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:
| Re: Suggest old LASER PRINTER with low operating cost 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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cheap_joe
@verizon.net
| 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:
| Re: Suggest old LASER PRINTER with low operating cost 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 | 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
| 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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| anonymous07
join:2007-10-13
| Re: Suggest old LASER PRINTER with low operating cost 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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mworks
join:2006-06-13
Faison, NC | 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 | Re: Suggest old LASER PRINTER with low operating cost That's what I'm talking about! Good age, too. | |
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SSX4life
Premium
join:2004-02-13 | Re: Suggest old LASER PRINTER with low operating cost 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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Boricua65
join:2002-01-26
Puerto Rico
| 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 | 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
|  Re: Suggest old LASER PRINTER with low operating cost
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
| 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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Wily_One
Premium
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA
| 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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DoberDaddy
@comcastbusiness.net
| HP Laserjet 5/5N. I have one on the router and one hanging off a pc in the garage. Got one from the thrift for 8 bucks with 25,000 pages on it. One of the most solid printers I have ever used. We have some in our stockroom that have been in constant use for over 10 years. probably a million+ pages on the things. Drums and rollers have been the only maintenance that I know of. Maybe a fuser or 2 in that time. They run 3 shifts all year except major holidays and they are not turned off then. They just sit there and run and run and run,,,,,and run,,,,,and run. | |
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whymeintrouble
Premium
join:2001-06-20
Woodridge, IL
 ·AT&T Midwest
| just a heads up, if you have a freecycle group near you, you may wish to subscribe and keep an eye on there. I had received a LJ 4 in good outside condition. needed to do some roller replacement, after a $25 investment she be running like brand new, at my mom's house easy mother's day present ! | |
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scajjr
join:2005-03-01
Kingston, NH | Got a 6P at a local community center surplus goods section for FREE. Only had 2000 pages on it, runs fantastic. Works fine with Vista/7 RC.
Sam | |
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SSX4life
Premium
join:2004-02-13 | Oddly enough, I just picked up a Laserjet 1022n for 35$ at a yard sale.
50% toner
3000 pages
Clean Rollers
Clean Fuser
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