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adam044

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 24, 2012
1,095
10
Boston
Looking to get a new printer because my old one is old and inefficient. I only get about 200 pages before I have to buy $50-$60 worth of ink the cost of a new printer almost. So heres what I'm looking for:

under $100
able to print many pages without having to buy ink
AirPrint would be nice but not needed

Im not going to be printing picture or anything like that mostly text documents and projects as I'm a college student. Thanks
 

SmurfBoxMasta

macrumors 65816
Nov 24, 2005
1,351
0
I'm only really here at night.
Alhtough I am not a big fan of HP's inkjets, I have learned over the years that they are the bomb for Laserjets....having used them in business since the 90's, where the demands on them far exceed that of most home users, they are the way to go IMHO for strictly B&W text printing....

If you wanna save some $$, look for a used/refurb LJ1200/1250/1300....
 

designs216

macrumors 65816
Oct 26, 2009
1,046
21
Down the rabbit hole
I would recommend looking at the ratings at ConsumerReports. They not only rate the printers by performance, they'll tell you which ones give the cheapest per print cost. I ended up buying the HP OJP 8600, which wasn't the cheapest but has a very low per print cost.

Interestingly enough, from a pure dollars standpoint, it's cheaper to buy a new ink jet printer rather than simultaneously replace all the cartridges...
 

adamjb22

macrumors newbie
Feb 18, 2013
9
0
I would recommend looking at the ratings at ConsumerReports. They not only rate the printers by performance, they'll tell you which ones give the cheapest per print cost. I ended up buying the HP OJP 8600, which wasn't the cheapest but has a very low per print cost.

Interestingly enough, from a pure dollars standpoint, it's cheaper to buy a new ink jet printer rather than simultaneously replace all the cartridges...

I second the officejet 8600, I had to do a report for work and found that the 8600 had one of the lowest cost per page on the market. I got one recently from bestbuy for $150 on sale. So far I love it! great quality, duplex, and does airprint/ePrint with ease. Use it with my ipad, macs and HTC Rezound
 

Giuly

macrumors 68040
One of these, namely the Epson WorkForce WF-2540.
614JX2sNPkL._SL1017_.jpg
 

jdechko

macrumors 601
Jul 1, 2004
4,230
325
A monochrome laser or LED printer, specially for documents printing if you don't want to print color images .
Ever best, according to your college documents printing.

Brother HL-2270DW is my recommendation. It's a monochrome laser with duplex and wireless networking built in (also has ethernet & USB connectivity). I've had it for 2 years now, printed a few thousand pages and I'm only now having to install my 3rd toner cartridge. (One came with the printer, I bought one and now I need a new one).

It's pretty cheap too, though the price generally fluctuates between $70 and $110.

It doesn't do AirPrint, but there's an app (Brother iPrint & Scan) that will allow you to open docs from iPhone & iPad and print. In fact, most printer manufacturers have apps that will do this.
 

Giuly

macrumors 68040
Epson provides ink cartridge yields based on the ISO / IEC 24711 standard for inkjet products, which excludes the first installed cartridges.
Standard-capacity Black (T200120): About 175 pages
Standard-capacity Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow (T200220, T200320, T200420): About 165 pages per color
High-capacity Black (T200XL120): About 500 pages
High-capacity Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow (T200XL220, T200XL320, T200XL420): About 450 pages per color
So you're better off getting the XL cartridges for $19 or so.

If that's still too much, get the Brother HL-5450DN if you're fine without color printing. It comes with a drum unit and a TN720 3.000 page toner and in the box, which will run you about $75 to replace. There's also the TN750 High-yield toner and the TN780 Super High-yield toner, which will give you 8.000 pages for $100 or 12.000 pages for $140.

You will however need to replace the DR720 drum unit every 30.000 pages - well, or buy the latest printer model with a new drum included in the box, which will cost you about the same and gives you a free toner on top.
Read this paragraph three times.
 
Last edited:

gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,565
Looking to get a new printer because my old one is old and inefficient. I only get about 200 pages before I have to buy $50-$60 worth of ink the cost of a new printer almost. So heres what I'm looking for:

under $100
able to print many pages without having to buy ink
AirPrint would be nice but not needed

Im not going to be printing picture or anything like that mostly text documents and projects as I'm a college student. Thanks

Any cheap laser printer. If you look around, there is always _some_ laser printer offered really cheap. The toner cartridge on a new colour laser printer usually lasts around 700 pages, black and white would be cheaper and lasts longer. (The second set of cartridges is usually more expensive than the printer, but will last 1500 pages).

The biggest advantage is that laser printers work just fine if they haven't been used for a few days, where your inkjet printer will have to clean the print heads, wasting lots of expensive ink.
 

abz1981

macrumors 65816
Jan 3, 2011
1,013
4
Looking to get a new printer because my old one is old and inefficient. I only get about 200 pages before I have to buy $50-$60 worth of ink the cost of a new printer almost. So heres what I'm looking for:

under $100
able to print many pages without having to buy ink
AirPrint would be nice but not needed

Im not going to be printing picture or anything like that mostly text documents and projects as I'm a college student. Thanks


Whatever you do, do not get a Kodak printer. My issue with Kodak is, yes they are cheap for ink. However lets say for example, your printing colour documents, and the colour ink runs out, and you want to just print documents in black, even though you have blank ink, the printer wont print, as it will require you to purchase colour ink.
 

troy14

macrumors 6502a
Mar 25, 2008
773
130
Las Vegas (Summerlin), NV
Either get a cheap black/white laser printer, or get an Epson with refillable cartridges or a Continuous Ink System.

I have an Artisan 837 with a CISS and I can tell you I laugh at ink now. Paper is my biggest cost concern ( I print 100s of pages a week)
 
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