I have a Brother 2035 - and it's been nothing but trouble since I first bought it. The toner carts go in ok but always decide to wedge on the way out. Paper jams are regular etc etc. And now it's stuck offline in spite of all the usual button resets combination. So I'd like to get a replacement. Anyone care to suggest something you found reliable. Laser, B&W, and I hear Canon are good? I'd like to get a colour one but the toner is too expensive for my occasional use of colour. tvm
Anyone suggest a good reliable b&w laser printer? Mine's just cra*
Feb 13, 2016
72 Replies
I meant of course a "mono" printer - printing white being rather tricky :-)
I bought a simple Samsung black and white laser printer (ML-1210) some years ago from Staples. Cost £50, which was good at that time. Never given any problems and done at least 1000 pages. Cartridges are easy to change, and to refill.
Get a s/h Laserjet 5 on eBay.
I have always purchased a laser printer based on the cost of its consumables.
I might go down the list of printers, say in eBuyer, and jot down the cost of a set of cartridges, taking how many pages they are meant to print.
Colour doesn't have to be expensive. An example set of toner:
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The printer for that set was purchased for £200 a while ago and still going strong.
I'm also sick of pricey refills and mediocre quality printer. On the other hand the Epson WorkForce WF-3620 is underpriced at ?90 and its features may suit you.
All in one colour inkjet. Professional quality. Accepts cheap third party ink refills. Excellent paper handling including multisheet feeder. Fast printing. Only a few annoying cleaning cycles.
However it is definitely large. Also Epson try to dupe you into setting up the printer so it uses only Epson cartridges. Some online guides tell you how to avoid this during.
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See:
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That warns about reliability but I have the similar WF-7610 which at ?134 is, I think, from the next range up and it has been fine. Buying from Amazon makes returns easy but if you buy from Printerland for about ?20 or ?30 more, you get 3 years onsite warranty which is great.
Having said all that, I prefer to use a mono desktop laser as my laser cartridges are very cheap and use the Epson for photocopying or for colour.
HP Laserjet 1320N on eBay - auto-duplex, excellent printers, cheap, cheap toner
+10,000,000
I had one of those I bought new back in the early 90s for 750 quid and it remains to this day the best printer for trouble-free reliability and sharpness I have ever owned.
Switch off? I think the 4050 here was last off a few years ago :-).
4050's are available on eBay and similar for few drinking vouchers and are reliable, cheap to run and produce high quality print. Downside is they are a tad big and heavy.
I'm with TNP on that. I still have and use in places a 4+ and a 5 but they use 80 to 100W when "sleeping". I'd not fork out ?60 a year to keep one running 24/7 in a home environment. A 4000 series is another matter - my 4200 is about 20W when sleeping.
I tempted to say how do you know that the "cartridges are easy to change, and to refill." if you've only printed 1000 pages? I guess the orginal supplied cartridge was a low capacity one... (and why does a B&W printer have more than one cartridge?) B-)
At 1000 pages it hasn't even started to be run in yet. The CP1515N Colour LaserJet here has done 16766 (4482 in colour).
As for the OP wasn't there flag waving for cheap laser printer in another thread?
Just how much electricity do they use while idle? LJ4s used loads, LJ5 may have been better. Lj4 from off took quite a long time to warm up and most home users wouldn't want the cost of leaving them warm.
Hear hear. That's what I have.
I have a remote control to turn them off to save me getting up.
I am about to scrap a couple of LJ5's
Ouch.
I was running a HPLJ P2015dn until recently and according to the web:
Power Consumption Operational: 350 Watt Power Consumption Stand by / Sleep: 7 Watt
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No, it all adds up. My server 'hibernates' when the last client disconnects at night and wakes again with the first.
That still sounds quite high, for 'today' I mean?
I have a fairly big Ricoh SP C252SF MF Colour laser and accord Power consumption:
Maximum: 1,300 W Energy Saver timer: 3.8 W
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(I've put it in the most economic mode so that means it takes a bit longer to start to print each session and drops back to sleep in 5 mins).).
I've not actually measured it though but I think I might.
Cheers, T i m
The early LJ4 wasn't as efficient as your model. About 25W standby was good and early models were up to a socking 80W standby and
300W in use. I remember just how warm my old LJ4 used to get!
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En el artículo , pamela escribió:
I've got one of those (LJ P2015n), picked it up at a car boot for a fiver and it even came with a spare new toner. It was sold as faulty, but a quick clean of the pickup roller with some IPA and off it went. It gets daily use. Has network capability too.
There have been mutterings online about the formatter board failing, so far all has been fine.
En el artículo , mike escribió:
Someone posted this in uk.comp.homebuilt yesterday - mono laser printer/scanner for 30 quid, 2 year warranty, free del. Might be worth a look.
Beware it's a GDI printer = a Winprinter.
"Ricoh SP112SU Multi-Function A4 Mono Laser Printer" "eBuyer currently has them for £25 (QuickFind: 721613) free delivery"
We have a Samsung 1865W which has been extremely good. It has USB and Wireless interfaces, you can get drivers for Linux, Mac, oh and Windows. The only niggle is it doesn't do AirPrint from IOS devices, although I've configured a Linux machine to provided this as a service.
We paid £65 for ours at CostCo.
My previous laser printer was also a Samsung. I only replaced it as it didn't have a network port and the 1865w was such a good deal.
That was my first laser printer, as you say very good. However, it lacks a network port or USB, it is the old fashioned parallel printer interface.
You could add a small print server, which I did until it died.
I passed mine on to someone who had a stand alone PC and it lasted them several more years at least.
Mine is similar (poss last years version) of this:
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It is unbelievable how small and light it is - really is a bookshelf unit.
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