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Recommendation on a good laser printer?

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Big Ry

Regular Contributor
I'm looking to replace my wife and my cheapo 'ink-cartridge-eating' Epson and HP printers. I'm so sick and tired of the nickel and diming these companies pull with the ink cartridge microchipping and price gouging. I get like 15 pages printed on my Epson, then its saying it needs new ink again. I bought $200 worth of ink from Epson and it barely lasted a couple months with very infrequent use. My wife's HP actually took a crap after a firmware update. I can't even get it to work at all anymore.

Anyway, my wife works 100% from home, and I'm 100% from home for at least the next few weeks. We really need to get a good printer/scanner in the house for both of us to use. She mostly works with 8.5x11 documents. I sometimes print 22x34 drawings to 11x17 for review and markup, so I would really like the ability to print 11x17. The drawings are illegible on 8.5x11. I'm thinking we would work with a budget up to $1k, but that is somewhat flexible. That said, we are also house shopping at the moment, so I'm not dropping $5k on a new printer any time soon. If its a nice one for $1500+, we would certainly consider it.

The printer must have the following features:
1) Laser printer (or very efficient ink/toner printer)
2) Multi-sheet document scanner capable of 2-sided scanning
3) Additional flatbed scanner for items that cannot fit through the scanner roller feed
4) Wifi connectivity

The following are features that we would strongly prefer but aren't necessary:
1) Ability to print up to 11x17, with 11x17 feed tray that's separate from the 8.5x11 tray
2) Color printing
3) Duplex printing
4) High-speed scanning
5) Scan-to-PDF without the use of third-party software

What makes/models would you suggest we look at?
 
I was in the same place and if I didn't use it for a while the inkjets would clog, so I went with a Brother all in one (DCP L2550DW series 2) monochrome laser. The desktop application for Mac now works good. Never going back.
 
Its looking like Brother is a popular brand. In searching on Newegg, it also looks like most high rated laser printers are dedicated monochrome printers, which is fine with me. I'd just need a good all-in-one to handle occasional color printing and lots of scanning.
 
I should have rephrased that.

Good. I was thinking you need a little different help. Back to printers - unfortunately, all of them are designed to drain your pocket with ink/toner supplies. This is what the manufacturers make money from. Brother printers are good quality and just few years back were still refillable (4-pin chips), but the newer models use cartridges with encryption (7-pin chips). Cartridge resetters are not available at the moment. Printer manufacturers change firmware and model numbers only to prevent the use of bulk ink/toner. Often there is no printing technology improvement. Customers screw-up improvements only.
 
Good. I was thinking you need a little different help. Back to printers - unfortunately, all of them are designed to drain your pocket with ink/toner supplies. This is what the manufacturers make money from. Brother printers are good quality and just few years back were still refillable (4-pin chips), but the newer models use cartridges with encryption (7-pin chips). Cartridge resetters are not available at the moment. Printer manufacturers change firmware and model numbers only to prevent the use of bulk ink/toner. Often there is no printing technology improvement. Customers screw-up improvements only.
There's gotta be something more efficient at least. Although the ink cost is annoying, having to constantly change the cartridges is even more annoying. I'm seeing some of the HP laser printers are claiming 1200 pages per drum (color and black). Some Brothers are saying 12k+ per drum (black only). That sounds plenty good to me. The Lexmarks are saying 500-700/drum, which seems a little low. HP also has a refillable drum printer series, but that doesn't seem like it will save any cost since you still need to buy their proprietary refill cartridges.
 
I have three brother printers. 2 2550dw and a 2710dw. they work really well no issues at all. If you’re looking for toner carts they sell compatible carts on eBay and Amazon for around $8 a piece. I usually buy 20 at a time to get a better price.
 
I have three brother printers. 2 2550dw and a 2710dw. they work really well no issues at all. If you’re looking for toner carts they sell compatible carts on eBay and Amazon for around $8 a piece. I usually buy 20 at a time to get a better price.
So the 2710dw takes third-party carts? Im seeing conflicting reports on this on Amazon, but Amazon always combines reviews for multiple models so its hard to tell.
 
You can try aftermarket, but you may feed this one original TN-730/760 cartridges. They are not that expensive per page. No color and large format printing. It's a good reliable home/office printer for the price, but doesn't meet all of your requirements.
 
You can try aftermarket, but you may feed this one original TN-730/760 cartridges. They are not that expensive per page. No color and large format printing. It's a good reliable home/office printer for the price, but doesn't meet all of your requirements.
Ok, I think i may pull the trigger on this 2710DW then. It already sounds pretty decent as a monochrome laser printer. The added scanning is just a plus. I'll probably give the scanner a go, and if I don't like it I'll get a dedicated scanner. I still have my crappy Epson for color prints, but as stated I rarely ever need to print color.
 
I've been super happy with Brother for decades. The whole family has had many different models. My brother now has a mono laser but I splurged on the colour mfc-l3770cdw which has duplex printing, large tray, colour, wireless, wired, nfc, usb, duplex scanning...

I only recently ran out of black and slipped in a 3rd party cartridge with no issues. The colour cartridges are just about empty after 2 years of moderate printing. I paid extra for cartridges with chips, but presumably could have saved a few $$ by moving the chip from the old cartridge. I may try that next time I need a black cartridge.

My favourite printer, and my first laser, was an HP IIP with a bunch of add ons. I'd probably still have it running but the lcd displays kept burning out.

The quality difference moving from colour inkjet to colour laser blew me away and I wish I had spent the money years ago.
 
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