cheap printer

[stuck]

im after a cheap, efficient, reliable black and white printer. Suggestions?

Thanks!!

[hank]

I had the earlier incarnations of the Samsung laser printer:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=876324

Reliable, good quality and very cheap toner that you can self fill for around £10. Being laser, the toner lasts for ages.

I would check google for toner on the above link though - not sure of the newer models.

[Pob255]

There are some good hp ones too, http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=755655
I'd go with a mono laser if you're just printing black&white.

If you're doing higher volume printing then you should go for one of the more expensive "higher duty cycle" laser printers they cost more but are better suited for large amounts of printing. (1000+ pages per month)

Also be aware that there is a current trend in printers.
-New printers come with 25%-10% filled cartriges (ie if the standard cartrige is good for 1000 pages then the one you get with the printer will only be good for 250-100 pages)
-Lower build quality, this is occureing on all makes, to keep costs down corners get cut, still good enough for 3-5 years thoe, just not the 10year lifespan of older printers
-Printer costs have droped but supply cost have gone up. Don't be surrprised if a new toner costs more than the printer did. (same applies for inkjets, just not so extreme however toners don't dry up without constant use like inks tend to do)

[stuck]

how/where do i find out about replacing the cartridges and how much that will cost? The HP says it comes with a cartridge that will do 700 pages which sounds ok, no? i am just using it for printing uni stuff like lecture slides so not very heavy use prob about 20 pages a week or there abouts.

[SiM]

I would take a look on ebay. Some fairly decent printers go for next to nothing there...

[Kumagoro]

Samsung Colour laser with scanner

http://computerprices.pricegrabber.c...oduct/sv=title

PC pro did a round up recently of inkjets, I believe the canon MP610 and 520 had very cheap
running costs but it doesnt state it in the link.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/labs/168/inkj.../products.html

--
I think you should get a colour for when you print out reports, a little bit of colour makes a big
difference presentation wise and can be the difference between getting a 2.1 and a 1st.
A scanner came in handy for me to scan stuff off handouts and books.

[stuck]

i know what you mean about reports etc, colour certainly gives them an edge. I just assumed mono laser to be a lot more efficient but it seems mono on either of those canons is fairly efficient too!

any more advice/suggestions?
Cheers

[stuck]

does anyone know anything about the mp630 from canon? is it worth the extra? If not i'm almost certainly going to go for the mp610!

[Thorsson]

I have the MP600R and the quality is excellent - I chose the R because it was LAN enabled, so I didn't need any extra kit to share it. Otherwise the 610 would have been my choice

[chrestomanci]

I would ask around or look on the Internet for a second hand laser printer. Lasers are fairly cheap to run and will run for ever if you keep them well cared for.

For example, 15 years ago, I brought an HP Laserjet 4L, My dad has it now but it still runs just fine. My mother in law has another, and I see cheap or free ones come of sale fairly often. Toner cartrages cost about £30 for 3,000 pages, and drivers are easily available for Linux and Macs as well as windows. The only down sides are that it is parallel port only, and only does 4ppm.

I am not saying that you should specifically seek out that model of printer, but If you want cheap and reliable black and white printing, then you should look out for an old laser printer. In some ways the older the better as, the old ones where built to last rather than down to a price. (My printer cost £500+VAT when I brought it).

[Pob255]

To find out the price of toners, just look up that model printer details on the manufactors website, they generally have a code for each toner, then do a search on that toner, many manufactors have offical shops and sell offical toners&paper through them.
However they are generally more expensive than other places (i'm talking original toners not 3rd party here)

Heck if this is for Uni then I'd expect them to have colour lasers you can your to print out work.

For the mp630 (which is a inkjet all-in-one) you're looking for the cannon CLI-8 cartridges, cannon do them for £10 each, each colour is seperate, so 4 in total (Black+cyan+yellow+magenta) for £40
Remember as with all current printers if they run out of any one colour they will refuse to print anymore untill you put in more ink. (even if you are out of a colour and only want to print black&white it will still refuse to untill you replace the colour)

Ok now My advice here is wait untill you get to uni' check out the resources you have access to, if they have colour lasers and don't charge a fortune to use them, then use them
If you still want a printer scanner for the odd printout of your own + rough drafts and such then go for one of the even cheaper more basic models.
no need for a silly colour LCD screen if you not printing directly from a camera/memory card, a pc screen is going to give you a far better preview of what you're going to print
Smoething like the MP210 should be fine, and a whole £41 http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=760382

[stuck]

you make a good point there are colour laser printers all over uni and they are not expensive to use. I am tempted to just get a cheap black and white laser but then being able to scan stuff from books etc would prob be quite useful now and then..... urghhk i can't decide

[Pob255]

Then my advice is definately get one of the cheap basic all-in-one inkjet printer+scanners it'll be around £50 and will be fine for basic scanning and printing, you want fancy printouts, use the ones at uni
PS no need for fancy paper ether, basic plane A4 photocopy quality paper is all you need.

PPS remember to get a USB A-B lead as well, printers don't generally come with one or a short one only.

[stuck]

what about ink? The reviews on amazon suggest ink is expensive with the 210? I will be printing about 40 pages a week black and white

[stuck]

any views on the mp210 from canon?

[Kumagoro]

How much does it cost to do a colour page using the uni ones? When i was at uni back in the day
you would get charged a set amount per page no matter how much colour it uses. It wasnt
what i would call cheap then but tech does march on so maybe it is dirt cheap now.

From my experience though I would get a colour one with scanner. Wasting money on a super
photo printer is silly you just need reasonable quality with cheap running costs.

Having your own is convenient and saves time especially when you are writing your report in one
night... Sometimes there are major deadlines for loads of students and the buggers are clogging it
up and they run out of paper etc. It will probably happen at the worst possible time too.

I think the Pixma MP610 looks like a good buy to me. its seems the cheapest way to get it is
through amazons market place from pixmania. direct from pixmania its more expensive even
using quidco and the current 5% off code listed on HotUKdeals

The MP210 uses an all in one colour cart which makes running costs much much higher.