Re: Recommendations - low-end networkable mono laser

A couple of questions come to mind for consideration. Will you be working with OEM toner cartridges, refilled/remanufactured cartridges, or will you or someone at your school be providing the service? The reason I ask is because the availability of 3rd party remanufactured or commercialized refilled cartridges may vary considerably with the brand.

Some models make it very difficult to refill using chips which self destruct, etc. If your budget includes buying new cartridges when they empty, that changes the landscape considerably.

Also, be aware that lower end printer, in particular often come with "starter" cartridges which are only partially full, and the replacement cartridges are usually quite costly, often almost the cost of the printer. Some printers which cost more *may* come with full cartridges, at least. The laser printer industry has become a dirty game of cat and mouse, as the inkjet industry has been, only worse, because the printers cost more to produce, so they often reply upon that first replacement of the toner cartridge to make the profit, requiring that cartridge to cost the price of the whole printer. It is a horrible con game, and it is getting progressively worse.

Xerox, for instance, is now advertising their color solid ink printers as costing the same to print black and white as color. They did this by slightly lowering the cost of the color ink blocks, and jacking up the black ink blocks (which at one point were free with the purchase of a color set) considerably.

I have been following more the color lasers lately than the monochrome, but HP has a entrance level printer that in Canada is selling for under $200, but it comes with half filled toner cartridge. For about $75 more the next one up has the same cartridges, (only they are full), networking capability, and a considerably higher duty cycles. It is really a buyer beware situation.

You may wish to look at Konica-Minolta and Brother black and white models. I do know that Konica-Minolta have gone to using a self destructing chip which costs about $10 to purchase so that refilling can be done. I believe you can refill, but the printer works at something like 1/8th the speed once that chip is blown.

This whole industry needs a good kick in the pants, IMHO. At a time when people and industry is supposed to be lowering their carbon footprint, we have printer manufacturers producing perfectly good technology which is cheaper to toss out after the cartridges empty than to replace the consumables. It is truly unconscionable in this day and age. School should, IMHO be particularly hard on these companies about this business model, not only because it can be damaging to the budget, but also because we should be setting an example for children, and try to protect their world from further environmental damage.

Art

Peter wrote:
Having been recently treated rather poorly by HP I am looking around
for a range of mono lasers to purchase for the school I work at.

Generally I have been purchasing smaller networkable mono printers
around the 20 ppm mark up to 1200 DPI, such as the HP1320N. For
slightly larger printers I've been looking around the 4000 series (eg
4250N)

I've looked at Canon but their range is a bit pricey and limited.
Epson also seems to have a limited range.

Fuji-Xerox has quite a wide range, from the DocuPrint 204A up to
monsters (we do use some of the larger Fuji-Xerox printers already)

Other manufacturers? Samsung has been suggested but I've not seen
useful reviews of their products. I've heard enough bad reports on
Kyocera to give them a wide berth and Lexmark, although I've not heard
bad reports, appear to have problems with supply of consumables - in
Australia at least.

I want to go with a single manufacturer's products so I'm looking for
experiences with printers across the board at this lower end of the
range.

Any information available would be appreciated

Thanks

.

Relevant Pages

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