Should I get a printer for college, or just print to the school's printers?

I'm trying to decide whether or not to buy a printer for school this year. I currently don't have one, and I have two options at this point:

• Buy a printer - If I buy a printer, it'll likely be the Samsung ML-1210 since it's built so well and costs so little.
• Use the school's laser printers - They're mostly corporate-class HP laser printers, which is very good, but the problem is that I'd have to go down to the computer lab every time I printed a page over the LAN from my dorm room. I get 400 free pages per year through the school, and after that it's $.05 per page. I have a feeling I'll end up getting charged for my printing, but it definitely won't be $150 (the price of the ML-1210)

Before anyone asks, I WILL NOT settle for anything other than a laser printer if I buy one. My family has never had anything other than laser printers, and I have not yet seen an inkjet that offers the text output quality of even the most inexpensive laser printer.

99% of my printed pages are text (and in college, it'll be even more so - PoliSci major). An inkjet is simply out of the question.

Additionally, I know that while the initial cost of a laser printer is higher than that of an inkjet, the TCO is lower, since toner needs replacing only once every couple thousand pages. Inkjet cartridges last for many fewer pages.

 

[pyonir]

I would buy one if you have the money. My schools printers were a pain in the ass. and then you had to walk to the lab in order to print anything. just too much of a hassle. I had a printer and it was so much easier.

 

[arod]

YES buy your own, schools printers suck.

 

[Viper GTS]

Buy a printer, after a week of running to get print jobs you'll wish you had.

Viper GTS

 

[LuDaCriS66]

I say buy one.. I was in the exact same situation.. I have no idea which one to get though. The inkjet I have at home is a POS... stupid Canon BJC-4100

 

Originally posted by: pyonir
I would buy one if you have the money. My schools printers were a pain in the ass. and then you had to walk to the lab in order to print anything. just too much of a hassle. I had a printer and it was so much easier.

Yeah, I definitely have the money. I saved all the $$ from my 35 hr/week, $8.50/hr job this summer because I thought I'd have to buy my own computer for college...but then my parents said that if I bought a Dell or another prebuilt computer, they'd pay for it (they didn't want to deal with RMAs all summer if I built one myself).

So basically, I've got the money - I think the consensus is to buy my own...which is perfectly okay with me. It'll be nice to have a nice laser printer.

 

[pyonir]

heh, yeah dude, if you're in Michigan, then all those suckers will be walking in the snow to get their papers printed...you won't even have to change out of your jammis.

 

[KingNothing]

Read #4.

Question answered.

 

[mchammer187]

buy one might i suggest the brother hl-1440 i got one upgraded the ram it flies

 

[kgraeme]

WOW! I didn't know you could get a laser printer so cheaply! As a designer, I always had to buy postcript printers and that ain't cheap. But heck, if you're just printing some Word docs, buy the cheapo Samsung!

 

[Semidevil]

at my school, there were days where the computers and printing were "down." So that means I would have to go to another building to print. That sucked eggs pretty bad.

So if I had a choice like you, I would definately buy a printer. So whenever the printers are "down" on a rainy day, you can charge people 5 cents per use.

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: mchammer187
buy one might i suggest the brother hl-1440 i got one upgraded the ram it flies

I'd say BUY your own laser printer. I would also highly recommend the Brother HL-1440 which is the BEST laser printer in it's class. It costs around $50 - $100 more than the Samsung (which is also an excellent printer for the money) but it's well worth every single last frikkin' penny.

<--- Very happy Brother HL-1240 owner.

 

[falconx80]

id say you should NOT get a new printer due to the following KNOWN reasons

1) A Physical Device that you must haul into car and into a dorm and out
2) once you get the printer you have to BUY paper
3) once your room/hall/class mates sees that you have a printer...they will start using it as a last minute resource
4) parties in your room can cause malfunction on the printer due to beer spillage/accidental stepping on
5) your printer might get stolen. (like wise anything that u bring to college)
6) takes up precious dorm room space...

I know that waiting on a line is painful and time consuming but i found out that:

1) You are using paper that you already paid for..(as a part of tuition)
2) You get to know how the school printer works so that you can help others...etc
3) you can talk to people online about how the school printer sucks/ why its slow
4) u get to walk around and not sit in front of your desk waiting for printouts
5) excuse to handin something late if all printers are broken around school
6) the college experience...can always be a subject to bring up when u talk to other people...and when you are 80yrs old


You might not like these points that I have brought up but these are some of the things i experienced.
How you use them, its really up to you... Good luck in college!!

