Shopping for Laser Printer

shepper

shepper

I've started shopping for a new printer with
  1. Duplex - 20lb letter print stock
  2. Ethernet - 10/100BaseTx is OK
  3. Envelope/Mailing label capability - no photos
  4. Laser Monochrome
  5. Compatible with LPR - no linux wrappers
  6. At least 600x600dpi
  7. Android printing via a wireless router ethernet port would be nice
  8. Recycled toner cartridges
I probably average 100 sheets/month. I'm still using an HP Laserjet 5L with a Trendnet parallel port print server. The biggest issue with the 5L is the top sheet feed does not hold more than about 40 sheets and has a propensity to feed 2 sheets at once.

PCL5e is a known quantity to me and I'm comfortable filtering either with foomatic-rip or print/ghostscript9 with the plxmono driver.
PostScript printers are highly recommended but in my price range Samsung, Brother, Oki, Xerox and Lexmark printers come with an unlicensed emulation.

Questions:
  1. Of the unlicensed PostScript emulations, are some more reliable/functional than others?
  2. Toner Cartridge/Drum vs separate units - anyone had trouble with drums on recycled units?
  3. Sheet feed reliability and sheet curling?
  4. Overall reliability and product support for various makes
 
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shepper said:
1) Of the unlicensed PostScript emulations, are some more reliable/functional than others?
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Most are pretty good now. I've had success with HP and Oki. The HP paper handling smarts (tray overrides and such) is better than others I've used. (This is for office-level printers, printers meant for individual users are usually nowhere near as good.)

2) Toner Cartridge/Drum vs separate units - anyone had trouble with drums on recycled units?
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I've mostly used integrated toner cartridges. Cost for a separate drum used to be prohibitive, like for the cheaper Brother printers.

3) Sheet feed reliability and sheet curling?
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Not really any problems come to mind. Envelopes are often a problem. A printer with a sort-of straight-through paper path helps.

4) Overall reliability and product support for various makes
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The LaserJet 4050 is still a sweet spot for printing. Tough, cheap, maintainable, excellent print quality, and fast. A 4050N is just the printer plus an included JetDirect network card. Toner is cheap. Even new fusers, which are needed after 150,000 pages or so, are pretty cheap. Parts are available, and many can be changed without tools. Easy to drive from FreeBSD.

Downsides:

They do not have a USB port, but it is not needed with network printing. There is a JetDirect with a USB port, although I've only seen pictures and am skeptical whether it actually exists in the wild.
Only PostScript level II, so they do not print PDFs directly. Usually not a problem.
Physically large, which is a problem for some people.
Not available new, must be found at thrift stores, auctions, or online.

The later 4250 and 4350 are also nice printers, but take longer to start up than the 4050.
 
We've had excellent experiences with Samsung laser printers at home. The ML-2010 (monochrome) and Xpress C460 (multi-function colour) are both supported on FreeBSD. The former is a barebones USB printer that requires a separate print/hpijs driver install before it's usable in CUPS, while the latter comes with a proper PPD for use directly in CUPS.

The C460 has been a great printer at home. Supports wireless (for networking and direct printing), USB for direct connection or file storage, and 10/100 Ethernet for connectivity. Windows drivers for PCL or PS. CUPS drivers for PS. And, because it's just a CUPS printer, it's instantly available from any system that understands IPP or CUPS. Meaning, getting printing working from Android was as simple as installing Let's Print Droid, a CUPS client.

The only downside has been the "starter" toner cartridges that it ships with. We've run out of black already, in less than a single ream of paper. :( The individual cartridges are $50 US (refurb) or $80 US (new) online, and over $100 CDN in stores.

Beyond that, we use all Lexmark printers at work, monochrome and colour. They all ship with PPD files so they interface directly into CUPS without any issues. The model names seem to change on a daily basis, but all the network-enabled ones work beautifully.

Personally, I avoid anything that doesn't work with CUPS. :) And since Apple made that their default print engine, you can find PPD files for just about any printer now. If it works with MacOS X, then it will work with any OS running CUPS.
 
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Lexmark (an IBM spinoff) were the proud inventors of "chipped" toner and ink to keep the customer from buying third-party supplies, and defended it all the way to the Supreme Court. I've been told by several people that their business-class lasers are good quality, but have no personal experience with them (see first sentence).

