Small laser printer replacement - recommendations?

[Another John]

Hi all

I've had a Samsung ML-2010 B/W laser printer for about 10 years now and it has served extremely well. I do little printing, though every few weeks I do a "large" print of about 50 pages for when I do the pub quiz.

The Samsung getting a little bit crotchety these days, I'm wondering if I should treat myself to a new one: does anyone have a recommendation?

The great things about the 2010 are that (a) it generally works without fuss (b) it's fast (c) it's laser, so no arsing about with smudgy messy expensive ink cartridges (I get enough of that with my Canon MP270, which I use for the occasional colour print).

? Cheers John

[GB]

Printer costs £60. There's a £5 off voucher.

11% Quidco. So, the net cost is around £50. HP are giving £50 cashback on this particular model of printer. So, it's effectively free.

Treat yourself. Buy two! (The voucher only works once, so the second one costs you £5.)

[Andy Burns]

I do very little printing at home, so didn't want a big* laser that ate half my desk space, I decided I could live without colour, so got a Samsung M2026W. No hassle at all, light enough to live on the top shelf and be easy to lift down when needed, wifi so only needs a kettle lead.

[*] actually I do have a colour/postscript/duplex/ethernet/multi-bin monster that takes ages to warm up, but it's tucked away.

[Andy Burns]

I did stand in PC World prodding various small lasers, and that one was my second choice to the Samsung, the HP had an actual paper tray rather than "slot" loading IIRC and larger toner, but it's a winprinter rather than PCL.

[John Rumm]

I just had to replace my aging Laserjet 2200dn, and in the end went for a Laserjet pro M402dne

I wanted duplex and network connection. Proper PCL and Postscript print engine etc.

It seems to do the job very nicely - fast to warm up and print first page (under 7 secs) 30+ ppm, and a proper paper tray. Was about £167 from ebuyer (although you have just reminded me there was a cashback deal on it ;-)

[Brian Gaff]

Yes my old hp is doing very well, and as long as you do not buy the toner from hp, you will be quids in as every cart has effectively a new drum as well, so its just a bit of a clean now and again really. It seems to me most modern printers though are wireless with grotty screens with menus, hence I'll hang on to my good old usb only bog standard switch on and go for as long as I can. Brian

[bin]

I don't know if you'd call it small, but I've been very happy with a "refurbished" HP1320n bought for not very much a couple of years ago - I assume they're still available. Toner cart from StinkyInk or similar costs less than £30 (I think) and lasts ages. I connected it to a wireless bridge (from TP-link) that talks to the router so everyone in the house can use it.

[Iggy]

replying to Another John, Iggy wrote: From a U.S. perspective. The Brother brand has done perfectly well for me for over 20-years. And the leaders that most people find solid in everyway for Lasers are Brother, HP, Canon, in that order. I've never had a problem with Dell, Lexmark or Samsung and they're also very popular. Epson though, I've only experienced in Ink and everything's horrible. The keypads don't function well, the manual's terrible and the Ink is tiny and gets overly wasted in the trap. I wouldn't buy a Laser from Epson.

[charles]

I believe they have stopped making them, wanting everybody to go over to inkjet.

[Huge]

God alone knows why.

[charles]

according to Epson they are faster and cheaper to buy and to run with ink tanks rather thena tiny cartridges.

[Steve Walker]

The trouble with inkjet is that if you don't use them for a couple of weeks (such as being away on holiday), they dry out and clog the nozzles. When you want to print, you spend ages with IPA, followed by numerous head-clean cycles wasting loads of ink. Much of the time, you can't shift the clog and have to buy a vastly overpriced, new cartridge with integral head or with non-integral heads, scrap the printer. Lasers sit there 'til they are needed and just work.

Our current printer is a Samsung CLP-680ND networked, colour laser with duplexing. A bit overkill for home use, but it was cheap (£100 new and boxed) and despite the toners having officially run-out, the override has kept it running for another 14 months so far! That's in a houshold with three kids wasting paper and toner all the time. I can only presume that the "Change Toner" alarm point is calibrated for very high page per week office settings, where running out and not having replacements can be costly.

SteveW

[Huge]

Inkjets are shit and I won't have one in the house.

[Bob Eager]

I still use a 24 year old LaserJet 4M+ for most work.

[John Rumm]

While not ideal as general purpose printers, its hard to touch them if you want to do high end photo prints.

(although Dye Sub is probably better, it never really caught on for the consumer market).

[Chris Bartram]

Nor me. I've had a run of secondhand lasers for the last 20 years or so, and finally had to buy a new printer this year (as no-one I knew was chucking a decent mono laser away). A Dell E310W, which suits my needs just fine. I don't print photos and print rarely. It just worked with Windows & Linux.

[Iggy]

replying to charles, Iggy wrote: That's good news! The less Epson the better, as far as I'm concerned. I'm never trying Ink again, absolutely horrible and wasteful compared to toner.

[Huge]

[22 lines snipped]

Hell, hours, sometimes. I've had three. They were all shit. I threw the Epson out of my study window.

[Huge]

In which case I go somewhere with an appropriate printer. Unless you do a *lot* of photo prints, it isn't worth the hassle.

[Huge]

+1

And when I want to print photos, I just take a memory stick into the photo shop in the High St.