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General discussion

looking for low priced printer for text printing

May 23, 2010 8:51AM PDT

My Mom in law is looking for a printer of her laptop. She doesn't move it around much so it doesn't have to be a portable printer. She'll just plug it into the USB slot in the bedroom when she wants to print.
What she needs is a printer that basically prints text..She's not really interested in photo printing.
What I mean by low priced is, something that's reasonably priced for printing text, that has cartridges that'll also be reasonably priced. Also a printer that doesn't need a new cartridge for every 2 pages you print. I got a nice cheap printer once and it just ate ink! Plus the cartridges were really expensive.
any help appreciated.

Discussion is locked

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I'd go with a low end laser printer
May 23, 2010 9:01AM PDT

I like HP but there are plenty to choose from that are less than $150. A cartridge will cost twice or more what one would pay for inkjet but you'll get reams of text on one cartridge. My old HP 1100 gets me 2500-3000 pages. Ink jet printers tend to cost more per page if usage is low as they run cleaning cycles which wastes ink. Of course you can't go with such if she wants color occasionally but laser types are definitely less costly per page than ink jets...and the toner doesn't dry out and clog printer heads either. It's already dry.

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thanks
May 24, 2010 1:18PM PDT

How much do the lazer cartridges cost to replace? I had heard that lasers were better as far as ink usage but I don't know if I can convince her that it's be better to spend more for the replacement cartridges.Being that she's never owned printer before she wouldn't really notice any difference. I guess I can just gather the info and let her decide for herself what she wants to do.
thanks for the info.

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Inexpensive text printing
May 24, 2010 11:13PM PDT

Mono Laser, if ALL you want to do is B/W text. Look into Brother HL 2141, saw them on sale for around 80.00, should fill the bill.

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Relative cost from my own experience
May 25, 2010 3:17AM PDT

I've both an HP inkjet and an old laserjet. I'll pay $24 for a B/W injet cartridge and $70 for the laserjet. Now that's a stunning difference in price until I look at the output. My laserjet cartridge is estimated to give up to 2500 pages and I actually get more than that number. My last cartridge gave me over 2900 pages. I know because my printer can provide an actual page count. The inkjet cartridge is estimated at up to 450 pages. It, too, will give a page count. But, since it's used for both color and B/W, I can't give a true page count as both cartridges are used for color printing. I will get about 200 to 250 pages on a set of cartridges and need to replace them in sets or will have problems. In any event, a close estimate would be that I pay a little less than 3 cents per page (toner only) with the laserjet and 10 cents a page (for the B/W cartridge only) with the inkjet. The actual cost for the inkjet is higher because it does require that a color cartridge be in place. That cartridge cost effectively doubles the total cost. One reason for the lower number of pages I get with the inkjet is that we don't use it that often and, every time we turn it on or go to use it, it goes through a cleaning cycle. This means it wastes ink spraying it out into a reservoir to make sure it's not dried and clogged. You'll only get close to the rated # of pages if you install the cartridge and use it continuously until it's depleted of ink.

Ok, this is more than you asked for but I'll say that, in my case, my inkjet is at least 5X that of the laserjet in operating costs.

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thanks for the info
May 25, 2010 6:38PM PDT

Thanks for the information.I think really if you are going to be using it for text, the lazer does seem to make sense. It is a bit of a pain to put out that much money at once, but it is more of a pain to be having to replace cartridges all of the time. And spending more money in the process.
I'm going to copy your reply and let her read it,cause I think you've said it better than I could explain it myself.Wink
thanks again.