Oh, and multiple sheet feeds are due to a separation pad problem. The 5L and other HP top-feed printers of that era are notorious for this. Replacement separation pads can be installed, but it's really not worth it. It is not an easy or quick fix. On the 4050, the separation pads can be replaced without tools in a few minutes.
 
Lexmark sucks and has always sucked unfortunately (we replaced pretty much all within 2 years at work). The printers are slow and very unreliable this also goes for OKI which made pretty good printers back in the day. Stay away from Samsung unless you like toner that costs about the same as Lexmark, godforsaken paper feeding and drivers (if you have Windows clients at least). If you want something that just works and isn't ridiculously expensive I'd have a look at Kyocera and Canon. Not so much of a Brother fan, they do work quite good but tend to make a lot of grinding-like noise after a while.

Since you don't list where you live it's a bit hard to give suggestions but in general these have good pricing and will work right out of the box (EU). Given the paper size mentioned I would however expect North America to be more accurate? :)

Canon i-Sensys LBP67**-series, rock solid. If anything they might be a bit loud. Pricing on these seems to go from ~180 EUR up to ~400EUR sporadically. They're on the EoL list so might be hard to find. LBP 6680 looks like a cut down version but I think it'll do fine for your needs. They do both PCL5e, PCL6 and (optional Postscript level 3). 23k+ pages and still going strong on the LBP67**-series.

Kyocera Ecosys P60**-series, pretty much the same as the Canon. This is however color series but they're about as expensive the BW versions so why not? Right now P6021cdn is a bargain in .de and .uk (180 EUR). Talks PCL5e, PCL5, PCL XL and Postscript level 3. We have a few MFPs based on these series (P6026) and they've done about 10k pages without issues.

HP LaserJet Pro 400-series are also reliable but they feel a lot cheaper than Kyocera and Canon and toner costs are very high although not as high as Lexmark though. Obviously does PCL but not much more, can be quite loud during printing. 20k+ pages without issues. Pricing seems to be similar to the Canon LBP67**-series.

As for 3rd party toner I'd recommend you to stay away unless you know its good. It'll cause more issues than its worth usually. I'd also highly advice you to not go for a non network printer these days as it saves at lot of hassle.

//Danne
 
diizzy said:
Since you don't list where you live it's a bit hard to give suggestions but in general these have good pricing and will work right out of the box (EU). Given the paper size mentioned I would however expect North America to be more accurate? :)
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The printer will be for small home office use in the States.
 
I bought a used HP LaserJet 4200 that had printed about 100K pages on ebay for $41 + shipping. I threw in a JetDirect J3113a 10/100 ethernet card ($9), remanufactured toner ($30), roller kit ($14), and maxed out the RAM ($20). Cheap to buy, cheap to run, and works great. Duplexers, staplers, stackers, 1000 sheet paper trays, etc for this printer are all over the place if you want them.

My employer has a couple Lexmark E462DTN's that work pretty well, and have given few problems. Not as cheap to run as the HP LaserJet 4200's, though.

One of the HP LaserJet 4200's at my workplace has a JetDirect J4135A card, which has USB, 9-pin serial RS-232 and Apple Localtalk. We don't use it, but I think it was purchased for the RS-232 support for some prior application. That printer also has an ethernet card that we do use.
 
Hmm... Kyocera is probably out of the question in the states as they seem very expensive (600+), I did however find a few good deals on Canon printers and Google had good reviews too of the seller.

http://www.compbargains.com/_e/Lase...uct/1024719359/Canon_imageCLASS_LBP6780dn.htm - 290 USD
That's a really good price for that printer

https://www.google.com/shopping/pro...a=X&ei=FqkmVZq7EoOssAHMmYT4Dw&ved=0CFoQxBUwAA (Color I know)...

http://www.adorama.com/ICALBP6670DN.html - Good price, 199 USD

//Danne
 
We've had good luck with a XEROX WorkCentre 3220/DN. However, and this is a problem which you might run into if you're further south, it has difficulty when the room temperature gets up to 35°C or so. (100°F) It started to spew pages on it's own, but turning it off and waiting a bit helped.
 
My recommendation is for Canon or Brother Printers, they are the best brand in laser printing. Samsung has some good quality printers as well, but I think Brother is #1 in overall quality, performance, etc.
 
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