 

[GoodToGo]

Originally posted by: KingNothing
Read #4.

Question answered.

OMG, that was f*cking funny man. And I mean ALL of them not just #4.

 

[dman]

Before anyone asks, I WILL NOT settle for anything other than a laser printer if I buy one. My family has never had anything other than laser printers, and I have not yet seen an inkjet that offers the text output quality of even the most inexpensive laser printer.

Why do you care so much, your professors won't care that your 1200dpi inkjet isn't quite as crisp as your 600dpi laser. You can do inkjet for $20-30 usually, throw it away and buy another later. So, #4 is non-issue. And if you need to use the laser to impress a professor (?!!) then you can use the school's still.

You can also print color charts using your cheap inkjet that you won't be able to do with your cheap laser. Maybe the school has a color laser though.

 

[bonk102]

dont even think about it, buy a printer, the ones at school, doesn't matter what school, it's more lik eall schools, always break down, and are in trouble. you def. should spend the few bucks, and these days it literally is only a few bucks and get you a printer

 

[ksdavis]

Originally posted by: bonk102
dont even think about it, buy a printer, the ones at school, doesn't matter what school, it's more lik eall schools, always break down, and are in trouble.

It ain't easy to keep dorm lab printers online. I work for a higher ed academic computing group managing residential computing support, and it's a PITA to keep printers there. We print 4 million pages per year on 20 HP LaserJets; during peak months these things go through 2500+ pages a day. I feel bad for the students we hire to keep their eyes on these in the dorms; they have a hell of a job trying to keep these filled (and getting calls at 4 am when the printer ran out of paper.)

To keep up with the demands for printing, we now have a perl script talk to our printers via SNMP every 10 minutes, measure the toner and paper levels, and store the info in an Oracle DB. Then we run performance reports on uptime, look for cases of paper theft (paper goes down, toner level doesn't!) and cross-check the keycard access logs... etc., etc.

(That said, our monthly uptime is over 97% in most of the dorms.)

 

[Aquaman]

I'd buy one.

Cheers,
Aquaman

 

[Willoughbyva]

I don't know much about living in dorms, but if you can get your own printer I say go for it.

 

[BD2003]

I'd say just get an inkjet. You arent going to get a better grade on laser printed paper, and youd be surprised how nice the text can be on a entry level inkjet nowadays. Theyve come a long way.

 

[Aquaman]

Originally posted by: BD2003
I'd say just get an inkjet. You arent going to get a better grade on laser printed paper, and youd be surprised how nice the text can be on a entry level inkjet nowadays. Theyve come a long way.

I disagree....... I think you will save a lot of money with a laser printer over the cost of replacement ink carts. One laser toner will get you at least 6000+ pages before replacecment.

Cheers,
Aquaman

 

[max105]

I don't know how far your school printers are going to be away from you, but if you're in a rush to get something printed...it's probably best to have your own. I live a little too far to just run over to the computer lab and print, but if you're in a dorm with a computer lab downstairs or something...that's another story. Also, the printers tend to be queued all the time with print jobs from other people who don't have printers. So I think the question of whether or not you should get one just depends on how often you plan on using a printer. If your computer lab printers are busy most of the time and don't mind waiting, then I say you can save your cash. But with the prices of printers nowadays, I can't really argue against getting one.

 

[pcman2002b]

Better yet, wait till its dark. And steal the school's printer. It won't cost you a thing and you will have the high quality and capacity you are interested in.

And I still can't figure out why nobody is willing to hire me for a job!

 

Okay...so I've narrowed it down to the Brother HL-1440 and the Samsung ML-1210. What are the toner costs of each? I plan on using MAYBE one toner each year...so it' won't be that much of a concern...but anything to bring down the TCO.

For example, I'll pay a bit more for the HL-1440 if its toner is $20 versus the ML-1210 if its toner is $75. I don't care about anything but text quality. I rarely, if ever print anything but text.

 

[ksdavis]

I bought my mom an ML-1210 last year. It's an excellent printer and very reliable. It doesn't have quite the toner life that the HP LaserJets I've worked with do; I think it got about 2000-2500 pages on one cartridge. The cartridges are about $70.00 each

Still, you have to remember that the price per page is much lower than with an inkjet. You're looking at 3 1/2 cents per page for toner with a LaserJet. Throw in a penny per page more for paper and that's pretty cheap printing... much better than inkjets!

I've owned a LaserJet 4L since '93 that got me through high school and college. I was a social sciences major and wrote tons of papers (and drafts of papers...) and it was very cost-effective. I think I've gone through three toner cartridges since I got the printer.