Really Good Laser Printer...

[HurriCat]

I was sick of the ink-cost, messy cleaning and unpredictable quality of the inkjet printers I tried (mostly the ink $$$ though). I have wanted a laser-printer and found: Konica-Minolta PagePro 1350W. It is often on sale for under $100. What a cool little printer. It is small, quiet and cranks out the copies. Excellent for a home office or single workstation at work. I have talked my boss into getting several at work. He tried one, and now we have more on the way. I wish I could get a "commish" on these printers - I love them that much!

Konica-Minolta also has a Color Laser printer similar in design. I see it for sale, maybe 200-300 dollar range. This would be a bargain if it performs as well as the 1350W PagePro. Will advise if I get one and check it out.

TIP: If you aren't doing images (unlikely on a black & white laser), then you can turn the resolution down to a smaller DPI. Some printer software also has a "toner saver" option you can turn on. Experiment and see what works for you. You can also print web pages without their backgrounds. These kinds of things really save the toner and will extend the life of your cartridge by a good bit.

TIP II: Get GOOD paper to feed to your printers. I made sure to get a "Laser" paper, with a high brightness number and a bit heavier in weight than "general purpose" stuff. The label showed the correct side of the paper to print on, too. This is an area worth the added cost.

TIP III: Avoid the Printing Bug. Myself, I see a lot of interesting articles online. Instead of dead toner cartridges and stacks of printouts, I have disciplined myself to bypass the print-button and save the articles as PDFs or copy/paste them into Word and save them that way. I can then burn them to CD. This will ESPECIALLY make your supplies last and last, as well as saving wear on your printers' mechanical parts.

[mike18xx]

Tip: Pull out your toner cartridge and look for a plastic or rubber cap. If it has one, it's refillable with a squeeze-bottle of toner powder from OfficeMax (or somesuch).