I own a (now 10 years old) HP LaserJet 2100dn, and when I print something out, I can smell it. Maybe it's time to upgrade.

[1] http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es063049z?journalCode=es...

I have the same printer. I don't mind the smell. What I do mind is that it doesn't work with AirPrint because it only supports postscript and not PDF files. It's frustrating that Apple doesn't support PS and the printer can't be upgraded to support PDF. I can't fix it unless I create a separate print server. And I can't fit CUPS onto my OpenWRT router.

The paper still stands. There has been quite a bit of research activity in this area.

Anecdotally: my lab recently got a Brother laser printer. There was an odour after printing so we tried the experiment (using the same air quality equipment). Sure enough, we saw huge UFP peaks.

Recent developments: UFP emissions from 3D printers http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231013...

The main reason I bought a colour laser printer is the ink (toner) doesn't congeal if you don't use the printer for a few months.

No display - don't buy it.

Any network printer without some sort of display royally sucks. You cannot easily diagnose communication errors with a couple blinking lights.

Much easier to troubleshoot a complex device if it can actually tell you something. Sometimes trying to coax it to communicate using button gymnastics doesn't work.

Other than that, yeah, HP laserjets are pretty rad.

I disagree. Much like my very complex home routers, this printer has an awesome Web UI. Unlike my routers, you can hold the button down and it prints a complete status report, including the IP config.

All I can say is sometimes the printer may not provide enough information via status pages. Had it happen to me where one was was in a bad state and didn't play well with others.

Models that you can configure via on-printer displays are way faster to setup and easier to deal with technicalities in the long run.

I had a number of ink jets and the ink cartridges literally dried out before I could print many pages, mostly due to the infrequency of my printing. I finally switched over to black and white laser and won't look back. Toner seems to last MUCH longer.

My hp inkjet has empty cartridges after 14 print jobs of a page or two since the last refill. The firmware on this one is so crappy that it's turned me off of hp printers for good. (And I've had them since the deskwriter era).

Lasers, on the other hand. Cheap and effective. I've got a Brother that's normally $80 at NewEgg/Amazon. The toner lasts 20% longer than advertised, it's fast, and it's never asked me to accept an EULA. I'd buy another one, but I don't expect to need another laser till well after this is discontinued.

Our first toner cartridge lasted 6 years.

Color laser printers are surprisingly cheap.

The don't make photo-quality prints, but it's good enough for casual pictures (posters, flyer, etc).

I've had this exact printer for 2 years and rave about it, recommending it to everyone.

I was tired of years of clogged inkjets and not doing much actual color printing.

Why is this HN material? It looks like thinly-veiled product placement advertising.

Not for me: doesn't have wifi, scanner/copier, and color printing.

The difference between this and what you're looking for is akin to the difference between a mini-van and a pickup truck.

The article fails to mention that the replacement toner cartridge costs $80. [1]

HP claims their toner cartridge yields 2100 pages or about four cents a page.

[1] http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Ink_...

The article explicitly mentions that the cartridge is $78 and gets 2,000 pages.

The article fails to mention that the replacement toner cartridge costs $80. [1] HP claims their toner cartridge yields 2100 pages or about four cents a page.

From the article:

"You get about 2,000 pages from each $78 cartridge, which isn’t bad."

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