On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 9:35 AM, Brett Rasmussen <[email protected] > wrote:
> All, thanks much for your suggestions. > > I don't use or research printers very often, so I don't really know the > whole state of affairs. Hence a couple of what might seem obvious > questions: > > It seems to be my experience that people with inkjet printers are always > buying new cartridges, and that laser printers are more expensive per > cartridge but they last a lot longer. > Generally true, but not always. HP (and maybe others) have made their toner cartridges "smart" and they refuse to print well before the page quality even begins to degrade. If you're a print quality purist, that's great, if you're (I'm) a cheapskate, it's really annoying. Supposedly there are simple hacks that work around that, but I've never tried them. Also, laser printers seem to pump out a lot more pages per minute than > inkjets. > I haven't used an injket in years because I hate them all with a fiery burning passion. But it used to be the case that most laser printers had a longer startup time than most inkjet printers. Some manufacturers are claiming they don't do that any more, but I don't believe them yet. > > Dale's got a Brother all-in-one that's inkjet, and Henry's dad has a > Brother laser printer, both of which work well wirelessly, so it seems a > Brother that combines the two would likely work just fine. Anyone else > have any specific models (HP or Brother or whatever) that they've just > loved and think I should look into? > I have an HP Color LaserJet 2840. I've had it for several years, and printing and scanning work great with Linux. I haven't even tried the fax capability, but it is supposed to work. Even though the size, noise, and "smart" cartridges give me a rash, I have to admit it has been a solid, reliable, high-quality all-in-one. It's old enough it only has wired network, so it's probably not an option for you unless you want to add a wireless AP. But I think HP still makes some pretty good stuff, especially if you buy their higher duty-cycle business models. I keep hearing that their consumer-oriented stuff has gone way downhill since the IIIp my mother-in-law has been happily using for 20 years. FWIW, Barry /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
