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Help me pick a laser printer

S

swingerofbirch

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 24, 2003
3,691
4,704
The Amalgamated States of Central North America
Our family wants to buy a laser printer that will be used by three of us from three different computers.

Right now we have one inkjet (that cost $29 and is believe it or not failing us) hooked up to one Mac, and I print to it as well via Print Sharing a la Rendezvous, and the PC, well it just can't print right now.

We want something that all three of us can print to, including the PC with Windows XP. But I don't know much about the world of laser printers. I am assuming there are some with wifi cards that all of us should theoretically be able to print to?

We want a reliable printer for black and white, we don't need color. And as you can tell from our last printer purchase, we're looking to go low cost, lol, obviously more than $29 though.

Any suggestions?
 
All you need to know about printers: Bros before Hos. (Brother & HP.)

Brother cares about their mac user base and HP doesn't. HP actually seals their printer boxes with the tears of Apple computer users.

I have a Bro 2080N - works on the network through rendevous. Well, sometimes it works, sometimes I have to walk over and plug it in. But I don't blame Brother for that, I think its something to do with me being misconfigured and the printer being lazy. No, that's probably backwards.

But good choice on the laser printer. Inkjets are junk, or at least the consumer ones we all buy twice in a row before we finally wise up and get a laser printer are junk.
 
I'd steer clear of HP, whether you are using them on a Mac or otherwise.

I'm using a Samsung SCX-4200 Scanner/Copier/Laser printer and so far it been fantastic for only £99 and is great for a budget printer for my office. Before that I had an ML-1210 laser only which only cost me £50 and so far they have been pretty good at providing Mac drivers.
 
I have a Brother 1440 at home that I think is pretty darn nice (works just fine with my Mac), and a a Brother 2040 at work that I had some trouble with until I moved it, now it's great.

The trouble seemed to be overheating related, and when I moved it somewhere the machine could get adequate ventilation it started working flawlessly. So, my advice is to get a Brother printer (I like the 14xx series better than to 20xx series, but they both are good buys) and make sure you set it up somewhere it can breathe.
 
Hp C6180

I have a HP C6180 and it has been wonderful! It's definitely more than $29 (about $299 but there are rebates out there). It does everything I want it to do: fax, scan, copy print (4X6 photos too) and it does it all wirelessly (wired if you prefer). I have 2 PCs and a Macbook Pro and I haven't had any problems out of it. The setup is easy as well.:apple:
 
yg17 said:
I have a Samsung ML-2510 and it works great with my Mac. It's about a hundred bucks or so.
Click to expand...

I have to agree on the Samsung - I have the same model that i have used for 14 months and it is still on the same toner cartridge. I use it wired to my IMAC and wirlessly from my Windows laptop, The above printer sells for 60-80 US at least once a month somewhere.

I can't remember the name of the program used to set the printer up - but it made it a breeze to find on the network

I also have a Samsung CLP300 color laser that is great and sells at Staples (US) for slightly over 200.00

John
 
Thank y'all for y'all's help, and Tristan, I especially appreciated your wit!

Our family just purchased this from Costco:

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11106835&whse=BC&topnav=&browse=&s=1

Hopefully the link is static, if not, it's the Brother HL-5250DN
High Speed Network
Laser Printer
With Duplex

for $179.99

Looking forward to getting it and impressing my classmates with clean, crisp text!!!!!!!!!
 
Hehe well when it gets late I don't know what I'm writing. :rolleyes:

Yeah, looks like a good one. Actually the picture looks exactly the same as mine, they're probably almost identical models. (And mine's a 2070 not a 2080, I misspoke earlier.)

FYI for anyone else reading (because I know you already bought) you can also share a USB printer on your network with the new Airport Extreme - it has a USB port, which most wireless routers don't have.
 
tristan said:
Hehe well when it gets late I don't know what I'm writing. :rolleyes:

Yeah, looks like a good one. Actually the picture looks exactly the same as mine, they're probably almost identical models. (And mine's a 2070 not a 2080, I misspoke earlier.)

FYI for anyone else reading (because I know you already bought) you can also share a USB printer on your network with the new Airport Extreme - it has a USB port, which most wireless routers don't have.
Click to expand...

i like my HL-2070N as well. it has been working fine with airport express. got it at officemax for $99 or so when skool started last semester. now i just need to replace the toner... ...
 
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