Need Printer for College Freshman- Opinions plz...

[Skiracer]

I am looking for opinions for a Color Laser printer for a college freshman. Small footprint, low cost consumables preferred, but reliability is also very important. Also must be wired ethernet- no static IP addresses on campus WiFi and I'm not setting up a local WiFi for just the printer. Any recommendations? Brother? Samsung? TIA!!

 

[XavierMace]

Brother's are pretty much disposable printers.

Do you need a networked printer or would USB work? Just a printer or scanner/copier/fax? What's the budget? HP's Enterprise lasers are workhorses, but start around $300.

 

[chubbyfatazn]

Brother's are pretty much disposable printers.

How so? I've got an HL2280DW at home for my family and other than the fact that the toner/drum units are separate, it's been great for us. I generally use $12.50 generic Rosewill toner carts with no issue.

I have a Sammy myself for personal use, and it works just as well as the Brother.

 

[XavierMace]

Everytime I have somebody ask me about a Brother, it's because they just saw <insert store name here> has one on sale for like $50. When it fails in a year or two (which in reality was only a couple of hundred pages) they figure they got a year out of it so they are making good on it.

On the other hand, most of the customers I work with have $500 HP Lasers that are 5+ years old and page counts up in the 250k+ range. If the cost of consumables (in other words the long term cost of ownership) is a major factor in your buying decision, then you should consider expected lifespan as well.

I have a Sammy MFC as well and have no complaints with it either. But I bought it with the knowledge that I'd only use the actual printing portion half a dozen times a year at most. I've had it a couple of years now which is all the more most people ask about. However, I've printed less than 100 pages on it. I've gotten far more use out of the scanning than the printing.

TLDR; If you are only going to be printing a handful of pages occassionally, then yes, any cheap laser should work fine for you. If you are going to be printing out books, then I'd recommend investing in a bit nicer printer.

 

[Wall Street]

When you put Brother printers up against HPs corporate line, of course they are worse. When you put Brother printers up against HPs <$100 deskjets, than the HPs are terrible junk too. Doubt a college freshman is looking at for a printer as expensive as his laptop. Also, double a college freshman will print more than one ream of paper in a year.

 

[aigomorla]

id get a brother all in one and consider refilling the toner once b4 trashing it.
The scanner will probably come very in handy, as well as the copy machine feature.

as someone said, they are pretty much disaposible, with the toner costing almost as much as the unit itself if bought OEM Retail.

avoid inkjets for college.
You'll burn way more on ink then the printer itself in 1 semester of humanities.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

My dad had a Brother HL-1270N. We bought it in 2002 and he got rid of it ten years later because toner was too expensive.

I have a HL-2070N I bought in 2006 and an HL-3040CN that's a couple years old. Both get used fairly heavily for home printers (about a ream of paper a month, sometimes more) and are chugging along happily.

 

[piasabird]

Just get a thumb flash drive and use the college printers if you can. I would guess that is what most people do. My college has printers everywhere. Just look out for viruses. where you going to live at college? Dorms dont have much room for luxuries.

 

[Wall Street]

Just get a thumb flash drive and use the college printers if you can. I would guess that is what most people do. My college has printers everywhere. Just look out for viruses. where you going to live at college? Dorms dont have much room for luxuries.

That is a good point. Most colleges have free printing in the labs. Better to use their supplies than yours and the moany schools have the enterprise HP color lasers.

 

[Moonrise]

Brother makes excellent printers. If you find any printer for $50 it will probably not last because you get what you pay for, regardless of brand. We use a Brother laser printer for very heavy printing and it has held up perfectly for years. I got one for personal use as well because of how reliable it is. We paid $150 or so for each and have had thousands of pages printed on them and they still chug strong.

 

[Skiracer]

Phaser 6010/N? On sale at the Egg for $149 right now. I have a Xerox 6500/DN at home that has been a workhorse for several years now, but is WAY too big for a dorm room. As far as on-campus printing it is fairly limited, the college (University of San Diego) has recommended local printers in the dorm rooms. The dorm rooms are a little bigger than typical so not as much an issue room-wise.

 

[Cerb]

Everytime I have somebody ask me about a Brother, it's because they just saw <insert store name here> has one on sale for like $50.

The $200+ HLs MFCs just need a little canned air after a few hundred thousand pages, really no different than the workhorse HPs. The $50 on sale inkjets are OK for inkjets, I guess...but, they're inkjets (half the ink goes towards keeping the jets working, typically). The HL-2270dw would be the lowest-end you'd want for any real printing. Then the 5000 series if you might print thousands of pages, or a MFC-7000 or 8000 to get a scanner with it.

I would just see what the school offers, though. Even non-free printing services are often cheaper than having a printer.

 

[alkemyst]

Go USB. No need to worry what your campus does as you will not have your printer on their network.

Personally I'd do wireless as a student.

 

[gsaldivar]

http://www.techbargains.com/product/printer

 

[Griffinhart]

I owned a black and white Brother Laser printer for years and it was an excellent printer. I gave it to my sister when I upgraded to a color laser. If Brother Color Lasers are anything like the B&W I had for years, It will easily last through college. Brother has been around forever.

When I went to a color laser I went with the HP LaserJet Pro 200 M251NW. You should be able to find one for $200 or so. I got mine last winter for around $150. 3rd party toners run about $90 for a set.

Color lasers don't exactly have a small footprint though. While they aren't the massive things they used to be, they still are larger than compact B&W lasers. The HP is 16x20x14. It has some nice features though. It has a decent sized paper tray (150 Pages) and the ability to print from phones/tablets. It has both wifi and Ethernet, so you have flexibility. It also can be directly connected to a PC. You can also print from a USB stick.