I will be using the printer mostly for printing out technical papers
(which are 99% black & white) and printing out my own draft papers/
upcoming thesis before getting them professionally printed + bound.
I have a colour inkjet printer but the last time I printed out
something in colour was more than a year ago.
I am tempted to get the colour laser printer but being on a student's
budget, I thought it is better to get the monochrome one first and if
my needs for colour printing increases, I can buy one later when I
have more money to spare.
Also, I reasoned that buying a colour laser printer to mostly print
B&W pages is a waste because printers have a finite life beyond which
their rollers stop working well (does print quality degrade?). Thus
the best way to print is to have a B&W printer for B&W pages and a
colour one for coloured pages (so you minimise work on the more
expensive colour printer and just use it for what it is for).
sk8terg1rl wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm trying to decide between a monochrome and colour laser printer:
>
> Samsung ML2010 Laser 22ppm 1200 dpi x 600dpi USB Includes Toner -
> £43.49
> http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/103045
>
> Samsung CLP-300 Colour Laser Printer 4/16ppm 2400x600dpi USB - £120.99
> http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/120363
>
> I will be using the printer mostly for printing out technical papers
> (which are 99% black & white) and printing out my own draft papers/
> upcoming thesis before getting them professionally printed + bound.
>
> I have a colour inkjet printer but the last time I printed out
> something in colour was more than a year ago.
>
> I am tempted to get the colour laser printer but being on a student's
> budget, I thought it is better to get the monochrome one first and if
> my needs for colour printing increases, I can buy one later when I
> have more money to spare.
>
> Also, I reasoned that buying a colour laser printer to mostly print
> B&W pages is a waste because printers have a finite life beyond which
> their rollers stop working well (does print quality degrade?). Thus
> the best way to print is to have a B&W printer for B&W pages and a
> colour one for coloured pages (so you minimise work on the more
> expensive colour printer and just use it for what it is for).
>
> Apart from page size, how does a colour laser printer's photo-print
> quality & cost per sheet compare with direct photo printers?
> http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/cat/Printer...Photo-Printers
>
> Thanks for any input/advice/suggestions.
> skate xx
>
Did you read the reviews on the Ebuyer page ? They give plenty of useful
advice, such as the cheapness of toner, and what kind of toner to order
for the B&W. Toner costs as much as the printer.
As a student, I'd buy the B&W and put the £80 into beer :-)
Gotta get your priorities right...
Note that one dirty trick with printing devices, is the cartridge
you get with the product, may not print as many pages as the
replacement cartridge will. They tend to be a "teaser" cartridge,
to save on manufacturing costs and force you to buy a replacement
sooner than expected. Otherwise, you might be tempted to buy a
new printer, each time the toner was emptied :-)
Now all that remains, is searching Ebay for bulk toner, so you can
refill it yourself :-) Note that the whatever they use for a
photosensitive surface will have a limited life, so toner is not
the only thing that wears out.
If your work is 99% b&w then your question is almost answered... consider the extra cost just for the 1% of work, the prices for laser toners aren't exactly cheap and there's more than one to replace.
I am on my 2nd mono Samsung laser, the first one a ML1510 had been refilled and refilled till the drum gave up... this produced PCB circuit design as well as text so it did have some 'clobber' and refilling was like 'shelling peas'.
The replacement is a ML3050... and in both cases the price of the toner is about as much as a new printer especially the ML1510, how easy this will be to refill I can't say but if you want a refilling idea to see which is the easiest have a peep at Refill toner UK | Toner refill your empty laser printer cartridge | U Refill Toner Ltd. also gives you insight how it's all done.
Don't forget, too, that unless you've got a laser printer that
incorporates the drum inside the toner cartridge, at some point, you're
going to face the cost of a new drum. This can be a very ample expense.
For example, the drum in an ordinary Brother laser printer that I bought
runs about $135; the drum in my Okidata LED printer goes around $165.
Note that I'm talking street prices here!
Now, is the expense worth it? The answer, amazingly, may actually be
"yes." One thing that worries me about the Brother, even though it's a
fine and fast printer, is the amount of household dust that falls into
the innards through the paper slot (where the paper itself also becomes
nice and dirty). Household dust is abrasive; therefore, I must assume
that such dirt wears down the drum a lot earlier than if the printer
were designed with the paper protected in a chamber (as it is on my
OKI). I bought the Brother used, and just as I thought, I cleaned a
significant amount of dirt out of the thing.
Top-feeders: Yech!!!!!
Who needs this crap engineering?
Laser printer advice 
Linear Mode
