New color printer = good value, I believe

[TucsonMTB]

Our four year old Xerox Phaser 6280DN has been acting up, dropping off the network and adding some faint extra, magenta image artifacts when printing anything with pictures . . . only a few weeks after we bought a new set of toner cartridges, of course.

So, we ordered this bad boy, an OKI MC362w that was $300 delivered from Tiger Direct! Last time I looked, the sale is still on and several other outfits offer it for about $330. It has astonishingly good performance as a networked color laser printer and color copier. It's so simple, even my wife can operate it.

The only bad news is that it only comes with 1000 page "starter" toner cartridges. So, the price will be slightly more than double by the time we install a set of full sized cartridges.

Oh well, I believe the quality of the color copying and printing and the three year warranty make it worth the price of admission. With the starter cartridges, the first 1000 pages will be about thirty cents each, including the cost of the printer itself. With the $350 set of full sized cartridges, the first 4500 pages will be about fifteen cents each. Yes, we do have a black and white laser printer for most day to day printing.

The old color printer still sort of works most of the time. So, I can use up the new toner cartridges by printing targets or purely text documents.

Yeah, a $650 printer (including the cost of a set of OEM replacement cartridges) is not quite as much fun as a new J-frame, but it seems to help make my wife happy.

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

Tiger Direct is da bomb! I got an HP color printer on sale for $250 that spews black and white at 36ppm and color at slightly less. Great for the office

 

[Jack Flash]

That looks like an impressive unit. Do you use it for business?

For my modest needs, that would be way overkill. In September 2012, I bought a Brother color printer/copier for about $100 or so off Amazon. I have had to replace the ink cartridges once each. Seems like they were about $25 for the color set and $15 for a pair of B&Ws. No where near $350!

I don't know how mine would hold up to heavy use, but it works fine for our moderate needs.

 

[ChattanoogaPhil]

For personal use I'm switching to monochrome laser.

 

[TucsonMTB]

That looks like an impressive unit. Do you use it for business?

Nope! I am retired. But, we have always owned nice printers. Life is short.

For my modest needs, that would be way overkill. In September 2012, I bought a Brother color printer/copier for about $100 or so off Amazon. I have had to replace the ink cartridges once each. Seems like they were about $25 for the color set and $15 for a pair of B&Ws. No where near $350!

I understand that the Brother models are exceptional values. In addition to remarkable print quality, this OKI model will print five foot long banners using eleven inch wide roll paper. Yes, I am easily amused.

I don't know how mine would hold up to heavy use, but it works fine for our moderate needs.

If your Brother printer works well for you, it is a winner! Ours sits on the network in a back bedroom consuming only two watts of power and then quickly pops out pages printed from one of our wireless laptops where ever we happen to be sitting. That's sort of addictive.

Oh, and you got a real bargain. the Brother model comparable to ours appears to be about the same price we paid. Toner seems to be about the same price as well. Congratulations on being a great bargain finder, sir!

 

[vito]

If you want a great all around printer/scanner/copier you might consider the Canon MG6320 or its equivalent now. It cost me all of $85 dollars from BuyDig, including free shipping. What amazes me, in addition to doing a great job at photos and everything else, is that it is very stingy with ink. I buy the ink now from Blake Printing online, at $35 for TWO full sets of cartridges. I had used more expensive HP printers for years, but this little Canon is terrific and cheap to operate. Of course I am not doing any heavy duty printing, but for home use this is a great printer. I know this sounds like a commercial or that I must have some ownership in Canon but neither is the case. I have been so favorably impressed with this inexpensive printer that three of my kids have bought one and are equally happy with it. Just my two cents on the subject.

 

[NCW Ray]

If you want a great all around printer/scanner/copier you might consider the Canon MG6320 or its equivalent now. It cost me all of $85 dollars from BuyDig, including free shipping. What amazes me, in addition to doing a great job at photos and everything else, is that it is very stingy with ink. I buy the ink now from Blake Printing online, at $35 for TWO full sets of cartridges. I had used more expensive HP printers for years, but this little Canon is terrific and cheap to operate. Of course I am not doing any heavy duty printing, but for home use this is a great printer. I know this sounds like a commercial or that I must have some ownership in Canon but neither is the case. I have been so favorably impressed with this inexpensive printer that three of my kids have bought one and are equally happy with it. Just my two cents on the subject.

Thanks for the tip vito! I have a 2-3 year old Canon MP560 that has been an awesome printer...way better than any of the HP's I've owned over the years. I'm going to give Blake Printing a try for my next ink order.

 

[Jack Flash]

My Brother printer is a less expensive "entry level" model. The Model Number is MFC-J825DW. I see Amazon no longer has that model but does have comparable Brother printers in the $100 to $150 price range.

My Brother printer seems to be holding up fine. My only complaint is that set up was not easy. If the Canon is more user-friendly, I may go that route next time.

 

[EugeneNine]

I was first working at a pc shop when they introduced their led "laser" printers. We'd have to take 3-4 to build one working one.

We just upgraded to an HP color laser. The toner may be more than ink but lasts longer so overall its cheaper.

 

[chaparrito]

I detest the entire printer business model. Give you the machine and then make you bend over for ink or toner or that waxy crayon stuff the Xerox Phasers use.
I don't need color at home, so have a hundred dollar Brother wireless b and w laser. Toner is 45 bucks but gives about 5K pages. Not too bad. It's also the most stable member of my home network. Never gets lost.
I gave up on ink jets a long time ago. Used to use Epsons, but they got greedy and made it so that if you had ONE color cartridge empty, the machine wouldn't print black and white.

 

[TucsonMTB]

I was first working at a pc shop when they introduced their led "laser" printers. We'd have to take 3-4 to build one working one.

That must have been a while ago. OKI uses the same mechanisms for their entire line. So, the "low end units" like our MC362w share the same electronics and mechanical components with their high end commercial stuff. This seems to result in a proven product, in our experience.

All I had to do was set the IP address and load the drivers on the laptops. But, the manuals are huge. This thing is very versatile. We don't use many of the extra features beside scanning to a USB thumb drive that can be plugged into the front on the right hand side.

Whatever the case, our new color MC361w has a three year warranty. If reliability is anything like our trouble free, several year old, MB471w mono printer, it will be a winner.

Admittedly, the cost per page for the mono printer a tiny fraction of the cost per page of the color model. Oh well.

We just upgraded to an HP color laser. The toner may be more than ink but lasts longer so overall its cheaper.

I have to agree with you. Inkjet printers can be great, especially for photographic printing. The individual ink cartridges are much cheaper, in part because they typically only provide a small fraction of the number or pages. But, the cost per page for ink is often more than electrostatic toner for laser or LED printers.

I just like laser printers. Always have, since our first gigantic HP LaserJet II. Remember those monsters? We had one work well for more than a twenty thousand pages over the course of two years on one of our projects. Now that's reliability and lots of toner cartridges!

But, I am babbling again . . . sorry!

 

[JohnSW]

For personal use I'm switching to monochrome laser.

That's what I have. Whee, no clogged ink jets.

 

[claudel]

I just bought a Canon MG7520 to replace the last Canon I bought a year or so ago.

I gave up expecting cheapo inkjets to last more than a year or two.

I bought another Canon because I had ink left over from the previous one.

If a large part of my printing needs(?) wasn't to print directly on discs I'd have gone with a laser long ago...

First couple of printers I tossed after 3 or 4 refills sort of pist me off, but I successfully lowered
my longevity expectations for the things and now I just plan on them not lasting very long.

I'm pretty sure I bought 4 ( different brands ) in the 7 years I had my last computer...