Laser Printer that is refill friendly

[vtohthree]

I'm looking into a monochrome laser printer that costs around $150(it can be less, a lot less). I'm looking for:

*refill friendly
*doesn't jam often
*holds a good amount of paper

(*Edit, Update)
Potential Candidates:

Brother HL-5240(ended up buying this unit)
Brother HL-2140/2170(network ready version)
HP Laserjet 1022

I know the Samsung's were really refill friendly, but I haven't kept up to date with the current ones. I've read around that the Brother HL-5420's have had fuser problems with quite a few users, it would heat up to the point where it'd burn the paper or curl it to an absurd extent.



I don't care much about speeds that much as I'm expecting most to be over 17ppm by now.

Something I wanted to note was that I was inspired by my search after I saw my friend's Samsung ML-1740(if I'm not mistaken) and I was surprised by it's performance for it's price. He's had it for years and it's still going strong.

So I was wondering if there's a newer printer out there that as a similar "cult" following of fans because it's an economical-easy refill-warrior?

 

[Griffinhart]

I've had the HP Laserjet 1012 for 3 1/2 years and it's been a workhorse for me. You may consider the 1022 which newegg has for $179
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...ett-Packard-_-28104355

The paper tray holds about 260 pages.


I haven't done the self refill myself, but I have used 3rd party toner.
I use a site called super media store, but I'm sure you can find good prices elsewhere too.

$26 vs $65.

Hope this helps!

 

[vtohthree]

thanks for sharing, it's a start in my search. This is a bit random, but I've heard that Hp started putting in rom chips that count how many pages go through the machine so that it automatically disables it after a certain amount. The chips can be reset but it's a pain in the butt. Have you heard anything like that with this model?

 

[Griffinhart]

That's actually not the case. The information you are mentioning is this:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/0...ers-isnt-selling-them/

You don't have to worry about the printer stopping after a certain page count.

 

[vtohthree]

Originally posted by: Griffinhart
That's actually not the case. The information you are mentioning is this:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/0...ers-isnt-selling-them/

You don't have to worry about the printer stopping after a certain page count.

Actually this is the one that I was referring to:
http://consumerist.com/consume...er-employee-236517.php


I've read around and seen confirmations(I take them lightly, but it still gives strength to the article):

"I work for HP and most of this stuff is accurate.

Amazingly, my job has NOT been moved to India or Costa Rica."

and here's the part that has me worried:

"1: Many HP Printers, like their laser printers, have a built-in page-count after which they won't work. This resides in the a transpart sometimes called image or drum kit. Rather than get the printer fixed, it's often cheaper to buy a new printer, OR you can do a NV ram reset. It resets everything in the printer, including all the page counts, but it's not without risks."

 

[vtohthree]

A side note, I know HP's used to be the greatest out there, in fact their older laser printers are tanks that just don't give up. It's hard to find any brand these days that are consistent with their quality and ethics, just like the old saying goes, "they don't make things the way they used to."

 

[drebo]

I seriously doubt that this is the case. And even if there is some semblance of truth, the process is not nearly so simplistic as "after x pages, the printer stops".

Most laser printers (color ones in particular) have a waste toner bin. When this is full, obviously, issues will happen. Due to the nature of toner, you can't make it user-emptyable...so...they build kits you can use to replace them. Just as a fuser wears out over time or the transfer rollers/film stop working, these consumables just need to be replaced.

To say that it's cheaper to buy a new laser printer is silly to say the least. If you're only spending $150 on a laser printer, you're obviously not buying it for heavy volume and thus would not need to worry about replacing these components that wear out.

Now, if you're spending $1500 on a LaserJet 4250 as a workhorse laser printer for an entire office and your fuser wears out, you better beleave it's cheaper to spend $75 on the new one fuser, rather than replace the entire printer. I've got some LaserJet 4000s with more than a million pages on them. We've yet to replace the waste toner bins.

That said, there were some buggy printers out there. I know of one model of color LaserJet that with a certain revision logic board, it would clean the toner cartridges after every single page printed...obviously, when you're printing 50000 pages per month (as this client does (they didn't buy the printer from me)), that's a lot of wasted toner and a lot of full waste toner bins. We replaced the drum kit probably twice before we actually figured out what the issue was. Then we found that it was $900 for the new logic board and said screw it. It was a three-year-old printer with over 2 million pages on it. Yeah, there's going to be some maintenance in keeping a printer going with that kind of volume.

Once again, though. You get what you pay for. If you buy a throw-away device, you shouldn't be expecting it to last. It's like for your car...sure, the OEM rotors are cheap, but vented and slotted rotors last a whole hell of a lot longer.

 

[boomhower]

I have had a brother HL-2040 for about two years. I have only had one paper jam that took about two minutes to fix. I have been using the cheapo toner from ebay to refill it. The only issue I have noticed with it is that the paper tends to come out with a very slight curl to it, but not enough to bother me. It has been very reliable and does everything I need to, and for $70 who could complain.

 

[vtohthree]

Thanks for the input boomhower. That's exactly the type of feedback I'm trying to scout out for, I've actually been looking into that model as well. I've heard good things about brother printers lately.

 

[watdahel]

I have the Samsung ML-2010. The primary reason I got it was you can get refill toner on ebay. I does text print better than any inkjet printer.

 

[vtohthree]

I ended up buying the Brother HL-5420. It was on sale for for $120, so I figured why not? 35ppm, 16mb of ram, and supposedly not too hard to refill. However, time will tell whether or not this unit is actually reliable or not, I've seen some horror stories with this printer on Amazon's reviews.

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: vtohthree
I ended up buying the Brother HL-5420. It was on sale for for $120, so I figured why not? 35ppm, 16mb of ram, and supposedly not too hard to refill. However, time will tell whether or not this unit is actually reliable or not, I've seen some horror stories with this printer on Amazon's reviews.

Many Amazon buyers expect solid gold bars when they're ordering a bag of screws. Keep that in mind.