Looking for the best Laser printer for around $200

BentValve

Diamond Member
Dec 26, 2001
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Looking for a reliable, decent quality and cheap to operate Laser printer for around $200

What I have found so far.....
HP 1012s are around $150 on Ebay
HP 1150s and 1300s are closer to $300


Any others I should consider?
 

lucky9

Senior member
Sep 6, 2003
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The 1012. HP owns the market for a reason. Buy it where you want and trust it to be someone with a trackrecord. My daughter got burned on a set of drums....yeah, they sent her toy drums.
 

irwincur

Golden Member
Jul 8, 2002
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The HP 1012 is great for home use. I have been using its older brother the HP 1000 for a few years now with no complaints. This is after a quick succession through the laser printer ranks with a Canon, Brother, and Lexmark. This cheap HP has been the most reliable by far.
 

BentValve

Diamond Member
Dec 26, 2001
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Thanks guys, the 1012 it is. I think the C-net review that stated the 1012 was better than the 1300 in graphics quality tilted me over , also the fact that I dont print all that much ...just enough to make Inkjets an expensive proposition though.


Buy.com has refurbs for $136 and I almost went for one when I went to OfficeMax.com and found it for $149 after instant rebate and a $30 off $150 coupon code that I found on Fat#allet....$120 +tx shipped. :)
 

tjames214

Member
Dec 26, 2001
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Wow that's pretty nice deal. I work with these hp laserjet 1012 printers daily and I love them. I think I'm going to have to buy myself one at that price.

I'll just point out some things about this printer though. This printer is a USB only printer, therefore it will not work in DOS or Windows 95 or NT4 or Windows 98 First Edition since those operating systems don't have usb printing support natively. There are mainly two issues with these printers, both of which are easily solved or can be avoided. This printer uses a host-based driver. The host-based drivers mean that these drivers must be designed specifically for the operating system because it depends on the host OS to do some data processing before sending the data to printer unlike other hp laserjet printers which support pcl (printer command language).

1) Sometimes, the PCL5e drivers get installed. If these pcl5e are installed, every once in a while the printer will print out a PCL XL error message of some sort. This printer was not designed to support PCL. These drivers were placed on the cd for testing purposes only (for techs) and imho, they should have never been placed on the CD. That would cut down on 33% of the problems we have with this printer. Simply reinstall the drivers and select the hostbased drivers located in the ENGLISH\DRIVERS\..OS..\HB directory.

2) Sometimes the autorun installer falters with a 'severe error' message or other miscellanous errors. With 99% of the time, I can disable any anti-virus or firewall and clear temporarity files and try the autorun installer from the cd again. Before trying the autorun installer, the recommended thing to do this is to click on Start>Run>msconfig and select selective startup and then uncheck load startup items. Then apply it, close, and restart the pc. Then run a search for *.tmp files on your system (start>search>all files&folder>*.tmp) and delete them. Also clear the temp files in these directories: \windows\temp & \windows\prefetch . Any old installer files may conflict with the hp installer so that's why we need to clear these files. Also we can try going into the device manager and deleting the usb printing support listed under Universal Serial Bus Controllers and deleting and devices listed under something starting with DOT4 or IEEE1284.4 (windows xp only).

If all these methods fail, then a manual installation of the print drivers can be done. By the way, if at any point during the installation the printer asks for the path to find the driver, just type in D:\HW assuming D is the drive the laserjet installation cd is located.

Okay, well I'm off to visit OfficeMax's website. There are just some things LaserJets can do better than InkJets. I would like to be able to print out my resume and have it not smear if I accidently spill water on it or the rain gets to it.
 

BentValve

Diamond Member
Dec 26, 2001
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Wow , thanks for the technical info but I am hoping that just letting it install itself is going to work out ok, I use Windows XP Pro BTW.

Anyhow I got it today and installed it and its awesome, I have never had a laserjet so the speed is just crazy fast to me!

I'll keep this thread in mind though should I run into some problems down the road, thanks!

The first workout I gave it was printing out a 96 page service manual for my Infocus projector, it was fast and it turned out great. I did notice some steaming coming from the roller area, I assume this is normal.


Yes the Office Depot price is great, if you need some assistance on as to how I got that PM me and i'll help out.


Say BTW the 1012 was $149 so splurged on a 500 pack of HammerMill Premium Laser paper rated at 106+ brightness, the paper was $7 and after the $30 coupon and tx the total was about $137.
Anways I am pretty impressed with this paper but don't know if I want to keep spending $7 for every 500 sheets. The difference between the Hammermill and my OfficeMax brand paper is literally night and day.
What are some other papers that are as good as this Hammermill stuff but maybe a tad cheaper?

Thanks
 

wseyller

Senior member
May 16, 2004
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As I am an expert in the electrophotographic process of laser cartridges I say go with Hp. The 1012 is a good choice as its in your price range.
 

Arcanedeath

Platinum Member
Jan 29, 2000
2,822
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I'm not a big fan of the HP LJ1012 primarily because it is host based. I think I'll stick w/ my HP LJ4+ w/ jet direct card and 66mb of ram :) works good and it built like a tank. I suspect this thing will last just about as long as I own a PC and w/ 600x600 dpi it's not bad looking at all. you can buy an older LJ 4 or 4+ from Ebay for fairly cheap it it will prob. last forever w/ minor maint. although when it comes to lasers I'd also rec. HP as the best, but I'd stay away from their top load printers as they all seemed to have issues esp. as they got older.
 

SlickVic

Senior member
Apr 17, 2000
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I have a 1012...works flawless, good output...got mine for ~$140 online around December:beer: