Sick of inkjets that dry up as I’m not a regular user. ‘Recommended’ Lexmark in the bin and looking for maybe a laser version this time.

a) will I die with a laser printer sitting in the study. Does it churn out any crap?

b) whats the quality of (color) prints?

c) Can I (do I?) stick photo paper though them?

Got a little dye sublimation printer for 6×4 prints so colour photos is not a massive issue but Samsung colour laser on Amazon for £80ish don’t sound bad…

I too am interested. Have a similar problem with ink drying, but tiny 6×4 sublimation prints aren’t much good for me. And the media is well expensive…

tiny 6×4 sublimation prints aren’t much good for me. And the media is well expensive…

I know. Picked it up off eBay with 2 pack of photopaper for £15 so can’t complain and it keeps Granny supplied with granddaughter photos. Worth it just for that! For that price could almost bin it after they run out.

They’re pretty awful for photo prints. Budget ones can be rather costly per page – the one on amazon is only £85 to buy but a new set of cartridges is £140 which should do 1000 pages. At least according to the review the cartridges it ships with will do 700 – lots seem to ship with the bare minimum to get going these days.

Unlike inkjets, lasers are fine on cheap office paper – inkjet ink is drawn along the gaps so you get the spidery effect, but lasers don’t do that.

Not a bad buy if your volumes are low and only need the odd bit of colour. To be honest, there are enough cheap and good photo printing services these days (that always seem to have offers on) that we don’t bother printing any photos at home any more.

Recently picked up a Dell 1320c for the home office.

Very easy to set up on the network, not very Mac friendly but still works ok (have to print preview before sending to spool) Quiet and quick, and doesn’t have to bad a smell when its in operation.

From memory about £140, and the inks are slightly cheaper than most. Photographic quality is pretty low on the agenda though, and the output certainly reflects that.

I’d buy it again.

Regards Inkjets, epson are the worst for infrequent use, and the heads are typically not user serviceable. HP on the other hand are an absolute dream. Have both a Z3200 and a smaller B9180. Both have replaceable heads which are around the same cost as an ink cartridge.

Some of the smaller Canons also have similar.

As a note it does help to leave most inkjet printers on 24/7. They will regularly go through a nozzle clean cycle to minimise blockages. Uses a bit more ink but can work out cheaper (less hassle) in the long run.

HP on the other hand are an absolute dream.

Blimey, £3,500 for an inkjet! It’d better be a dream!!!

Buy an Epson r240 for about £85 and some non-Epson cartridges (I pay £4 for a full set)

Hi, which Samsung model is it you are looking at on Amazon?

If you think you may end up going for after market cartridges Samsung certainly don’t make it easy these days, and the frequent firmware updates (that do pretty much nothing except lock-out aftermarket cartridges) are a bit of a pain.

A small laser can be a great solution for printing out documents rather than pictures, and the little Samnsung’s are as good as any if you plan to stick with OEM cartridges.

The Dell 1320c as recommended by Mightymarmite is a great little machine if you can get your hands on one. Small (2,000 page yield,) hasn’t had any firmware issues with after-market, re-manufactured cartridges are readily available, but the quality as with most of these smaller lasers will never be the same as ink. (I use one in the office on a daily basis from printing invoices etc no problem.)

Others I could recommend
HP CP 1215 (1200 pages black, 1000 colours cartridge code CB540a, CB541a, CB542a, CB543a)
The replacement for it
HP CP 1025 (1200 pages black, 1000 colours. Although you might not be able to find remanufactured cartridges for this easily now, my company has released the products and they will be across the market place very swiftly.)
HP CP 2025 if you want something a little larger (3500 pages Black, 2800 colours. )

Obviously I could go on and on, but feel free to pick my brains on particular models.

Please bear in mind page yields are based on an industry standard of 5% print per page.

If it interests you for either financial or environmental reasons the re-manufacturing industry has come on a long way in the last 10 years, all our product for instance are quality guaranteed. As I have discovered since coming in to the industry having the latest printer is not always the best thing as it can take 12-18 months for after-market to become available.

For big HP inkjets although ridiculously expensive produce unmatched print quality, so horses for courses.

And to answer the other 2 of your questions, no the laser doesn’t churn out anything nasty (I can provide you MSDS, or Reach compliance on dozens of different toners to quell your fears if needed.)
Yes you can put photo paper through them, and you will still see improved quality although not as marked as ink on to paper.

Ozone, 5AM?

5AM – it’s the Samsung CLP-320 on Amazon.

To be honest I mostly do documents these days, the odd Google map which hardly pushes the bounds of colour printing.

I’ve a little printer for photo snaps and as mentioned above, the online photo printers almost make it pointless to do prints at home.

Just maybe need the odd print for the little ones homework maybe for school at short notice (ie 10 mins before leaving for school)!

I’ve got a Lexmark s605 inkjet that is pretty rubbish, never got a good print off it and now the starter inks have run out and I’m loathed to fork out another £50+ – vaguely remember they’ve chipped the cartridges too so can’t buy OEM either.

Would rather buy a new printer (even like a Canon Pixma (ip4850 or similar) than give Lexmark anymore money unless you are in the ‘know’ with Lexmark stuff too…

(sorry, how rude of me – thanks for the information 5AM)

Breatheasy dependant on where you are located i might be worth you visiting a Cartridge World store. I sell to a large number of them, and the staff in those stores know 10 x more than the kids in say Currys or PC world. There is a store locator on their head office website..

Don’t have much experience of the CLP-320 as it’s not one we have an aftermarket product for yet. I would imagine it must be relatively high on the company R and D list as I get the impression it has been a reasonable seller worldwide, I don’t however know the incription level on the chips so can’t even give a vague ETA on this, I would suggest 6 months minimum..

And happy to help 🙂

I’ve got the CLP315W IIRC. Its been ok. Printing is great for documents and maps. Photos are very average. Mine has played up a bit but a clean seems to have sorted it so far. I got a toner low message a while ago so bought some toner from ebay. A bit of reading up suggested I needed to solder a chip in it to use refilled cartridges but its carried on printing quite happily with what it thinks are empty cartridges. The print is waterproof which is nice for maps, I’ve even printed some wreck plans on plastic paper and taken them scuba diving. The wireless feature is handy for printing from the laptop.

The soldering on a CLP 315 is no longer required as chips are now available, however this is one of the printers that Samsung keeps firmware upgrading to lock out aftermarket cartridges.
Best thing is just not to accept any updates.

I was looking to buy a colour laser printer, ideally wireless and small size. I need it mostly for mono prints of text documents, although I would like the option to colour print now and then (but would rather avoid having 2 printers). Can anyone recommend a good colour laser printer with low running costs? I was considering the Samsung CLP-325W Wireless Colour Laser Printer, but am not sure about the actual toner costs, as all the reviews concern “first impressions” on quality and easy of setup. Have anyone used this printer for a while so to comment on actual running costs? I have been using my Canon mono laser printer for almost 15 years and have always been very happy with it, but they do not provide drivers for W7 and have to let it go… So I am not an expert of colour laser, do they allow printing in mono mode without using ***any*** of the colour cartridges or when printing texts in black and white they will use a minimum of colour anyway? In terms of toner costs, are mono laser printers cheaper than colour ones even if you were to use them only for mono printing? Any help would be much appreciated!