Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (
More info?)
> My Dell printer (A940) is giving me grief, so I'm considering getting a new one.
I know a few people who have similar printers to the A940, the 920 I
believe. Problems from day one. I imagine it can be annoying not
being able to buy the lexmark ink at office depot due to the extra
notch Dell puts in. Cost per page is pretty high.
> I don't need color; I use it just for documents, so I'm
> guessing a laser printer is the right idea. I'd like to be
> able to scan, copy & fax as well as print. Since I'm just
> starting to look, I don't know what the suitable price range
> is, but it would be nice not to have to pay an arm and a
> leg.
Well in inkjet, there is only color, i've not seen a B&W inkjet sold in
eons. Some multifuctions oddly enough don't offer fax. Laser
multifuctionals seem to start at about $200 to $300 with fax at the
local office store where the more basic inkjets with fax are starting
at $100.00 to $200 with fax.
You could replace what you have with the Lexmark branded X5150. Same
thing but you can buy your ink from some place other than dell. Not
that I would, the cost of the ink is high and the output quality if
it's anything like the dell a920 is below average. Over 5c/page is
high.
I know Amazon and office depot have the (inkjet) Canon MP780 for about
$200 on sale (unknown shipping price). Tyipcal seems to be $300. This
was talked about in an earlier thread. I have the mp760 which is
similar except no fax, no auto sheet feeder, but a 35mm transparancy
adapter build into the lid. The MP780 lacks the color tilt LCD screen.
Basicly the 760 is geard more tward photos and the mp780 is geard more
tward documents and multisheet faxing, otherwise they are both basicly
the canon ip4000 printer with added features.
I paid more for mine two weeks ago to replace an old HP PSC 950. So
far i've been pleased with it. Cost per page for black is not as
*cheap* as some lasers, but it's real close. Any laser will give you
the benifit of thousands of pages without a refill and is worth
considering. Canon, the yield is listed as 500p black (2.4c/page).
Local price, $12.00 or so. Costco has nice 4 packs.
I looked at the (laser) HP3015 briefly for $300. I was thinking at
first I "had" a color inkjet already so didn't need a color
multi-fucational. But the toner costs $70 per 2000p (3.5c p) localy.
I can find it for $63 but we are still talking about 3c/page. The
brother multifuctionals were actually more reasonably priced in terms
of toner, but still on par with the canon inkjet in terms of cost/page.
The yields were slightly higher, 2500p.
In my case, I felt that two printers that took the same ink would be
more useful, esp if there wasn't a cost benifit to the laser. There is
almost always a quality benifit, a won't run in the rain benifit, a
designed to handle larger volumes benifit.