School Me On Printers

[schurchill39]

After decade of always having shitty ink jet printers I want to finally step up to a decent quality all-in-one color laser printer. My father in law runs a a small business selling and servicing office equipment and he raves about Brother printers. I was looking at the Brother MFC-L3770CW printer as I could get it for around $380 (similar to what they go on sale for at Staples).

We don't print a ton of documents at home but when we do its nice to have something reliable that doesn't have color shit the bed halfway through a page. I know the toner cartridges are expensive as fuck but getting 1300+ pages out of one before it needs replacing will sure be nice. We also scan quite a bit so definitely want an all-in-one unit. Document feed would be nice but isn't a deal breaker vs single page feed.

My question is, are there other printers I should be looking at? What is everyone using and what do they like about it?

[ThePenIsMightier]

I took the same plunge about 2 years ago and got a Brother laser printer/scanner for only about $120. It's wonderful because its toner works until it's out and then you simply buy more and it works. Ink jet is useless.
This model (don't have it handy) even prints on both sides. The only downside is it's B&W which hasn't mattered because I can still print colour at work of really needed.

[jwslam]

I've bought twice from Brother refurbished with great success
Sometimes they do 20% off which make them an even better deal.

https://www.brother.ca/en/good-as-ne...startIndex=30&

Same as above, I only have b/w laser and print colour at work.

[KPHMPH]

We bought this HP printer last year during a sale for $350. They included 3 sets of extra cartridges as well.

https://m.staples.ca/en/HP-PageWide-...2_1-CA_1_20001

Everything is wireless as it should be. Printing is quick, 60 pages a minute I’m pretty sure.

[msommers]

Laser is so amazing compared to inkjet for 99% of users. Bought a cheap Samsung awhile ago (just a printer not all in one) and that sucker is still going strong years later. Ink isn't that expensive either either.

Keep an eye out on Memory Express.

[Mitsu3000gt]

The consumer ones are all kind of crappy, and the manufacturers make all their money off toner, so just buy whatever is on sale from a major brand as they often go on sale for 50%++ off. You can get desktop ones for as little as $40-50 and pretty decent higher volume small office units for $300-400. Brother makes some of the better printers in the higher price range IMO.

[RX_EVOLV]

We have a $99 Canon Black only laser printer at work that we bought 5+ years ago and it is the most reliable thing ever. Knockoff inks are dirt cheap too ($35 for a 3 pack...). I made it my personal printer in my office when we bought the 8850 (see below) and it's still running strong.

We recently (~1 year ago) bought the Broher MFC-8850 https://www.brother.ca/en/p/MFCL8850CDW for the office hoping for a decent color laser printer to printer the more color stuff but it's just okay. It prints color docs fine, but for pictures it's just meh. We thought splurging on a nicer unit (as least as a home unit price point) would give us the closer-to-inkjet quality but it did not. Otherwise solid unit though.

We had a Konica Minoltacolor laser before and that was the biggest POS ever. The waste bin was always full ($70), the inks were expensive (even for knockoffs), and the quality was so so at best. It eventually just died after like a year of light printing.

[nismodrifter]

I too used inkjet forever. HP for life.
Printing at home = occasional printing of tax documents, the occasional travel document, etc. Also we use the scanner

My colleague told me about laser benefits. I will never go back.

I spent like $229 on a CANON MF244DW. Best investment ever. I'm on the original toner cartridge that came with it, 3 years later and it still working great.

Go laser, Canon, and you wont regret it.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Anecdotal, but where I used to work our brand new Canon printers were giant POS'. We had 5 of of them (3 huge color ones and 2 office sized ones) and they were ALWAYS breaking, jamming, etc. Repair guys were around weekly it seemed. Switched to Xerox and issues are now few and far between. I personally wouldn't buy one based on how bad those things were, but that is a small sample size overall.

[botox]

https://www.staples.ca/m477/director...20051_1_20001?

