[whimsy] Linux-compatable printer that won't gouge me on ink?

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 05:03:59PM -0500, Madison Kelly wrote:
> Lennart Sorensen wrote:
>> On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 02:56:10PM -0500, Madison Kelly wrote:
>>> As a former die-hard supporter of HP LaserJet printers who also lost  
>>> faith... I'd highly recommend Brother Laser printers. They've got 
>>> great  Linux support and are decent printers for the money.
>>
>> The couple of brother printers I have used has put them on my 'Never
>> even think about it ever again' list.  I will always think of Brother as
>> 'cheap junk'.
>
> Well there ya go. :P
>
> That's the problem with a small sample set. I've got their label printer  
> and a laser printer and have had good luck. However, "2" does not make a  
> big enough sample set to really say for sure that they really are any  
> good. :)

Well one claimed to be HP Laserjet 3 compatible, and command set wise
it was.  Unfortunately the margins were 1/2" on the brother and 1/4"
on the HP, so lots of printouts were cut off with no good way to fix it.

You can't claim to be compatible with something if you are not entirely
compatible.

If I needed a laser printer (which I don't since I don't print much,
so I have an Epson R260 inkjet, which works perfectly all the time),
I would get a Xerox.  A nice network enabled ipp compatible adobe
postscript in hardware colour laser for about $500 just makes sense.
You can't ever have driver issues with any OS on that.  I think even my
Amiga could print on that.  A Xerox 6280DN (network and duplexor) is
just over $500.  Without the duplexor is about $475.  It's not a $100
laser, but it will almost certainly cost less in toner to run, and be
more reliable, have less driver issues, and it's colour and connect to
the network which is handy for sharing.

I would stay away from xero'x solid ink printers (having used one).
They work really really well, they have amazing print quality, but at
least on the one I dealt with, a power failure costs you about $5 in
wasted ink.  They simply are not to be turned off.  I hope the new ones
have fixed this, because it was completely insane.  If you print 50000
pages a month (which they can easily do), then the occational power
failure is irrelevant.  If you print 2000 pages a month, you start
to care.  That was the only flaw (unless having printouts that can be
rubbed off the page if you try hard enough counts as a flaw.  The raised
look of the print is kind of neat) it had.

The laser printers just work.  Avoid the win printers of course that they
have at the lowest price.  As long as you go for an actual postscript
enabled model, they just work with everything.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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