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Is I cheeps?

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I don't use my printer much but I don't think I could do without it. I really have no options to print anywhere else, at least not locally.
 
Ferzerp said:
As others have said, do you actually need one? I haven't had a printer at my house for at least the last 8 years. I haven't missed it.
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Other than using mine to print baseball tickets I don't use mine. Hell I got mine as a gift, never would have bought it to begin with.
 
Ferzerp said:
As others have said, do you actually need one? I haven't had a printer at my house for at least the last 8 years. I haven't missed it.
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I got rid of my inkjet. I now have a cheap b/w laser printer from Brothers. I get about 5000 pages of a $40 cartridge.

I use it mostly for printing out journal articles to read (I don't like reading for a long time on a screen) and printing out templates for projects.

If I ever need color photos printed, I use various online services or even Walgreens to print photos for practically nothing.
 
Buy a B&W laser jet printer as it is suitable for most uses. When color prints are needed, get nice high quality ones from staples.

Or fork out the dough for a good quality color laser printer if color prints are often necessary.

FWIW, I've been using the stock toner drum on my laser jet printer for over 2 years and I have printed many shipping labels on it.

When the low toner alarm came on, I covered up the eye with a piece of black tape about 6 months ago and it still works.
 
Leros said:
I would say it depends how much money you have. It's all relative.
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That's true, but being cheap is simply selecting the least expensive solution to your problem regardless of how it may inconvenience you in the future (see signature). Buying a cheap car part or letting a shady mechanic install it for a low price might leave you stranded, with an expensive towing bill, missed time from work, and the expense to fix it correctly.

Being frugal is being wise with your money and knowing when to save it and when to spend it. Some people might say anyone without a BMW is a cheap ass. But a Ford Focus gets me where I'm going just fine, so why do I need a BMW?

However having a nice car is more important to some people and less important to others, so the former group of people will most likely set aside the resources to get that BMW.
 
lxskllr said:
GNU/Linux is always free regardless of cost or time ;^)
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.... unless your time in invaluable.

To be clear, I respect the open source community and everything they do. I understand that we enjoy alot of OS and application features that originated from open source projects.

My statement is more in response to alot of pompous Linux fanboys who think Linux based operating systems are completely without flaw, and anyone who doesn't know, or is unwilling to take the time to learn how to operate and configure a linux operating system is an imbecile regardless of how much free time that person really has.

The fact of the matter is that I find not everything works right out of the box, and I don't have to time to figure out why flash isn't working correctly, or why I can't get my audio to work correctly. It's always alot of little things like that which keep me from running a Linux machine.
 
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Problem is:

You're not cheap enough. No one needs to spend 56 for a toner cartridge.

Plus, Dell/Lexmark are the worse deals around.

I am not a fan of Brother printers but other people seem to like them.

I have a 4 year old Canon All-in-one I bought for around 125. Every since then I buy toner cartridges (Canon 104's) for less than 13.00 each from eBay.

Now here's a plain old Canon laser for 68 shipped from Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-imageCLA...3473419&sr=1-6

The cartridges they use are Canon 125's. The go for 32.00 for two or 42.00 for three on eBay. That's shipped prices.

Now if you want an all in one for scanning capabilities, here is a 530 from amazon for 119 shipped
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-imageCLA...3473419&sr=1-5

It uses Canon 128 cartridges and they go for under 30 shipped for two of them.
 
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I rather like my HP OfficeJet 6500A. The only features that I wish it had were scan-to-email and/or scan-to-network. I can only scan on a PC with software (the basic method), scan to a memory card, or scan to a computer that is running the scan-to-computer software. The latter works pretty well though. Other users might prefer it to have WiFi as well. This unit is about 2 years old, and I think newer variants have all the features that I mentioned at the same price point.

Oh, and having AirPrint with iOS devices is pretty sweet.
 
If you are even more cheap (smart), you can override the toner low alarm/indication by putting a masking tape over the sensor window on the toner. I did this with my Brother HL 2240 and it's been printing with no degradation in print quality for a long while now. Those toner low indication comes very prematurely on a lot of printers. The manufacturers don't care because they can get more money from toner sales. Check out Youtube and there are quite a few people who have done this trick and were able to print books & upon books on supposedly low toner.
 
I keep using my brother inkjet because the ink carts last me for hundreds of pages and I get them from ebay for $4 each.
 
Lexmark are THE most thirsty ink jet printers.

If you are going to use an ink jet printer, get a Canon (they have one of the cheapest refills).

If you are going to get a laser printer, get a Brother (you can find cheap toners/drums).
 
SunnyD said:
Yes, I really got it for $56.

Problem with your refill kit link is that they don't include the chips. The chips go for about $29/each, instantly raising the price of your refill kit to $162. Given return program toner cartridges run around $40 each, the refill kits offer little to no cost advantage - that is unless you never have to re-chip them once you do it initially, which I have never gotten the answer to in all of my google-travels thusfar.
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Huh.

I can't help but notice the third post on that page:

Be careful of this printer. Toner is WAY expensive and their page yields aren't even half of what they quote. I bought this a couple years ago (~$400) and already dumped it. Off brand toner is +100 each.
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Since everybody else is sharing; Brother Hl-2070N in the loft for wireless access. (It's got an adapter) and a Brother Hl-3040CN in my office.

Yes, toner is cheap. Yes, it's awesome.
 
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