I've probably sent about 100 of these units out for smaller offices and they have been rock solid. It's color, 2500 pages per toner, 6500 pages with the high yield black, ADF, duplex scanning and printing, scan to email or usb, lots of features. I have an older model that's about 8 years old and it's still on the first set of toner. No issues at all and quality is good but we don't print pictures usually, just documents mainly.

I love how people say toners are so expensive. Yes they are but $$/page it's cheaper than Ink and less/no maintenance. Unless you need high quality photo/graphic printing, it's a no brainer to go to laserjet.

[revelations]

I've been doing this type of work for years - at the 300-500 price range - you cant beat the Brother setup. The SOFTWARE is pretty decent too compared to what CANON and XEROX offer as well - it seems to be much more user-friendly anyway.

I also advise against a WIFI-only printer though - unless youre OK with the printer requiring a random reboot to get connection again. Perhaps the higher-end models seem to do better.

[benyl]

I bought an OKI data color laser 15 years ago. I've replaced the black toner twice and the color toners once. Boot up / warmup takes a bit of time, the thing is rock solid.

I wish I would have bought the duplex module when it was available, that's my only regret. I have a Canon inkjet too that is always drying up. I am tempted to toss it and get an HP with their free lifetime ink plan.

[Nufy]

2 - 3 years ago I was in the same boat...

There is a thread on here somewhere...

I bought this one on a recommendation from Rage.

https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX48206

[revelations]

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2 - 3 years ago I was in the same boat...

There is a thread on here somewhere...

I bought this one on a recommendation from Rage.

https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX48206

I had that exact printer. It was great with USB connection but when I moved the alternate was having it WIFI only and it became a miserable POS with scanning on WIFI.

[Nufy]

I have been using it on Wifi from day one. So have my wife and son(s).

Printer on main floor Wifi router in basement.

No issue.

Of course YMMV...

[revelations]

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I have been using it on Wifi from day one. So have my wife and son(s).

Printer on main floor Wifi router in basement.

No issue.

Of course YMMV...

Yea I was scanning docs every other day, and it would need to be rebooted (both PC and brinter) to get the connection back ... sigh

PRINTING was always 100% though, with WIFI

[firebane]

When going with laser keep and eye on the cost per page with the cartridges.

The downside to laser is the massive cost of toner. We need to replace the 3 color in ours and it'll be $200 when done.

[schurchill39]

Just a follow up to this, I picked up a Brother MFC-L37750CDW from my father-in-law for cost. We set it up tonight and everything went really smooth from the test pages we printed from the mac and my iPhone. He said for small businesses its one of his best sellers and relatively low on the "requires service" call list so hopefully it pans out. At the price we paid it couldn't really be beat.

[thetransporter]

generally try to avoid Lexmark or low cost printers
some brother (or other brands) lasers print random demo sheets or other non sense.

avoid brother printers that have plumbing tubes (or any other brands) from the ink section to the head (they dry up or get trapped air)
get a gravity

try searching the cost for generic ink first,
example some Canons have a good print heads and have the ink cartridges on top of them and the ink is cheap as little as 80 cents each color (They have a chip), there are a few HPs like that, the ones that use HP 02 ink is a good example.

Avoid canon mx922 for example, as ink cartridge price is high

[revelations]

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generally try to avoid Lexmark or low cost printers
some brother (or other brands) lasers print random demo sheets or other non sense.

avoid brother printers that have plumbing tubes (or any other brands) from the ink section to the head (they dry up or get trapped air)
get a gravity

try searching the cost for generic ink first,
example some Canons have a good print heads and have the ink cartridges on top of them and the ink is cheap as little as 80 cents each color (They have a chip), there are a few HPs like that, the ones that use HP 02 ink is a good example.

Avoid canon mx922 for example, as ink cartridge price is high

Just - avoid - inkjets altogether unless you need it for glossy/photo finishes.