I want a super fast printer for Mac, text only, and wireless
January 19, 2017 7:44 AM   Subscribe

I’m printing tons of text and I need something that’s mac compatible, wireless, and prints like the wind. It would be great if it didn't print to the same tray that feeds it.
posted by captainscared to Computers & Internet (8 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Do you have a budget in mind? If speed is your top priority, I'd start by looking at the upper end of the HP Laserjet range.
posted by primethyme at 7:47 AM on January 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


This Brother HL-L2340DW laser printer is the first good printer I have used in approximately 30 years of printing.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:56 AM on January 19, 2017 [4 favorites]


Having good luck with Brother HL-L2270DW which looks like the earlier version.
posted by sammyo at 8:04 AM on January 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Do be mindful of the fact even though the printer may be advertised as printing quickly, you'll find that the perception of speed rests at times on how long it takes submission-of-job to first-page-out, which relies on the transfer of the file over your wireless... so if there's any way you can do a gigabit ethernet plug or USB, that will naturally decrease your spooling time. HP LaserJets are great with their time-to-first-out (5 sec vs. the Brother line's typical 8). That being said, if that's not a concern, please disregard :)

Having set some up at my work, I can recommend with great pleasure most of the mid-tier Brother line these days. 40PPM+, Mac compatible, and the extended toners run marathons so your price per page is quite competitively low. Haven't even had to think of quality. You may find that the HL-L5200DW (42PPM) or the HLL6200DWT (48PPM) makes a good fit, along with TN880 toner.
posted by a good beginning at 8:11 AM on January 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


When I had a large amount of text to print (hundreds of pages) that was an unusual need for me, in that I don't usually have to print more than a few pages at a time, I found Fedex Office (formerly Kinko's) online printing really convenient and economical. You can upload your file(s) online and then pick the printouts up a short time later. The quality was better than my home printer and it was less expensive than investing in a new printer.

If you're routinely doing large jobs, this would probably not apply to you. But I love it for the occasional larger job.
posted by Orlop at 8:52 AM on January 19, 2017


Thirding Brother printers, I've had two mono laser printers over the years and they are compact, reliable and print to a high quality. I have the 2040, but I think there's a lot faster ones if you go up a little bit in budget.
posted by Happy Dave at 10:56 AM on January 19, 2017


You've gotta quantify what you mean by "tons". A $100 Brother Laser will spit out the first page within 15 seconds and will in fact produce something like 20 pages a minute without much trouble, but it will only hold 150-250 pages. So if you're talking about 1500 pages you'll need something more. The term for these is "workgroup" printers, and they will be able to hold more paper and push it faster, but you'll pay a pretty big multiple of the cost to get one that holds twice the paper and prints it twice as fast.
posted by wnissen at 11:28 AM on January 19, 2017


I had a pretty good run of about three years with the Brother HL-L2270DW before it died. Not bad for a printer that cost me less than $100. When I replaced it in October, I went with the HP LaserJet Pro M201dw, and I've been super happy with it so far. We do a lot of printing and have had no problems at all. (I paid $151 for it, so you can probably do much better than the price Amazon is showing now.)
posted by Pater Aletheias at 12:00 PM on January 19, 2017


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