Small office mono laser printer

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Geektastic

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#110642 12-Oct-2012 23:36

I need a reliable, inexpensive but good quality mono laser printer to hook up to our home office network.

There are so many around it is hard to narrow it down but I feel sure that there will be a Geekzone Favourite that I can check out!

Any suggestions?

DonGould

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#700468 12-Oct-2012 23:45

I got a Brother MFC a while back. Scanner, printer, seems to work very well, sub $100 and just connects using USB to a computer that is always on and then shared.

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KevinL

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#700473 13-Oct-2012 00:13

I bought a Brother HL-2240D recently for a little over $100 - it has a built-in automatic duplexer (prints on both sides of the page) which I find fairly useful. It's only USB though - there's a variant with ethernet (2250DN for about $140), or ethernet and wifi (2270DW for about $160).

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Snowflake

#700476 13-Oct-2012 00:47

I've had a great run with brother printers. cheap and functional. their colour lasers are actually about as cheap as mono per page - but the initial cost is a bit higher

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ObidiahSlope

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#700485 13-Oct-2012 02:47

If you plan to use it with an Apple or Linux computer I recomend that you get one which has Postscript or Postscript emulation.

It will cost slightly more but "just works" with Apple or Linux operating systems.

A raspberry in the general direction of Oki for failing to provide a downloadable PPD(poststscript printer definition) file for their Executive Series MFC printers.

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cyril7

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#700508 13-Oct-2012 08:44

Hi, I recenlty replaced my Fuji Xerox colour printer that finally needed a fuser replacement and near on 2x what I paid for the whole machine 6yrs earlier with a Brother mono unit 2250DN I think, its got wired networking (which is desirable for me) uses PCL6 driver and cost around $140, seems to do the job just nicely, the PCL driver is a good one to go with, Brother give you the option of installing a full printer driver and application suite or just the PCL driver which is a 200kbyte payload at max.

http://www.brother.co.nz/Public/Products/ViewProduct.aspx?productID=HL2250DN&productGroupID=2010

You can get them for around $140 if you hunt around.

Cyril

cyril7

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#700521 13-Oct-2012 09:21

Hi, you might also want to consider a samsung, I installed one of these at a Gym I provide IT support to recently, it also uses PCL5e/6 driver and seemed a decent machine, I see warehouse stationary have them for $149.

http://www.samsung.com/au/consumer/print-solutions/print-multifunctions-copiers/mono-laser-printer/ML-3310ND/XSA

Cyril

RunningMan

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#700527 13-Oct-2012 09:34

+1 for Brother. Had several of these of the last years (changing needs, not because they broke!) and been very happy.

Reliable, do what they say on the box, and consumables easy to get.

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tukapa1

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#700530 13-Oct-2012 09:42

I second brother - I have one and it goes well.

http://www.playtech.co.nz/afawcs0139235/CATID=282/ID=17972/SID=484120759/productdetails.html

Unfortunately they have nothing network based with cashback at the moment, only non network laser printers.

DonGould

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#700539 13-Oct-2012 10:01

tukapa1: Unfortunately they have nothing network based with cashback at the moment, only non network laser printers.

My observation is brother cycle the cash back thing.

I got a colour unit for our kindy the other day and it had a $50 CB but then the next month the price list came in with a wholesale cost drop on the same unit but no CB.

So, it's likely that the retailers aren't all passing on the wholesale price reduction each time by running an in store special.

So it would pay to hunt around for a retailer. PriceSpy seems very good for this.

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tukapa1

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#700543 13-Oct-2012 10:09

Yep - I have been thinking of upgrading to a colour laser for the home office and am looking at this with a $100 cashback thanks to PriceSpy.

OP - don't know if you need colour but this could be a good option if you do.

http://www.playtech.co.nz/afawcs0139235/CATID=279/ID=15434/SID=312796036/productdetails.html

DonGould

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#700549 13-Oct-2012 10:27

tukapa1: Yep - I have been thinking of upgrading to a colour laser for the home office and am looking at this with a $100 cashback thanks to PriceSpy.

OP - don't know if you need colour but this could be a good option if you do.

http://www.playtech.co.nz/afawcs0139235/CATID=279/ID=15434/SID=312796036/productdetails.html

Yes those are a great little product.

When looking at those colour units you need to consider the TCO very carefully. If you have a low amount of printing then the Brother units make sense.

If your print volume goes up then they become very expensive on consumables very fast.

http://home.bowenvale.co.nz/gz/PrinterTCOColourLaser.pdf - Dove published this back in July. It's very interesting to compare the differences between models.

Do note that those numbers are based on a 5% page coverage so if you're printing photos the numbers will be different.

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Geektastic

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#700566 13-Oct-2012 11:04

Thanks for all your replies.

Looks like Brother would do the job. As a photographer, I use a dedicated image printer so there is no general need to print colour images on the document printer.

I do however think scanning and copying are worthwhile to have so am extending the paramaters to mono laser multi function.

Still Brother?

cyril7

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#700568 13-Oct-2012 11:08

Hi, if you are after decent scanning then imo you will need to get a networked unit that can generate pdf's internally and spool them to a CIF share, this is by far the best way to go for scanning, yes brother do such units but you need to pay a bit more for that.

Cyril

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#700582 13-Oct-2012 11:34

Another machine I recently dealt with that did network pdf scanning well is one of these

http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=408400

http://www.oki.co.nz/printers/multifunction-printers/mono-mfp/detail.aspx?prodid=tcm:135-131643&tab=1

Seemed quite decent

Cyril

Geektastic

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#709738 31-Oct-2012 11:06

So, eventually I settled on a Brother 7065 DN.

The very handy price comparison system here on GZ found it for me at a smidge over $200 with free delivery which with a list of $300 is not bad at all.

Should be here today.