[Discuss] color laser printer

[Steven Santos]

The wifi settings and security on most printers is very poor.  Having
it turned on gives you an easy access point to break in.
---
Steven Santos
Director
Simply Circus, Inc.
86 Los Angeles Street
Newton, MA 02458

P: 617-527-0667
F: 617-934-1870
E: Steven at SimplyCircus.com


On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 5:17 PM, Tom Metro <tmetro+blu at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks to everyone for the feedback on your experiences with color laser
> printers. Some follow-up comments below.
>
>
> Dan Ritter wrote:
>> My take on printing:
>>
>> - general document printing? Get a mono laser.
>>
>> - occasional photo printing? Get CostCo or any of the reputable
>>   online print bureaus to do it.
>>
>> - special project color printing? Local print shop.
>>
>> - frequent photo or spot color printing? See if you can justify
>>   a thermal wax printer...[or] buy a cheap color inkjet
>>
>> So, for low volume color printing and somewhat higher mono, I
>> would suggest you get a mono laser -- Brothers are decent -- and
>> send photos to an online service.
>
> Funny how this advice has held the same for 15 years or more. What does
> that say about the advancements in printer technology?
>
>
> Daniel Barrett wrote:
>> ...has noticeably superior output quality. A lot has
>> changed in the past N years, I guess!
>
> We've seen lots of incremental improvements. Higher resolution. Faster
> print speeds. Bigger buffers. Fancier UIs. And lots of formerly high-end
> features, like networking and duplexing, moving to mid- to low-end
> models. And lots of cost reduction.
>
> But the print technology itself seems largely unchanged.
>
> I guess with less need for printing and competitive pressure pushing
> margins down, there isn't much incentive to do R&D.
>
>
>> Reading printer reviews online is uninformative. Nearly every printer
>> has detractors screaming that it's the worst thing ever.
>
> True. It would be useful to have user reviews supplemented by
> statistics, like return rate (something Amazon could choose to publish,
> but they don't), and warranty repair rate (something the manufacturer
> could choose to publish, but they don't).
>
>
>> Toner is expensive ($300-400 per set of genuine HP toner) but I don't
>> care.
>
> Wow. And thus someone else commented that they picked up a color laser
> on sale for less than (or close to) the cost of the toner cartridges.
> That seems to be taking the razor blade model to the extreme.
>
>
> Edward Ned Harvey wrote:
>>> ...another reason why I favor laser printers over inkjets is that you
>>> can leave them unused for several months and not have the ink
>>> cartridges dry out.
>>
>> At least in the Canon PIXMA line, this has not been a problem in the
>> last several years.
>
> True. I've had a PIXMA for 5+ years, and although I've experienced cases
> where the 3rd party ink tanks seem to stop working before they appear to
> be completely empty, I've never had to clean or unclog the print head.
>
>
> Jack Coats wrote:
>> Duplexing is 'manual' rather than automatic and I do it on occasion.
>> It is pretty easy.
>
> Sure, but it is enough of an inconvenience that if I was printing an 8
> page document, I wouldn't bother with it. Where as if it was just a
> matter of checking a box in the printer settings, I'd likely duplex
> almost everything.
>
>
> Dan Ritter wrote:
>> Color lasers are more mechanically complex than mono; they break
>> more often and in stranger ways. The color toners last for a
>> year or so, but the mono toners are lower-volume and more
>> expensive.
>
> That's what I figured.
>
> That's enough of a reason not to bother with color, if I don't have a
> compelling use for it.
>
>
>> Finally, the only suitable interface for a printer these days is
>> wired ethernet. Wireless will work in some circumstances, but
>> likely be unreliable when you haven't printed anything in a few
>> weeks.
>
> I did notice a number of reviews for the Brother printers that
> complained about wireless connectivity dropping. Also some discussion
> about how the printer's various low power modes impact wireless
> connectivity. (Apparently with some models, the most power saving modes
> will result in the printer losing connectivity.)
>
> I had assumed that any printer supporting wireless Ethernet would also
> support wired Ethernet, but apparently thats not the case.
>
>
> Bill Ricker wrote:
>> ...it has a physical Ethernet interface, not just WiFi. I don't want my
>> printer serving as a WiFi intrusion point.
>
> Intrusion point?
>
>  -Tom
>
> --
> Tom Metro
> The Perl Shop, Newton, MA, USA
> "Predictable On-demand Perl Consulting."
> http://www.theperlshop.com/
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