I was talking to an eBay seller yesterday about printers and the cost benefits of laser printers over inkjet printers. This prompted me to take a look at the printer which I use daily to print out all my orders and has sat under my desk for the last decade.
My printer is an old HP LaserJet 4000 and as I’m constantly thinking I should upgrade it to a newer faster model. The trouble is I just can’t justify throwing a perfectly good working printer away, or even selling it when I can make more profit of the later models sitting in my warehouse.
So why are laser printers so good? Well my printer has printed over a quarter of a million pages without a service (that’s 500 reams of paper!). Since new it has printed over 700,000 pages and is still going strong. The only cost to myself since I first purchased it (and then it was second hand) has been a couple of toner cartridges which I can get on eBay for about £20.00. For the £20.00 toner the HP 4000 will print anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 pages – That’s more than the official spec, but then eBay invoices aren’t the 5% coverage that printers are tested on.
If you’re still using an inkjet printer it’s time to upgrade to a laser printer. You don’t need colour on your invoices – if you do get some headed paper pre-printed and then print in black only. You don’t need to be spending anything up to £30.00 a time for inkjet cartridges which only last a few hundred pages. You don’t need to worry about inkjet cartridges drying out if you don’t use your printer for a few weeks because laser printers never dry out.
Laser printers are by far the cheapest option, and while no one can guarantee a second hand laser printer will last for three quarters of a million pages printed without some maintenance, at a cost of under £100.00 to purchase it’ll save you a fortune compared to any inkjet printer on the market. There are plenty of , so invest in one if you haven’t already.
42 Responses
I remember you recommending Laser Printers a time ago. I made the switch and never looked back. So thank you!
How did you get the details of how many pages you’ve printed?
Best bit of kit in the office. Would be lost without my laser printer.
Most defiantly worth purchasing if you print more than a dozen pages a day and I think most us here print a lot more than that.
Nice article
When you are watching ink jet printing 100 pages on a Monday morning, it does make you want to go to bed again.
Steam printers are all the rage in cornwall
Surely a quarter of a million pages is 500 reams and not the “half a million reams of paper!” quoted in the article.
The thing I like about my laser printer is the speed it prints at.
Isnt there a problem with printing on one half of a label and then turning it around and printing the other half of the label because it went through once?
Another tip for those with Dell laser printers…..
When your printer chirps up and tells you that your toner is running low, go to ebay and buy some toner chips or your printer. Replace said toner chips in your supposedly ‘low’ toner and keep printing.
Dell laser’s seem to think that a toner will last for as long as 4000 pages cycling through it without taking into account coverage.
A complete set of 4 x dell 8k toners is £450 while a set of chips is £25 on ebay.
HP Lasers are also excellent. I have an old HP laser 4L that was traded in against a new computer system years ago from 1994 and its still working perfectly!
I do not print. IT was developed for the paperfree office.
I agree 100%, I am a big fan of the Samsung ML2010r. I’m on my second – the first only failed after my daughter dropped a coin inside it and it stripped the teeth from the drive cogs.
They go on for ever, are almost maintenance free and toners are very very cheap.
I mistakenly bought a Epson inkjhet for the house and it’s terrible and will be back up for sale on eBay at 99p start next time it runs out.
The HP LaserJet 2420d that I got from you about 3 years ago is still going strong 😀
I didn’t have to put in any toner for nearly a year after buying it and the cartridges last at least a year, far longer than the little Lexmark laser printer I had previously.
I get through a ream of paper in a couple of weeks or so. I just checked and my printer has printed out a mere 46179 pages, just over 92 reams – so it mustn’t have had that much use before I got it 😉
I haven’t tried printing labels in it as I prefer using a Dymo for that. I know it costs more, even with compatible labels, I just find it a lot more convenient than faffing around with part sheets of labels.
I would like to say that this is the situation today, but it will definitely change.
Problem has been that ink cost is so cheap, that major improvements went to toner.
But in terms of Energy consumption and health, there is no question.
Why all books Nespapers etc are printed with ink?
Do you think that the fact that 5 manufacturers control 65 % of toner production has something to do with it?
@Paddy: I still have my old Laserjet 4L from 1994, too. It’s slow and doesn’t have the resolution needed for bar-coded labels, but it’s still going strong with no maintenance whatsoever. Meanwhile, we’ve gone through 4 inkjets and spent a ridiculous amount on ink cartridges.
One additional benefit of laser printing is that the printing doesn’t run when wet like inkjet-printed ink will. Much better for printing mailing labels.
For me, Science is a list of what we will understand to be wrong tomorrow…but believe to be correct today.
PC World are selling Internet Security 2011 Performance Pack for £28.99 Instead of £59.99. Thats including Norton Utillities and anti virus software.
We should have a thread on the forum where we can all post cheap computer software we find in sales, as I for one am skint and this would help me a lot.
url up to date 23/07/11 https://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/norton-internet-security-2011-performance-pack-07586209-pdt.html?srcid=8322&xtor=ES-271&cmpid=em~pcwbase~promo_wk12~20110721