Recommend me a laser printer

[Dr.Al]

Our inkjet has been playing up more and more and I've finally had enough. I want to go back to a laser printer.

Our last laser printer lasted ages but was ancient (parallel port only) and when the vast toner reserve finally ran out it proved impossible to get a replacement. I went with inkjet for cost reasons back then but have regretted it ever since. Laser printers seem a lot cheaper now but we're into a world with all sorts of nasty things like subscriptions and vendor lock-ins that I'd like to avoid if possible.

Any recommendations?

 

[daedalusminos]

Up until this last one I've been Lexmark loyal (A4 colour), but this last one is a Brother (again A4 colour). Paper handling (card, duplex) seems slightly better on the Brother Hl-L9470CDN but it does have a weird scaling issue (printing circles in the centre of circular labels over the full A4 - so relatively taxing) which I never saw on the Lexmarks.

I usually go for the one which ships with the most stock toner....sad to say it's usually cheaper to buy a whole new printer than spare toner.

Printerland is my goto supplier

 

[Beanwood]

What is your budget, and is it Mono or Colour?
I picked up my most recent one (A mono Brother HL2340D) for £10 on FBMP. Toner was £20 for two or similar on Amazon.
It works fine, but a bit slow to warm up.
I'd buy another Brother happily.

 

[jmp49]

We run a Kyocera ECOSYS M5521cdn multifunction colour laser for years now after switching from HP's & Brother's after they went all chips in the cartridge nonsense, we just buy generic toner when it runs low and put paper in it. When it jams (cheap paper) which isnt often, its easy to open various hatches designed to let you unjam it. It has front tray, feeder trays underneath you can put a load of paper in, and other bits you can put other sheets in. It prints double sided etc like you'd expect.
So it gets A4 in the main feeder, my wife puts odd american sized paper in for patchwork stuff in the front and envelopes in the other. I just ran cat5 to where it lives and it exposes itself to our local network as a network printer, seems to accept jobs without grief from android devices, apple, windows and linux etc.
Its not compact or small and its a all in one, but we use the snot out of it. I just checked the web interface and its on 14,000 pages printed, and 2767 scans.
Its got a nice onboard web interface too. Should probably change the black soon :


Full toner kit is on amazon at the moment for 30 quid.
This has been so solid I will never go back to HP or Brothers now.
You wont find this exact model for sale because its so old, but I now have lots of good feelings around Kyocera printers as a result.

 

[Dr.Al]

What is your budget, and is it Mono or Colour?

Two unhelpful answers:

Budget... not sure really. I don't mind spending a bit to get a good one that will last (especially after all the hassle I had with the Epson inkjet).

Mono vs colour... not sure really . Colour is occasionally handy but I wouldn't have a problem going mono if it got me a better printer.

I'd really like double-sided printing and a decent toner capacity (which I'd guess would be a lot better on a mono one).

The inkjet we've got at the moment incorporates a scanner, but I think I can live without that. Phone photos generally do the job and if I need anything more accurate I can always use the scanner at work.

 

[Dr.Al]

Having been browsing on printerland for a while I think we've decided it'll definitely be a mono printer. It looks like you get WAY more toner capacity (unsurprisingly) and lower cost per page and I don't think we need colour often enough to be a problem.

The Kyocera ones on there look interesting, considering this one: https://www.printerland.co.uk/product/kyocera-ecosys-pa4000wx/160211.

I'm still looking though and I haven't really compared the other brands yet so I'd still appreciate any and all suggestions.

 

[MoreWellie]

We have the brother MFC L2710DW model and it has been fine with subscription free infrequent use for several years. The duplex printing works fine

looks like it has been superceded with https://www.argos.co.uk/product/7533367

The high capacity toner is around £72 for 3000 pages. We are only on our second toner pack

 

[MoreWellie]

I usually go for the one which ships with the most stock toner....sad to say it's usually cheaper to buy a whole new printer than spare toner

True but I am fairly sure the toner cartridge included with the printer is less full than the ones you buy as spares

 

[Morris]

We went from a ludicrously expensive to run Canon inkjet to a Brother DCP-1610W. Monochrome printing, scanner and works as a photo copier. Still on the first toner cartridge and just works.

 

[Dr.Al]

True but I am fairly sure the toner cartridge included with the printer is less full than the ones you buy as spares

Yeah, the Kyocera one I was looking at earlier (which was about £200) ships with a 3600 page toner cartridge. The replacement cartridge is £120 but is a 10,000 page cartridge, so more than 2.5 times the capacity.

