random strings - printershttps://blog.randomstring.org/2016-09-19T08:45:43-04:00printer advice2016-09-19T08:45:43-04:002016-09-19T08:45:43-04:00-dsr-tag:blog.randomstring.org,2016-09-19:/2016/09/19/printer-advice/Fall must be the season of printer buying, as people start up
printers that they haven’t used all summer and discover that the $70
printer now needs $80 of ink. This is my advice for ordinary people, as
of Fall 2016:<p>Fall must be the season of printer buying, as people start up
printers that they haven’t used all summer and discover that the $70
printer now needs $80 of ink. This is my advice for ordinary people, as
of Fall 2016:</p>
<p>For black-and-white printing: Buy a Brother laser printer with the
following features:</p>
<ul>
<li>BRScript3 (aka PostScript)</li>
<li>a physical Ethernet port</li>
<li>duplexing (the ability to print on both sides automatically)</li>
</ul>
<p>Having an ethernet port used to be signified by tacking an N at the
end of the model name. They seem to have stopped that, so you need to
actually look for it. W, for wireless, isn’t good enough, although it
will probably work.</p>
<p>Duplexing is signified with a D at the end of the model name.</p>
<p>You can get one in the $100-150 range. Toner is $30-70 and lasts for
years, not months, and handles many thousands of pages.</p>
<hr />
<p>For color printing: Try not to buy a color printer. Color inkjets are
cheap and ubiquitous and awful. The cost per page is awful. If you
occasionally like to print out some photos, you will have a much better
experience sending them to CostCo or Shutterfly or pretty much any other
service. They have much better printers than you can afford, and if you
aren’t printing at least once a week – and you probably aren’t – they
will be cheaper, too.</p>
<hr />
<p>For college students: don’t buy a printer. Most professors will take
assignments via email; if they insist on printed copies, learn to leave
enough time between finishing and due date to get everything printed via
the campus printing service.</p>