OT: suggest a printer

[Mindi]

rdouglass said:
Well, as stated before, ink printer folks are not really in the printer business but the ink cartridge business. That's why they sell printers so inexpensively. And BTW, that's the ONLY reason Kodak ever started selling cameras; so they could sell more film.

Personally, I use inkjet only when I have to. I just bought an HP LaserJet 1012 and am very happy with it. IMO laser printers are cheaper than inkjet in the long run.

I paid about $140 for the one I got and have printed over 1000 pages so far with the included toner (which BTW is a "starter" cartridge). New toner costs $39 (about the same as most color ink cartridges) and I should be able to get close to 1500 on a new one.

Except for no color, a laser printer is far more cost effective IMO. And the 1012 works great; very fast first-page-to-print and rated at 15 ppm at 1200 dpi. Pretty solid IMO.

Yes I know about starter cartridges but when we did our 'disposable printer' days I could still print cheaper per copy with a new printer with starter cartridges then I could with new ink cartridges because of the price. Like I said though, we finally found one we liked so we've stuck with it for a while now.

Also if you notice I said I do use my laser for black and white printing, but at the moment I don't want to sink the money into the type of color laser I would want. So for now we have stuck with the inkjet for color.

I am happy with my laser (I am happy with both of my printers actually) but for someone who doesn't want to sink the dollars into a color laser, having a color inkjet and a b&w laser is a good compromise.

Eventually we will probably buy a color laser, but I really want to wait to buy another printer until we have the money to invest in a wide format printer because some of my projects could benefit from it.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

NullAshton said:
Laser printers can have color. And they're super speedy.

How?

[Atrocities]

A few years ago my company decided to get all new printers and throw away their old DOT MATRIX ones. I got about 20 old dot matrix that I then sold on Ebay for about $60.00 to $100.00 each. Then the company realized the horrible mistake they made and offered to buy them back. I had only six left and I offered to sell them each back for $200.00. SOLD. I could have asked $1,000 for each and they would have paid. I did not know this at the time, but those DOT Matrix printers, could print in color and originally cost $20,000 each or so I was told. Man I was a retard.

[Thermodyne]

narf poit chez BOOM said:

How?

They use 4 toner colors. We have some HP4600 color laser printers and they work well, but eat $100 cartridges like George Forman eats burgers.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I must admit I've never tried to figure out how laser printers work and that the last time I saw one in action was maybe 10-12 years ago. What's toner?

[Suicide Junkie]

Basically, its dry ink powder.

The laser is used to set up a pattern of charged/neutral areas on the roller, which then picks up ink with the static charge, and melts it onto the page.

---

Somebody should invent a "superlaser" printer, that scorches the top layers of the paper black and dosen't need any ink at all.

[Thermodyne]

Suicide Junkie said:
Basically, its dry ink powder.

The laser is used to set up a pattern of charged/neutral areas on the roller, which then picks up ink with the static charge, and melts it onto the page.

---

Somebody should invent a "superlaser" printer, that scorches the top layers of the paper black and dosen't need any ink at all.

LOL, I had a LJ III that more or less did that the other day. Pages came out dark brown and smoking.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Suicide Junkie said:
Basically, its dry ink powder.

The laser is used to set up a pattern of charged/neutral areas on the roller, which then picks up ink with the static charge, and melts it onto the page.

---

Somebody should invent a "superlaser" printer, that scorches the top layers of the paper black and dosen't need any ink at all.

Funny...I always thought that that was how they worked...

Ok, given that a laser is photons and not electrons, how does it set up static charges?

[Instar]

Well, what printer to get depends on what you want -- laser printers are more expensive up front, but use less ink. Buy laser if you want to print lots and lots of B&W pages... or a color laser if you're really into it. Otherwise, get an inkjet and use the minimum ink settings (HP5550 is the way to go! I love mine)

[Spoo]

narf poit chez BOOM said:
Ok, given that a laser is photons and not electrons, how does it set up static charges?

The photons ionize some of the atoms in the roller.