cheap_joe
@verizon.net
| Suggest old LASER PRINTER with low operating cost
Hi,
Looking for suggestions for an old Laser printer (Black and White) that would have a very low operating cost. Will be printing approx 50-75 pages per day. Can be parallel port or usb. Looking for SOLID build quality (no junk), and affordable ink/toner. Speed is not important, and color is not important.
I do not want any new models, as they ALL have lower build quality and MUCH MUCH higher per-page printing cost. Must be a model where toner/ink is available on the second-hand market, and must work with Vista (I think almost every old HP model has basic Windows drivers even now.)
For example, I remember working in an office circa 1992 and they were using HP Laserjet 4-something printers. They were built like a tank and print quality was good. Of course those models would be 16+ years old at this point, so probably not much life left in them. But that is the general idea.
Suggestions welcome. Simple - Reliable - Cheap to Operate. |
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Camelot One
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-21
Sarasota, FL
clubs:
| I love my HP 2200. It's been my primary paper and shipping label printer for almost 5 years now, and I bought it used. You can normally find them dirt cheap, just have to make sure everything works.
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Intel Q6600 @3400Mhz/GA-EP35-DS3P/2x 2048Mb G.Skill/Seagate 750.10/EVGA 8800GT's SLI/Silverstone 850W/Custom water cooler |
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pandora
Premium
join:2001-06-01
Outland
 ·ooma
·Future Nine Corpor..
 ·Comcast
|  reply to cheap_joe
You may wish to visit a place like epinions and search for laser printer. My experience with reviews there has been pretty good.
The votes seem to go with the HP Laserjet 4050 or 4050n. It is a printer that has been around for years and constantly seems to get stellar reviews.
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"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use." |
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signmeuptoo
Folding and Crunching Not just Breakfast
Premium
join:2001-11-22
LOSTinSpace
clubs:  | reply to cheap_joe
Is that true, that newer LASER printers are more expensive to use? This is the first I have heard of it so I have to ask. |
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cheap_joe
@verizon.net
| reply to cheap_joe
Thanks for the suggestions. I will investigate those models.
New printers, both inkjet and laser, and much higher cost per page, and far lower build quality. You can find new laser's as low as $60 - just saw one in a weekly ad flyer -- but the toner cartridges are a major cost and cost per page sucks. Likewise, supplies are always most expensive when you have to go the retail store to get them, instead of thru surplus outlets, such as 'fleabay'.
I currently use a 10 year old HP inkjet, and every year I save $200 in printing costs. This is fact vs a modern printer, and I have saved this amount for the past six years. And I replace the ink cartridge far less than these new units of which some models hold as little as 1/8th of the volume of ink as my old unit. Quite pathetic. Of course, these old printers are mainly black and white, parallel port, etc. They would not serve the needs of a lot of people, but they fit my needs perfectly.
Furthermore, these new printer drivers totally suck. They bloat your OS, bombard you with pop-ups about running low on ink-toner-supplies, etc. Sorry, I do not play that game. I'll use an old printer that has simple fat-free driver built into the OS, and have a pleasant printing experience.
Thanks for the model suggestions above. |
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BA
The Old Man's Gonna Roll the Hard Six
Premium,MVM
join:2001-05-24
Vancouver, BC
clubs:
| MSRP of the LaserJet 4L in 1993: $650
If you take into account CPI and inflation, you would need to fork out roughly $950 for the $650 you paid in 1993.
Let's say you want to spend $500 today for a printer. The LaserJet P3005 has an MSRP of $549. Using MSRP figures for the appropriate HP toner cartridge, it costs $0.022 per page.
If you're buying the same class of printer that you did 10-15 years ago, the cost per page should be the same if not lower. The $100-200 laser printers certainly have a higher TCO, but that's to be expected. |
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happy4ya
join:2004-10-31
West Babylon, NY | reply to cheap_joe
If you can find a used HP Laserjet 1000 or 1200 they work great....we have one of each at work and my dad and I both have a laserjet 1000 at home and you can get toner cartridges for about $30 online. |
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cheap_joe
@verizon.net
| reply to cheap_joe
In reply to BA, I understand your point, but you are comparing new-to-new. I would still say without any hesitation that the drivers for the new model will be bloated and in-your-face, and it is HIGHLY unlikely that the new printer will have the same lifespan as those old models. And how about those date-expiration microchips in the new supplies? I often use old supplies that are 10 days old and they work fine. Can't do that anymore with microchip date expirations.
But new vs new is not really the issue -- the minute that I buy a new unit at a retail store, and buy retail-purchased supplies because the product is too new for new surplus supplies to be sold by liquidators, I have already lost big-time vs buying a OLD used model (which in all honesty won't cost much of anything) and buying surplus ink/toner from liquidators.
