Need a laser printer

[Check]

All of the printers that I have ever owned have been given to me, so I don't know what companies are good. I've heard Brother makes decent inkjet printers but I don't know squat about laser.

The primary use of this printer is going to be printing out rasterbated images and lengthy engineering reports and other college related junk.

The speed of the printer really doesn't matter much to me (it's laser it's going to be fast enough) I'm more worried about the quality of images that I'm going to be printing out.

Networkable is a plus, not a necessity however.

A color printer would be awesome, but with the cost of toner plus the added cost of having a color printer vs. a B&W model, is it worth it? Granted it will be a long time before I get a toner cartridge since this will only be for personal use.

I would like to stick to the ~$300 price range. Cheaper is always good. Nothing in the Black and White variety that is more expensive please.

 

[corkyg]

It's not just a toner cartridge. Most color lasers have FOUR of them. For $300 you would be better off with a good large format inkjet.

 

[corkyg]

Sorry about the double click.

 

[Check]

thanks for the recommendation
how often are you replacing the toner?

 

[corkyg]

That really is a function of how much printing you are doing. The rational way is to get it down to cost poer page. This article is very good about describing color laser values:

CR

 

[you2]

For colour (as far as i can tell) laser is expensive and kind of sucks in quality. Much better off with a nice inkjet. It's not just hte cost - the quality of the inkjet is >>>

For b/w it is another story - and laser is probably the best path. For colour I'd go with somehting like the canon ip4200

 

[alaricljs]

What is it you want to output with color? In my case it came down to the fact that my only color output is photos, and the cost per photo is so low at Costco that I got a B&W laser for the rest of my needs.

Inkjet could have been an option if it weren't for the fact that I have long delays between print sessions (up to months) and when I do print it's *alot* (for instance, 150 4x6 photos to send with greeting cards). With inkjet I'd be churning through ink carts like a madman, so I checked out the big bottle conversions and while nice, they're a huge investment. Also I'd get my print heads clogged and crapped up by the big downtime.

My first rule of thumb in buying a printer is the ability to refill the cartridge (toner/ink/whatever) with GENERIC stuff. Buying real cartridges is for companies.

 

[nerp]

I recently bought a laserjet 1018 and I love it. I'd recommend any of the LJ 10xx series.

 

[Tarrant64]

I'm using a brother hl2040. loving it for b/w printing. didn't really have a need for color, so saved from $$$. it can be had at less than $80 now I think. the toner gets expensive, but in the end you save over $100.

i originally had been an epson user, primarily the full blown color inkets. it sucked, why? because the ink carts for those things always dried up. they are notorious for sh!tty ink. i still have an epson cx6600, and only kept it because if i ever did need to print color, I would use it. otherwise 90% of my prints are b&w.

I've used brother printers at my last job, higher end laser ones, but I've now had experience with personal laser printers too, and they have worked great all around.

 

[Check]

sounds like I should go B&W and just rape my college's (or friend's) color printers when I need to have something in color.

when the printer lists as 1200x1200 dpi, is that the real number of dots or is there some fudging of the numbers going on in some cases?

edit:

There are also 2400x600 1200x600 etc etc. What should I look for if I'm going to be printing out rasterbated and non rasterbated images? These aren't going to be photos but some of them will have some detail to them.

Also, what's the gray scale like on lasers, or are they just Black and White with no grays?

edit 2:

Also, lol at "colour"

 

[alaricljs]

There should be a print engine output listed separately in the detailed specs, any dpi listings that aren't square (1200x600 for instance) the lower number has always been the real print engine output, and I have NO idea what fudging they're doing for the higher dpi settings.

In the ~$300 range you are definitely going to get a 1200x1200, the Brother 2040 (and similar) are 600x600 print engines and the lowest price I've seen after rebate was $80 shipped for the 2040N

 

[nerp]

The LaserJet 1018 was going for about $60 after a $65 rebate recently. It is a 600DPI printer but it uses this "PhotoRet" stuff to make 1200 dpi. The difference in quality isn't all that noticable since the default quality setting is excellent. It prints nice black and white images as well as razor sharp text.

 

[Check]

how do you know when a printer is actually 1200dpi, and when they are using some sort of "software enhancement" in order to get it to print at 1200dpi?

any suggestions on a 1200x1200 (or above) dpi printer? I would like this to be the last printer I have to purchase for a long time so I'm going to put a decent junk of change into it to make sure I'm satisfied with what I'm getting.