[SWLUG] cheap laser printers ??

Justin Mitchell justin at discordia.org.uk
Mon Apr 19 10:46:19 UTC 2004


On Mon, 2004-04-19 at 11:33, Gareth Lewis wrote:
> Has anyone had a close look at the rash of 'cheap' laser printers that are on the market these days ?
> 
> I've noticed that some machines are available for around 100 quid BUT,   the one i looked at was a USB one - with dubious linux conpatability and a new cart was 70 quid !
> 
> is it still a better bet to spend (quite a lot) more initially and get a HP with ps and ethernet in the hope that any 'nix version should cope and i should be able to find recycled carts for a resonable price ?  

The very cheapest printers tend to be subsidised, and thus take much
more expensive cartridges.

they also tend to have the added disadvantage of being win-printers of
some form.

the best bet i find is usually to go a little bit up the range, where
you pay slightly more for the printer, but less for the inks.
they also then tend to support decent print protocols like PCL.

refer to http://www.linuxprinting.org to check, but any printer that
supports PCL will usually work with no problems.  

Brother make a range of cheap, and compatible, mono laser printers that
seem quite reliable.






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