What is a good B/W laser printer to buy?

[buddhafest]

Hay guys, Im thinking of getting a b/w laser printer, just wanted to know what everyone's thoughts were on whos i should go for or particularly what model

this is just for plain home and school use, nothing heavy duty.
I do print out a lot of stuff for school though, so that's why Im not opting for ink, i've wasted too much money buying black ink already,

so guys any suggestions?

[John Prophet]

any of the little hp's get good reviews

I have seen the minolta's etc for less than $100

such as this one (expired now but they come around semi regularly) http://www.slickdeals.net/#p4082

seen also here http://www.spoofee.com/ scroll down

[buddhafest]

thanks JP, hmm.. yeah it seems to me HP gets a better amount of good reviews...

anyonw know of anything I should look for in particular when buying one?? anything to consider?

i don't really know much about the owrkings of a laser printer

[jmebonner]

http://www.techimo.com/forum/t96038.html

[hansbroken]

Also, you may want to check out the Brother HL 1440 laser printer. My father purchased one as a 2nd business printer a while back and it worked very well (for normal duty use). So we referred several clients to them and no one has any complaints. Plus, several of my family members own this model (including myself) and they love it.

One plus is that the toner is not too expensive and the drum is separate.

One thing that everyone that purchased one told me (and happened to mine too): the toner cartridge that comes with the printer runs out prematurely. After about 500 to 1000 sheets, the pages start to come out looking "dirty" -- toner kind of makes the whole page gray. So the toner cart. they give you must be defects or something. But the replacement cart's work just fine.

I believe this was on sale at Office Max or Office Depot for like $145. Most places have this printer for about this price.

Oh, another benefit: It has 2 meg RAM 'fixed' and if you have some EDO RAM, you can upgrade the RAM very easily. It takes up to a single 32 MB stick of EDO. I had a stick left over and my unit has 34MB total. Just don't get it through Brother (they charge a lot). I’m sure someone here has some EDO laying around (heck, I may even have some laying about).

Bottom line: IMHO this is the best laser printer for the money – considering the features and upkeep and such. I like HP - and don't mean to downgrade it at all -- but they seemed to cost more over all. That is, if all you need is a light to medium duty laser printer.

[Ruler2112]

I would concur with hansbroken. I have put in over a dozen HL1440s at work and use two at home.

The only complaint I have is the 'dirty' page sometimes - no idea what causes it, but I know that it's inside the toner cart itself. No response from Brother to an e-mail I sent asking about this. If you really want to save (and do one hell of a lot of printing), when it refuses to print anymore you can also dump the leftover toner into a gallon zip-lock bag and fill another empty with it. (Convenient plastic plug for easy access.) Just don't shake the cartridge you're planning on using though - it'll make fly #!@^ print on every page. This also works when the page prints gray - dump the toner from the bad cartridge into another cartridge and voila!

[hansbroken]

Note that I stopped into the Office Max by my house and I noticed that the Brother HL 1440 is on sale this week for $149.

Also note that I get toner & drum from Databazaar.com. They have no minimum order on free shipping. And they sell the real Brother toner -- no refurbs (stay away from those IMO) -- for very good price. Takes about 5 days, so order ahead of time.

Ruler2112 -- Thanks for the information on the toner. That is a great idea!! Cool

[thegladiatorgy]

This site has some ratings that may help.

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/artic...,112472,00.asp

You can probably get the updated prices from froogle.com