 

[daedalusminos]

True but I am fairly sure the toner cartridge included with the printer is less full than the ones you buy as spares

That certainly is the case with some...just a minimum to get you going but some printers are sold with high capacity toner - the brother came with 12000 black and 9000 colour

The printer is currently listed at £548 to replace the full set of toners with genuine Brother (in the same capacity) would be £1267...mad!

 

[jmp49]

Two unhelpful answers:

Budget... not sure really. I don't mind spending a bit to get a good one that will last (especially after all the hassle I had with the Epson inkjet).

Mono vs colour... not sure really . Colour is occasionally handy but I wouldn't have a problem going mono if it got me a better printer.

I'd really like double-sided printing and a decent toner capacity (which I'd guess would be a lot better on a mono one).

The inkjet we've got at the moment incorporates a scanner, but I think I can live without that. Phone photos generally do the job and if I need anything more accurate I can always use the scanner at work.

I dont use the scanner much, but my wife is always scanning official stuff in with it. Because its networked it It scans to email too forgot to mention, so she puts some letter or something on top, beeboops the fast send button she set up to herself, and it pops into her gmail on her phone after a small pause after pressing go and no cropping or trying to get the thing to look square for more professional stuff.

It does fax stuff too, but I cant remember the last time I needed a fax even for official stuff, I'm not japanese. So that's not even connected anymore, but it probably shows how long its been in service that once it was connected

 

[metalmatt]

usual advice, buy whatever brother printer is around and suits your budget

https://www.theverge.com/tech/64194...rother-laser-printer-middle-finger-in-the-air

 

[wobblie]

I was in the same boat, needed to get away from inkjet, so went mono. I bought the Xerox B315 as it does duplex printing and duplex scanning too
3 years on site warranty too. It's been great so far
Link

 

[dave h 2]

I bought a xerox Phaser 6510 no scanner good for photos even with out too much blue sky.
The toner lock out works when you try to fudge the cassette question, all you have to do is tell the truth - genuine cassette? NO

 

[Red'n'Black]

I've had good service from these guys

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_ssn=printermaintenanceltd&store_name=printermaintenanceltd&_oac=1&_trksid=p4429486.m3561.l49496

Refurb HP 2300 mono laser for £110, still going six years later on the part used cartridge it came with.

I'd never go back to an inkjet, the odd time I need photos printed it's a lot cheaper to pay Boots or Tesco to do it for me.

 

[ukracer]

True but I am fairly sure the toner cartridge included with the printer is less full than the ones you buy as spares

Which is why i use OKI as you can replace toner. (like bulk inkjets)

 

[MattF]

Yeah, the Kyocera one I was looking at earlier (which was about £200) ships with a 3600 page toner cartridge. The replacement cartridge is £120 but is a 10,000 page cartridge, so more than 2.5 times the capacity.

When you compare that page output to inkjet, there's no comparison. £120 ain't much, for that output.

I personally have a HP mono laser. Just picked one with scan function which was a decent price a few year ago.

However, (I currently dislike you ), reading this thread has prompted me to scratch an itch I've had for donkeys, as in getting a colour laser unit. Weirdly, I've not gone for any well known brand. Decided to try a Pantum. It'll be arriving tomorrow, hopefully. Wifi, ethernet, ADF + duplex printing. Recognised by Mopria, so printable to from pretty much any operating system.

Worst case scenario, I end up with an expensive'ish brick a few year down the line. That's a possibility with any brand though.

 

[Tangledfeet]

After giving up with inkjet printers we treated ourselves to a Brother DCP-L3520CDW a couple of years ago - and I do pay for a subscription (£21.99 for 300pages/month) for cartridges; Mrs TF has been doing a Masters in Equine Science so some months can print out a few hundred pages. Its been very reliable and we're pleased. She'll be finished the Masters soon so will probably drop the subscription to a cheaper one.

 

[jmp49]

Just as a interesting point I ran the comparison and doing the math for our colour laser printer based on its page stats, 14000 pages/300 pages (making the generous towards Brother assumption that all 300 pages will be used evenly every month) = 46 months worth = 1022 pound. Less 200 for 8 or so toner packs, makes it about 800 quid absolutely best case skewed to the Brother model. However we've had it in service more than 4 years, probably nearer 8 so the real world figures are even worse...
Lets say 500 sheets a ream of paper, 14000/500 = 28 reams. 5 reams is 28 quid on amazon so 6 boxes =168 quid.
So buying a kyocera instead of a brother means we're in significant net profit now, enough clear profit from not paying rent to brother to cover the total purchase cost of the printer itself and all its consumables including paper.

I get the ease of not having to think about ordering replacements, its just interesting to look at the hard numbers.