New Laser Printer.

[saintpeter48]

I am thinking of getting a laser printer and need some help please.
What is the difference between a laser printer and normal ink one, I do a lot of printing, about 100 A4 sheets per week and I go through cartridges very quickly, I also go to Staples weekly and print off 70 A4 sheets of pictures (I present quiz nights), for a picture quiz, at 10p a copy thats a big layout! If I purchased a laser printer do you think it would work out cheaper for me in the long run, especially if I could print the picture quizzes on the new printer. Any advice much appreciated, thanks.

[bhg481]

Although I don't do a lot of printing I switched from inkjet to laser about 8 years ago. They seem to be more reliable than inkjets - my inkjet was always needing the heads cleaning and running out of ink; the laserjet just works. Replacement cartridges seem expensive compared with inkjet ones but they do last an awful lot longer. When I do need toner cartridges I always buy non-original manufacturer ones and I've had no problems. If you can find reviews they often quote the costper page, which is what you're after at the end of the day.

[donny48]

Good advice from bhg481, with the large numbers of sheets you are printing you will also appreciate the speed, much faster than inkjet.

[donny48]

bhg481, Who do you use for cartridges, I have a Ricoh SP211. Iam still on the original that came with the printer but it can't last a lot longer.

[bhg481]

Just out of interest I chose a random (Samsung) printer listed on Amazon, found a review and the cost per sheet, including paper cost, came out at 4.4p, which they said was about 0.5p a sheet dearer than some of its competitors. On those grounds it looks like you'll be halving your printing costs using a printer costing about £70.

[jomifl]

I have an old samsung monotone which I use for printing text. For the occasional largish run which needs the odd colour picture I print the text on the laser printer then pass them through the inkjet for the coloured bits. It is a handy cheap compromise but not as quick as a colour laser.

[bhg481]

donny - I have an HP 2600n colour laserjet. I usually go on Amazon and have a look round when I need new cartridges. I bought a couple a few weeks ago for about £15 each (yellow and magenta). I don't think I've bought from the same place twice - it's usually so long between needing them that all the prices have changed. I tend to avoid the most expensive and cheapest ones and I've never been let down yet.

[donny48]

Thanks bhg it's good to know that non-originals will work.

[bhg481]

I've just looked back and my last 2 cartridges came from Expressinks (found on EBay, not Amazon). They're Hong Kong based but the cartridges came through very quickly (collected from my local Argos, for convenience), so I don't think they were dispatched from there. Looking at their site now it says delivery (free) by Wed 14/12, so can't possibly be from HK.

[donny48]

Thanks again
Don

[Tuvok]

You dont say if you want a mono laser or a colour laser.

The differences between lasers and inkjets are

laser toner - gives more copies

laser - may be slower to process what you want to print, but will print multiple copies faster than an inkjet

laser toner - costs more than inkjet cartridges

[Hymie]

You need to do a bit of homework to determine whether purchasing a colour laser printer will be a good investment. Besides the cost of the laser printer, you need to consider the cost of the toner per print.

Reputable manufacturers will give the approximate number of prints that you should obtain from a new cartridge. However you need to be aware that this is normally based on a typical print page of 5% area coverage. So printing photographs with 100% area coverage will reduce the number of prints from a cartridge by a factor of 20.

A typical number of prints from a toner cartridge costing £40 might be 4,000 which equals 1p per print, add to that the cost of a sheet of paper at 0.5p and you have a cost of 1.5p per print.
Based on 100% area coverage (photos) the toner costs become 20p per print – so Staples may not be bad price at 10p per print with 100% area coverage.

[saintpeter48]

99% of my printing is black and white and the picture quizzes I have done at Staples are also black and white.

[Hymie]

Take a look at this link to ebuyer’s toner cartridges which shows the cost per page (some less than 1p/page).

http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Consumables/cat/Toner-Cartridges?sort=relevancy%20descending

You might find an ebay seller selling compatible cartridges cheaper.

When I owned a basic B&W laser printer, I found a refill kit on ebay which must have worked out at much less than 1p per page – but refilling was a bit messy.