Our HP PSC 1600 has gotta go!

May 25, 2009 3:44 AM

Looking for recommendations: high volume, low cost printer.

We've got an HP PSC 1600 that I purchased in 2005. I didn't really consider operating costs (which, by the way, are now extortionary, thanks HP!) when purchasing the device as until recently its been used infrequently.

Both Mrs Mutant and I are writing dissertations which means in September we'll be handing in 30K or so printed words, but after many revisions. We're going to be pushing a lot of paper through a printer in the next three months, and considering how HP's operating costs have skyrocketed its not going to be our current printer.

We'd like to find a printer with lowest per page operating costs. We're indifferent to the price of the printer; its total cost of ownership that is of interest. Multi function (i.e., scanner, copier) capabilities not necessary, but it must be able to print in colour, as well as produce graphics of a reasonable density (I print lots of graphs). The greater bulk (i.e., 98% or so) of our printing will be in black and white, and we'd like that it offer some type of low ink consuming, draft mode. Ideally, this printer would have wireless capability as our home office is in a back bedroom, far away from the wired side of our LAN.

We're primarily an OS X household, but do have a couple of Linux netbooks as well.

Oh! We're not interested in refilling the cartridges. This experience with HP has left such a bad taste in my mouth I'd write my dissertation in long hand rather than give them another pence.

We're interested in recommendations based upon personal experience please; Kodak seems to be making a big push here in the UK now with their ESP series but after the HP experience we're suspicious of vendor claims.

posted by Mutant to computers & internet (11 comments total)

If you don't actually need color for your dissertations your best bet might be an older black and white laser for non-color printing plus your current printer for color. Can't beat the cost per page of an older HP Laserjet 5 for example, and they're built like tanks to boot. I just replaced the toner cartridge on mine after 4+ years of household printing, and it was $27 for a generic cartridge. Just steer clear of the 5L/6L printers (they have a history of feed issues) and stick with the boxy models.
posted by reptile at 4:10 AM on May 25

I used to have a HP and a Brother Laserjet because I wanted to have a cheap printer. Now I know better and I would recommend a Kyocera printer to everyone who prints a lot.
posted by jfricke at 6:00 AM on May 25

Thirding a laser printer. Higher up-front cost, but one toner cartridge will last you a long time. If you almost never print color, I'd just get a B&W laser and keep the HP inkjet around for those rare times - color laser is expensive, and the quality doesn't touch inkjet's color until you get way up in price.

I haven't been printer shopping in a while, so I'm not sure what's best - although I've heard good things from friends about Brother's latest lineup, and their networked printers work out-of-the-box with OS X, no drivers required. Don't know anything about Kyocera's printers; I honestly had no idea they made them until jfricke's post. An older Laserjet would work fine and would certainly be cheap, but may require a few hoops be jumped through to work fully with OS X - it's been a while but it would depend on the model, I think. HP's newer models tend to be either really good or really mediocre, so I'd only buy one of those after doing some research.
posted by agentmunroe at 6:15 AM on May 25

i can't say enough about our samsung laser printer. and considering that as already mentioned you can't go wrong buying a B/W and color. we have the samsung ML-2510 and it still has the original cartridge we bought for it 3+ years ago. currently it's $95 at buy.com. then considering our affinity for the samsung i would suggest the CLP-315W for a networked color laser at about $200. if you want faster samsung makes the CLP-610ND for about $375.

lastly whenever i have had cost of ownership questions i cannot stress how helpful the folks at CDW are. they really take time to help. simply call and tell them "i have X budget now, but am more concerned about cost of ownership in the future. it needs to be color blah blah" they'll be able to steer you in the right direction AND usually have pretty good pricing too.


cheers.
posted by chasles at 6:15 AM on May 25

My HP L7680 and a continuous ink supply system (you buy ink bottles and refill the 'cartridges' yourself) has about a 1p/page cost. I use this printer all day and it works like a champ, although I do get to be an ink stained wretch when refilling ink!
posted by By The Grace of God at 6:17 AM on May 25

we'll be handing in 30K or so printed words, but after many revisions.

At 300 words per page, that's about 100 pages. You don't say if you're both doing 30,000 words each or combined, but it hardly matters. Your final draft should be professionally printed and bound, but you probably know that already.

If speed isn't terribly important, and you're only need is for printing rough drafts which will only be seen by you, I recommend picking up an old HP LaserJet 4.

You can sometimes find these at thrift stores or office surplus places, but many can be found on eBay for cheap. They are built like tanks and re-manufactured toner cartridges run about $25. Cartridges are mostly spec'ed for 8,000 pages, but even if you get half of that you're still getting a great deal.

This one does double-sided printing and will plug into your network.
posted by wfrgms at 9:15 AM on May 25

HP printers are not bad if you get out of their consumer market and start shopping for the small business/office-grade printers.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:52 AM on May 25

I had an HP LaserJet III that I picked up for free maybe 7 or 8 years ago. Changed the toner once, for about $25, but it worked for me beautifully for about 5 years. They really are tanks. Some piece finally gave out and I started getting streaks on printouts and decided to scrap it rather than fix it, but it was the most economical printer I've ever had.
posted by devilsbrigade at 12:01 PM on May 25

What you want is a Kyocera laserprinter. Their only operating cost is toner, everything else does not need to be replaced (drum, transfer band, whatever).
I'd go for the more expensive ones with the bigger toner cartridges to drive down the cost per page even further.
Britain Netherlands
posted by mmkhd at 2:33 PM on May 25

I print out a lot of books and papers and have been very happy with my low-end HP laserjet. So much so I recommended it to friends, and I haven't heard any complaints, other than it does not print in color. Go for the lowest end one you can as the only difference on the entry-level models is speed. I think mine cost somewhere around the range of $120 several years ago which puts it in the completely disposable category for me. Most importantly across the street is a toner refill place that has low-cost refills I need about once a year. I print out about 200 pages a month. My model is the HP 1020, which looks like it has been replaced with the HP 1005.
posted by geoff. at 2:50 PM on May 25

Another vote here for an old Laserjet (I have a Laserjet 4 that I literally found on the curb). Unlike newer printers (e.g. a Samsung laser printer I had), they are feasible to repair, are unlikely to need repair (again unlike my Samsung experience), and the per-page costs wind up being very low. IMHO these benefits should outweigh anti-HP sentiment. You could use a cheap inkjet for the color.
posted by exogenous at 7:48 AM on May 26