This is the reason why I annually print with my old inkjet almost for free (less than $10 per year). I pay $2 - $3 each for cartridges on fleabay instead of $30 ea at retail. My cartridges hold 4 to 8 times more ink than new models. And I get a free ream of paper (or $3 cash credit) when I recycle the old cartridge, which means I essentially get paper and ink for pennies, although you still need to buy some additional reams of paper because you print a lot more than 1 ream of paper per cartridge. FACT.
With an annual $200 savings, and this is a conservative estimate, if they PAID me $500 to take a new printer and forced me to use it, I would be at a LOSS by the third year.
Easy math. |
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mworks
join:2006-06-13
Faison, NC | reply to cheap_joe
Hp laserjet 6P
Got two of them at a local auction for $5.
Both work great and are about 10 years old. When I connected one and used software to query pages printed , it was over 28,000.
Very cheap to refill. About $20 |
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cheap_joe
@verizon.net | That's what I'm talking about! Good age, too. |
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SSX4life
Premium
join:2004-02-13 | Another vote for the HP 4000 series printers. Solid support and cheap refills on the toner. We still have plenty at my place of work (university).
They are built like tanks and have 300K pages and still going. |
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Subaru
1-3-2-4
Premium
join:2001-05-31
Greenwich, CT
clubs: | reply to cheap_joe
I brought a HP LaserJET 4 off ebay for around $25 it has over 129,000 pages printed and it's still running strong. |
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anonymous07
join:2007-10-13
| reply to cheap_joe
To the OP: Thank You for making this post. I am looking for the same info (with similar parameters as you) and additionally one that has cheap MICR cartridges ... just had an laserjet 3p die. And I don't print enough to require anything fancy; just cheap.
Again thanks, this is a great post! |
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Boricua65
join:2002-01-26
Puerto Rico
| reply to cheap_joe
I bought the HP LaserJet 4000n a few years ago off eBay. I don't print as much as the OP. In fact, I was printing with the original toner cartridge until a few weeks ago when it ran out. I bought one from an outfit Iowaink that only cost me $45.00 USD. I don't expect to run out of toner for some years now  .
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Yo te digo, el mundo esta jodido |
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banditws6
Shrinking Time and Distance
join:2001-08-18
Naples, FL | reply to cheap_joe
I still have the HP LaserJet 4P that I bought new in...1994, was it? You absolutely cannot kill that thing. It's a little slow to start up, but it's built solid.
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"I'll follow the law until it's just stupid." -Ted Nugent |
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adamtech78
join:2006-01-25
Chicago, IL
|  I replaced my HP 4M+ when the rollers started to get really bad.
Now I have a 4100 and am super happy. Installed 133 or so MB of ram and second tray. This thing is a total work horse. That's why I reccommended one to my brother and he has a 4050 model.
At work we got a new printing contract and are phasing out our Dell 1700 printers which never gives us problems mostly, in favour of HP. We'll actually be purchasing a few refurb 4100's instead of freebie printers Apple want to throw with a new order.
The only thing really to watch for is to replace rollers when they start to slick. |
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cheap_joe
@verizon.net
| reply to cheap_joe
These were all good suggestions. I did some more research and found that any of the 4-series, 5-series, 6-series units are true workhorses and cheap to operate. Likewise the 1000-4000 units seem pretty good also.
Looks like those were all winners. Refill toner cartridges are cheap for all of them. Learn to love the parallel port! |
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RWild
Them Or Us
Premium
join:2003-09-15
Cary, NC
 ·AT&T Southeast
·Windstream
·Comcast
·RoadRunner Cable
| I know that the LJ4 and LJ5s use the same toner cartridge and believe the LJ6 does, too. I have a 4M (on a Linksys printer server) and a 5M (internal ethernet). The 4M sometimes has trouble with complex PCL pages and is pretty slow in PS mode. The 5M is happy in PCL or PS mode. Both have had very heavy but sporadic use. |
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stormbow
Freedom isn't FREE
Premium
join:2002-07-31
Simi Valley, CA
clubs:
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| reply to cheap_joe
Another 6p owner, run it off an external jet-direct and it works great. As for drivers, windows comes with standard basic drivers that work without all the junk from the HP drivers. Just make sure the printer you're getting has built in drivers and you should be good. Also, the 4000 series has lots of options as well as the "n" models having jet-directs (networking) built-in. |
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Wily_One
Premium
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA
| reply to cheap_joe
I have to disagree on the "newer is more expensive" opinion of the OP. I have a Dell 3010cn (which is color) that's almost 3 years old, and I have yet had to add any toner. Black is down to 10%, but it's been saying that for a while - we have printed 3,700 pages over the life of the printer. (Note that the manufacturer lists the yield at 2,000 pages, which we have far exceeded.) When I do finally have to buy toner, it's only $45 for a new cartridge. The second-hand price would be half that.
Maybe a used, 10 year-old model is cheaper, but I know my printer is a helluva lot cheaper to run than an inkjet. |
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