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Thread: Inexpensive color printer?

  1. #16
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    Dennis,
    I have an EPSON XP430 ink jet printer... I'm partial to EPSON printers anyway, but this one is an all in one, printer, copier and scanner for under $100.... Ink for the printer runs about $10 per cartridge and uses 4 cartridges.... black, blue, red and yellow. I find it to be an excellent and economical printer... plus it's actually a wireless printer if it's set up to be one... both mine and my wife's are wired only because I haven't set it up wireless and my desktop doesn't have wireless capability, though the wife's lap top does.

  2. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by dennis thompson View Post
    Jim
    Thanks for the reply ,now that you mention it, I remember having the same problem in the past. I see a Brother color laser printer for $180 at Best Buy, maybe I need to stop being such a cheapskate and just buy it!
    $180 for a Brother HL-3170CDW is a nice price. If you're willing to take a bit of a risk, Walmart sells the same machine refurbished for $158.50. We just bought one. It was a bit of a hassle, it came with a black toner/drum assembly in place of one of the color assemblies. Brother sent the correct assembly no problem. Ink Jets are a problem if used infrequently like Jim says, the ink may dry in the print head and require one or more cleaning cycles which can use up quite a bit of ink. The only downside to color lasers over inkjets besides $$$ is photo quality; lasers generally aren't as good as a good inkjet. Color graphics are not bad by any means but the colors tend toward a little dark.

    Max memory on the Brother is 128 MB, A comparable Canon machine can support up to 1 GB. I wonder if that has something to do with the graphics quality. As far as connections with the Brother, it supports USB, wired ethernet and wifi. You can have USB and one of the networking connections in use at the same time. 3rd party toner and drums are readily available. The Brother laser is not small if that matters.

  3. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Curt Harms View Post
    $180 for a Brother HL-3170CDW is a nice price. If you're willing to take a bit of a risk, Walmart sells the same machine refurbished for $158.50. We just bought one. It was a bit of a hassle, it came with a black toner/drum assembly in place of one of the color assemblies. Brother sent the correct assembly no problem. Ink Jets are a problem if used infrequently like Jim says, the ink may dry in the print head and require one or more cleaning cycles which can use up quite a bit of ink. The only downside to color lasers over inkjets besides $$$ is photo quality; lasers generally aren't as good as a good inkjet. Color graphics are not bad by any means but the colors tend toward a little dark.

    Max memory on the Brother is 128 MB, A comparable Canon machine can support up to 1 GB. I wonder if that has something to do with the graphics quality. As far as connections with the Brother, it supports USB, wired ethernet and wifi. You can have USB and one of the networking connections in use at the same time. 3rd party toner and drums are readily available. The Brother laser is not small if that matters.
    Curt ,thanks for your reply,given your experience I plan to buy a new one.
    I found the Brother printer,new, for $160 at Amazon, I plan to go to Best Buy today and hope to get them to match the price, even if they don't I'll buy it for $180.
    One thing I like about Best Buy is, if for some reason you don't like it, you can return it for 15 days, no questions asked. That being said, I'm very happy with the Brother black and white laser printer I have.
    Dennis

  4. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by dennis thompson View Post
    I have a Brother laser black and white printer which works well for 99% of my printing. Every once in a while I would like to print a color page, say once or twice a week. Can anyone recommend a color printer for less than $100, since I will rarely use it, inkjet will be OK. I would want to have both printers connected.
    Thanks
    If I need color printing (rarely) I usually go to staples or some such store and have them print it for me.

  5. #20
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    For me to go to staples or some other store costs to much as they are 20 miles away

  6. #21
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    I have an old HP black only commercial laser printer that is built like a Sherman tank. It has the old parallel printer port. Is there an effective way to adapt this to act as a wireless or wired network printer?
    My three favorite things are the Oxford comma, irony and missed opportunities

    The problem with humanity is: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and God-like technology. Edward O. Wilson

  7. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Weber View Post
    I have an old HP black only commercial laser printer that is built like a Sherman tank. It has the old parallel printer port. Is there an effective way to adapt this to act as a wireless or wired network printer?
    you would need to add a device such as a D-Link DP-G321 print server.

  8. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by dennis thompson View Post
    One thing I like about Best Buy is, if for some reason you don't like it, you can return it for 15 days, no questions asked. That being said, I'm very happy with the Brother black and white laser printer I have.
    The generous return policy probably assumes that the item is still in new condition. If you plug in the cartridges to print a few sheets, they may deduct the cost of the toner cartridges. $180 seems like a good price.

    Steve
    Steve

  9. #24
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    I have that Brother HL3170CDW and am well satisfied with it.
    Use it for color only and a different Brother for B&W.

    Howard Garner

  10. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Weber View Post
    I have an old HP black only commercial laser printer that is built like a Sherman tank. It has the old parallel printer port. Is there an effective way to adapt this to act as a wireless or wired network printer?
    Yup, like Adam says, print server. I have a Netgear ethernet - parallel port device I used with an HP Ink Jet but haven't used it in years. If you're interested, I could see if I can find it.

  11. #26
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    Not the same situation because we do a fair amount of printing, but price per page is what counts for me. I was going broke on ink cartridges. What ended up delivering the lowest cost in our house was a low end HP office laser printer that I found marked down to about $600. Our cost for mixed color and b&w is between 9 and 10 cents a page. There's not enough difference between the cost of color and b&w to worry about it, relieving one source of contention with the kids etc. It's painful spending $350 every couple of years on new cartridges (three color and two black), but they are good for thousands of pages. The cost per page in the small consumer laser printers was, when last I checked, much higher, like 30 cents a page. The quality of the printer is high, it's fast (about 20 ppm), and it seems to be quite efficient in its use of toner. I may be facing a crisis at some point because it's now about 14 years old and HP has not been updating the Mac drivers for it.

  12. #27
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    I bought the Brother 3170CDW and plan to use it for color and use my black and white Brother for all other printing. I got it from Best Buy and I have to say for a company I used to hate,they have made a renarkable turn around. The last few times there the customer service has been excellent and the prices were also competitive. If you bring an Amazon price with you they will match it. Also the printer wasn't in stock and they shipped it to me for free.
    Thanks everyone for you help with this decision.
    Dennis

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