I have a sammy laser which I use for black and white documents. I've had it since ~2003, and I've refilled the cart which came with it once.

Unless you need colour, you can't go wrong with a cheap desktop laser.

Could do with colour tbh, though photos I'll get done properly.

Quote from: zpyder on March 14, 2012, 12:24:19 PM
Could do with colour tbh, though photos I'll get done properly.

http://www.brother-printers.co.uk/A4-Laser-Printer.html 

Ok, looks maybe doable. Out of interest do laser printer toner cartridges "go off" if not used for a long time? In terms of printing we don't do that much, but when we do, it's important.

Quote from: zpyder on March 14, 2012, 16:43:05 PM
Ok, looks maybe doable. Out of interest do laser printer toner cartridges "go off" if not used for a long time? In terms of printing we don't do that much, but when we do, it's important.

nope - its basically a powder. you might need to give them a shake.
my laser printer toner cartridge is at least 5 year old & I got another one I bought the same time still in the box.

Just be careful with newer stuff - HP for example put chips on their ink cartidges that expire if not used by the expiration date.
No idea if they do that for toners.

I am wondering whether the kodak does something similar, seems the cartridges go at about the same rate regardless of how much printing is done. Tempted to keep a log of what a set does and contact kodak. It's false advertising if the "cheapest" printer to run actually costs more when it takes 2x as many cartridges to do 1000 pages...

Quote from: bear on March 14, 2012, 15:51:34 PM

Quote from: zpyder on March 14, 2012, 12:24:19 PM
Could do with colour tbh, though photos I'll get done properly.

http://www.brother-printers.co.uk/A4-Laser-Printer.html

Even their A3 printers are cheap, even if you never after an A3.

I've had trouble with the really low end brothers before, but I think that was more end user abuse with the feeder tray playing up, they were the JCW series.  I would probably go for an MFC Series.

I'm personally a big fan of Brother Inkjet and Lasers (when not a serious amount of yearly cylcle), easy to setup, great functionality as standard, duplex, networking etc and the software/drivers are simple and clean.  Unlike HP's photosmart suite.

Anything more serious I go OKI, IE 50,000 + Pages a year.

Samsung A4 Lasers are not bad either.

Quote from: bear on March 14, 2012, 10:40:26 AM
Yes I'd go with laser and brother,  I like brother because they work so well with linux  (cannon can be a bitch)

http://www.brother-printers.co.uk/

I've a Brother 1430 monochrome and a Konica 2400W lazer printer set up, have used the same 2 for quite a while. Would definitely suggest people going laser printer if they have the room available, it's not much more expensive to buy the printer and no blocked jets 

Many companies supply replacement toner refill services too, so price on that isn't usually expensive.

Bought a Laserjet 1100 from ebay about 6 years ago for £18. Cost more to ship it (£25).

Came with a toner in it, have still yet to change it despite the cartridge being listed as "used, no idea if anything is left".

Have printed a fair few hundred pages on it, black and white lasers are awesome.

Quote from: M3ta7h3ad on March 15, 2012, 20:40:57 PM
Bought a Laserjet 1100 from ebay about 6 years ago for £18. Cost more to ship it (£25).

Came with a toner in it, have still yet to change it despite the cartridge being listed as "used, no idea if anything is left".

Have printed a fair few hundred pages on it, black and white lasers are awesome.

I got given an old Laserjet 2100 from the place I was working while at uni with network card in it, that was about 8 years ago and must have printed well over 1000 pages on it, it only run out recently, and bought a HP all-in-one jobby so I could print some photos, so haven't needed to top-up the old toner yet..

The old LJ series printers do some serious work and are easy to service

Quote from: XEntity on March 15, 2012, 23:20:57 PM


The old LJ series printers do some serious work and are easy to service

yep they are workhorses.

Now on Laser.  SAMSUNG £120 job.  Prints sharp and clear - first time, every time even after being idle for a month or twenty.  I'll never go back to inkjet now. 

We got about 25 pages from a set of ink cartridges that were put in about a month ago.

Obviously something is seriously wrong with this printer. Looking on the internet, it seems not that uncommon for poor quality control from kodak regarding their print heads.

As to toner, it's a solid particulate, so should never 'go off' under normal circumstances.

Unlike the inkjet printers there are no nozzles, so no blocking. A lot of the ink ends up as waste in many printers, others are known to report as empty when they still have quite a bit of ink in them.

Kodaks response was to send me to their page on optimising ink usage. I'm sorry, but I suspect no amount of optimising will help increase my pages per cartridge from 25-50 pages to the official reported figures of around 350 pages...