Four Entry-Level Monochrome Laser Printers, Reviewed

[5teelspy]

I'm always disappointed when brands like Ricoh and Okidata are routinely omitted from these reviews.

I agree. I had an Oki years ago and loved it. I'm sure politics are not involved in the selection criteria for choosing hardware for evaluation - maybe they choose the largest sellers? So how would OKI or Ricoh become big sellers if they never get on lists like this?

OKI and Ricoh tend to target business, and don't concern themselves with the consumer segment. I bought my Oki B431DN on sale for $225. Based on my experience with OKI, I expect it to last forever.When I think about how I calculated my cost per page (one of the reasons I chose the printer I did), I agree with the author that there isn't a great way to calculate an estimate. It really depends on your printing needs. Factors I used: M1) minimum I could spend for the features I wanted. T1) 3 years - I always use 3 years as a payback period. P1 )Pages I expect to print over three years. C1) Printer cost C2) Cost of printer supplies (excluding paper) for P1. Cost per page: ((C1-M1)+C2)/P1

 

[booze99]

HP has made it to my personal "Do Not Buy" list. They have forgotten that they are first and foremost a printer company. In my managed work environment, the HP Universal [Failure] drivers are constantly being stepped on, and must be manually deleted and reloaded each time. I choose not to contend with that sort of driver nonsense on my own time too.

I started using HP printers in 2001 (Laserjet 2200 DN's) Lasted for years although we regularly exceeded the print quantity specs. The P2015 replacement models were awful: the ethernet ports crapped up because they were really flimsy; the paper trays crapped out; 100gram paper would come out with defects in printing; They all crapped (3) out within 18 months. I bought a basic color printer for y mother CP1515 (I think). It was an ink hog, exceedingly slow (way slower than an inkjet Printing in high quality mode), very noisy and would "calibrate" every 20 or so pages for minutes on end. I actually threw it away because it was so bad. I assume HP simply decided that rather than produce a quality product they'd rather turn out a cheap one; the build quality difference between the 2200 and the P2015 is staggering.

 

[John Breeden II]

Hey folks. Me again. Answering more questions for you. The price cap we put on this review was $400, so it was the price point, not so much the entry-level term that we were looking for. The plan is to go back and do more printers, MFPs and different systems at other levels. And of course, to get into color printers.Kyocera will be invited into future reviews. We had trouble getting them to commit on a short time frame for this one. I have personally tested quite a few Kyocera systems over the years and they have all been pretty good, so I am anxious to bring them in here for testing.Oki printers are also well-made and have won awards with other publications I have worked with, but as someone pointed out, they tend to target businesses and large workgroup environments. So we should be able to bring them in when we move into those areas.I will give some more thought tot he cost per page calculation. It's just that the cost of the cartridges changes quite a lot, which changes that number. Not as bad as the stock market, but perhaps beyond the scope of a performance review.Thanks for reading and commenting everybody!

 

[itsmymillertime]

Dell printers are made by Samsung.

 

[tntom]

I have a Samsung SCX-4729FD with ADF and Duplex. Best purchase I ever made in printing. It has never jammed even when running a stack of 20 dissimilar and irregularly sized and thickness receipts through the ADF scanner. Cartridges are a little pricey because they are drum and toner in one. Text is perfect but photos leave something to be desired.

 

[beshonk]

The Brother 2270dw that i purchased 3 weeks ago was a breeze to setup, and has operated exactly as I expected it would (perfectly). It is currently $78 at newegg right now, which is a steal, and it is much cheaper than the ones in this article. If you're looking at this article and are interested in a new laser monochrome, look no further than the 2270dw.

 

[clownbaby]

Nice write up, but at those prices, those are anything but "entry level" laser printers. You can get well into "entry level" color laser printers for uner $300.I personally like the actual entry level brother line. Currently have a hl-2140 that's been going strong for about 5 years, cost $70 new, and prints black and white for about $0.02 per page. For ~$130 you can pick up the hl-2270 which has a wireless connection and about the same specs.Just saying, there are much lower priced options in the laser market.

 

[jonotjie]

stick to pc hardware rather. You missed 90% of the important information when purchasing a printer for office use...

 

[NeatOman]

IMO, just pick up a Brother thats about $100 and stick a 3 year in store replacement for $30 and your good to go. Get some high yield toner cartridges from eBay to get about 6000 pages out of each for less then $20.

 

[The fixeditagainguy]

Things that could be useful with such a test - cost of use - per page over 20,000 and 200,000 pages.Actual footprint when loading more paper, and getting at jammed pages to remove them.Maybe also a note regarding their 'quality' when using 'recycled' paper and various weights of paper - 80 to 200gsm perhaps as well as letter A4, A5 and envelopes. Also commenting about such things as Annoyances with Brother - on the newer models - poor quality output when reaching the end of the toner, and lack of concern to have the drivers for old models recompiled to run under new OS's.That means that the toner has to be replaced well before the cart is empty, and a number of 1070 printers that still work after 10? years will have to be dumped when their users upgrade from XP as Brother couldn't be bothered to make Win7 & win 8 64 bit drivers available.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

I'm running a Brother HL-6050DN, which dates back to ~2005. Drivers available for even Win8.1, both x86 and x86_64.

 

[lp231]

Laser Printers?On Toms?Next they'll be doing car reviews.......

What's wrong with reviews on printers, some of us still print and having a review on printers helps us decide on which is the best printer for our personal needs.
Also that type of ignorant comment is like those, who says they don't carry cash in their wallets, cause it's hip to only just carry credit cards. Carrying cash is like so yesterday.
Well then, good luck fighting the bill when it arrives, showing that piece of jelly donut, which suppose to be $1.00, somehow the decimal point mysteriously shifted 2 places to the right making it $100.00.
And don't forget to add interest!

 

[spookyman]

I have an old HP LJ 4200. Bought it for less then $300 and it works great. Best bet is just find a reseller in your area selling office grade refurbished printers. My preferences are Zerox\tectronix, Brother and HP.

 

[wam7024]

I did my own search of the best printer to get and recommend the three year old Brother HL-2270DW. You can get it for less than $100 and it prints from everything via USB or wireless. It has an iPhone app which is a bit limited but meets my needs. If interested you can see my analysis here: LINK REDACTED - SS