Re: [OT] Printer recommendations
For a good ole B&W Laser Printer get a LaserJet 5 (M/N/P) off eBay and
spruce it up. Hard to beat the old ones for reliability.
Dee
On Tue, 2003-06-10 at 22:35, Mark L. Kahnt wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-06-10 at 19:28, Roberto Sanchez wrote:
> > Greetings list,
> >
> > It's official: my Epson Stylus Color 400 is dead after 6 years of faithful
> > service.
> >
> > I'm in the market for a new printer and I would like some suggestions.
> > Here are my parameters:
> >
> > - Laser printer (the inkjet has just been a money pit for the last year)
> > - Reasonably priced (less than $500 is optimal)
> > - Reasonably economical to operate (long term low cost per page printed)
> > - Light use (will be connected to my home network)
> > - Must have parallel interface (will connect to my Woody box which has no USB)
> > - Speaks Postscript (I believe this makes it easier that I don't need drivers)
> > - Small footprint desirable
> > - Speed is not a concern (i.e., can print slow)
> >
> > I know this is OT, but I would like some suggestions since I haven't purchased
> > a printer in 6 years and have never seriously looked at laser printers. Also,
> > I run lprng on my Woody box and would like to keep it like that (since I
> > finally figured out how it works), but I am willing to switch to CUPS if that
> > is necessary.
> >
> > -Roberto Sanchez
> >
> >
> > ___________________________________________________
> > Yahoo! Sorteos - http://loteria.yahoo.es
> > Juega a la Lotería Primitiva sin salir de casa
>
> Ghostscript should make any reasonably solid laser printer that doesn't
> use some grotesquely obscure control system or Windows GDI appear to be
> a PostScript printer, and it does that with PCL printers (most HP laser
> printers) very well. A printer with PostScript is automatically going to
> cost a chunk more as it requires a license for the PostScript
> interpreter from Adobe (or a work-alike, often from QMS.)
>
> I've been running an HP 5L for some six years, and other than a paper
> feed headache in its design, it has been solid, economical, easy to
> configure and manage, and nicely compact, particularly compared to the
> HP DeskJet that sits next to it for when I *must* see the colour on
> paper. Toner cartridges are rated at 2500 pages but routinely print in
> excess of 5000 for general home usage on primarily text. Unlike the
> likely 25 cents or quarter of a Euro that a typical inkjet page costs to
> produce, this thing works out to about 2 cents per page.
>
> That said, HP doesn't make the 5Ls themselves anymore, but the HP
> LaserJet 1200 is largely the same market position (household and low
> demand business) with a higher resolution but the same relatively low
> price. The 1200 and its ilk have reverted to a paper feed similar to the
> old HP LaserJet Series II, ensuring that each sheet is fed separately.
> Prices run around the same as a mid-market inkjet printer and while the
> toner cartridge is priced higher than replacement inkjet cartridges, the
> toner lasts far, far longer, and there is often more opportunity to find
> third-party toner cartridges that match.
--
Dee McKinney
Honor the Past, Live the Present, Plan for the Future.
Reply to: