I told Nathan last night that I want a new printer for our home computer for my birthday. So now I need to know what type of printer to get.

Requirements:
1) Color Printer, with the option of replacing the color cartridge with a black cartridge (Nathan's requirement, not mine)
2) High number of pages per toner cartridge
3) Inexpensive toner cartridges or toner cartridges that rarely need to be replaced
4) Sleek design to complement our Blac Dell Computer (girlie request)
5) Not Lexmark or Epson

The price range I have in mind is no more than $200, but I would pay more if the printer had inexpensive cartridges or cartridges with a long life.

We currently have a Canon BubbleJet printer that is worth about a dollar. and with having a Color Laserjet at work, I am totally spoiled.

Any advice would be helpful.

If you can bump your budget up a little, Costco and Fry's have nice entry-level Color Lasers for around $650 - $700. The Samsung at Fry's even has a built-in duplexer for no-hands no-fumbling two sided printing.

For Ink-jet, stick with the Canon Printers that take seperate ink tanks for each color - you don't have to throw out the printhead and all three inks because you ran it out of red...

I have the Canon BJC-8200 Photo Printer that works fine for the little bit of color printing that I do - I usually just use my HP LaserJet 3200 for black.

:fez: --<< Bruce >>--

HP makes great printers, but the cartridges are a bit on the pricey side (however, I do get great pictures and long life from them!).

I have an HP Deskjet 970 Cxi and I absolutely love it.
I got it about a year+ ago for about $245 - you can probably find an nice HP with the same features or better for less than that now....but I love HPs and the quality, for me, can't be beat.

I have had Lexmark (cheap printer), Canon (cheap ink), and Epson (lousy printing) so I've been around the printer scene.

-Demigod

I just bought this printer (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1055770478290&skuId=5707862&type=product&productCategoryId=cat01018) from bestbuy a month or 2 ago and I have been tremendously happy with it.

Like Demigod said, the cartridges are a bit pricey (the replacement cost is about $25-$30 per cartridge), but I have photos in frames around my house that are basically indistinguishable from the prints from the photo store.

One of the best things I like about it is that I can put my memorystick or CF card (I have 2 different digital cameras) into the printer without having to turn the computer on or connect it to the network. It also has the slot for 4x6 photo paper, which has made it easy to print photos that are already cropped for frames.

I have an Epson Stylus. It's older but I wouldn't hesitate to get an Epson Stylus again.

If I buy the cartriges name brand at a place like Best Buy they are pricey ($30+), however I found a little kiosk in the mall that sold them for $5 (black) and $7 (color). They went out of business but I've had good luck buying them on Ebay for about $10 after shipping. They work just as good as the name brand ones (from what I can tell).

Originally posted by HB Tigger Fan
If I buy the cartriges name brand at a place like Best Buy they are pricey ($30+), however I found a little kiosk in the mall that sold them for $5 (black) and $7 (color). They went out of business but I've had good luck buying them on Ebay for about $10 after shipping. They work just as good as the name brand ones (from what I can tell).

I don't suggest using 3rd party cartriges. They can break your printer, plus the prints won't last as long/look as good, and the ink will not last as long. Plus, you may void your warrenty by using them.


I have a HP Officejet T45. It has served me well for the past 5 years, but I think it's starting to bite the dust. I will probably go with a laser this time. That Samsung looks nice. Anyone willing to lend me 700 bucks? :fez:

Originally posted by DisneyFan25863
I don't suggest using 3rd party cartriges. They can break your printer, plus the prints won't last as long/look as good, and the ink will not last as long. Plus, you may void your warrenty by using them.

When I was taking online classes (printing out 100+ pages a week) the ink lasted me 2 semesters. My warrenty is long expired and I've had nothing but good luck with them...But thanks :)

Originally posted by HB Tigger Fan
When I was taking online classes (printing out 100+ pages a week) the ink lasted me 2 semesters. My warrenty is long expired and I've had nothing but good luck with them...But thanks :)

Wow. Are you sure you just arn't buying Brand Names off ebay? Or are they a remanufactured brand?

Originally posted by DisneyFan25863
I don't suggest using 3rd party cartriges. They can break your printer, plus the prints won't last as long/look as good, and the ink will not last as long. Plus, you may void your warrenty by using them.

You have to avoid Lexmark like the plague - they're the ones that are trying to stop sales of 3rd party replacement toner cartridges by putting a "toner level" chip in one series of their laser printer cartridge, and when it thinks the cartridge should be empty (2000 copies or however it senses it) it tells the printer to stop, "I'm Empty". The chip can not be reset.

The one company that came up with a new chip for use in recycled/refilled/third party new cartridges (so they would work in Lexmark printers again) has been sued by Lexmark - for violating the Digital Millenium Copyright Act because they broke the chip codes.

They could practically GIVE the printers away, if they price the replacement cartridges high enough to make their money back on the consumables - and if they can restrict you to only buying OEM consumables, that's a big bonus for them. That's why you have to study the "total cost of ownership" when buying a printer.

You want to die, look at the TCOO of one of the Ribbon Cartridge-based "Plain Paper" Fax machines. Someone can send you a whole almost-blank page with one line of writing at the top, and the fax machine will cheerfully waste a whole 11" of the ribbon roll.

I have a HP Officejet T45. It has served me well for the past 5 years, but I think it's starting to bite the dust. I will probably go with a laser this time. That Samsung looks nice. Anyone willing to lend me 700 bucks? :fez:

You just have to tell yourself "It does color, it does black and white, it's a whole lot faster and cheaper to use than ink-jet, the output looks a lot better, the machine should last longer without problems, and one toner cartridge should outlast 2 or 3 ink cartridges for the same use."

And the Samsung has a duplexer built in, so that cuts your paper bill and makes it possible to do finished brochures and more professional-looking two-sided letters on one sheet. Without feeding and flipping paper manually every time. Or running off to Kinko's^w The FedEx Store for color copies at 50¢ a page. Save your pennies and cowboy up - that's my excuse^w umm, plan for explaining the purchase when I get mine. :D

And the exact same reasoning I used for getting a Laser-Jet 3200 Fax/Printer in November 2000 instead of a new thermal fax.

Double the price of a thermal or ink-jet printer/fax machine, but I'm still on the original toner cartridge - so the TCOO is still about $600. And that's after (from the Configuration Report I just pulled):
1103 total pages printed
26 pages jammed in printer
279 total pages scanned
2 pages jammed in scanner
228 pages scanned to copy
246 pages printed from copy

(And that count may have been reset when I re-flashed the firmware a few years back - the factory firmware was buggy.)

:fez: --<< Bruce >>--

Originally posted by DisneyFan25863
Wow. Are you sure you just arn't buying Brand Names off ebay? Or are they a remanufactured brand?

They appear to be brand new generic, and are the same brand I got from the kiosk in the mall.

I have an HP LaserJet 2100M, connected to both my Mac and my DOS/Linux box, and I have an ALPS MicroDry MD-1300 connected to my Mac only.

If anybody ever actually gets the ALPS MicroDry technology back on the market, GO FOR IT! MicroDry ribbons have an indefinite shelf life, the prints come out bone dry and water-resistant, and if the machine has a dyesub mode (mine does), then it can do the same job as big dyesub machines costing even more than a typical color laser printer.

I recommend that if you get a laser printer, color or monochrome, you should insist on one with Postscript.