printers help?

DaRuSsIaMaN

DaRuSsIaMaN

Geek Comrade
Ok so I am shopping for a printer or an all-in-one. But I need help understanding some things ...

Ok first of all, I know (I think) the basics of what laser and inkjet is, but what is dot matrix?? Person in a store told me that laser printers last like 2x as long as inkjet ones and also that for the same amount of printing, inkjet cartriges will cost more than laser. And also if I'm buying an inkjet, it's probably better to have a printer that uses separate cartriges for each color as opposed to one for all because then u won't end up with replacing an entire cartrige when only one color is out. That's as much as I know about laser/inkjet. Is this all correct by the way? Anyway, if these are the cons/pros of inkjet and laser, what are the cons/pros of dot matrix? And like I said above, what is it?

**

Secondly, I was looking at this printer here:
refurbished printer on newegg and same printer on manufacturer's site here

On the newegg description, if u scroll down to the "Ports" heading, it says network ports is optional. ??? Wth does that mean? I go to the other site, the lexmark site itself, and in the q & a section it says it's networkable with an optional network adapter (u can see that in the 2nd link above). So let me get this straight. Is it saying that I can buy a network adapter and insert it into the printer itself?? I mean, I thought printers either have built-in networking (in which case u simply plug an ethernet cable from your router into it) or u have to buy an external print server if u want it networked. So what are they saying there? How is what they're saying different from those 2 alternatives?
 
Here's a brief summary:

Inkjet/Bubble Jet

Inkjets use small cartridges of ink, that also contain the print head. Some printers use 1 or 2 cartridges (either an all-in-one cartridge, or one for the black, and one for the colour). The problem with using an all-in-one cartridge is that you have to replace it if one colour runs out (normally black), even though the rest of the colours are full.
You should never buy refurbished cartridges as the replacement ink may be the wrong type. Not only that, but the print head (attached to the cartridge) is only designed to last the duration of the original ink. The print head may become blocked or worn upon second use.
An inkjet printer itself, is nothing more then a mechanism to move the catridge around. Therefore, printers are very cheap where as cartridges are expensive. You are better off just buying a new printer everytime the ink runs out! Print quality is pretty good on inkjets, more then enough for the average person. The print speed is pretty fast as well, but not near as fast as a laser writer.
You can connect these to your computer by USB or parrellel only (no network)
I would recommend an inkjet for casual printing only. Although you should bare in mind that the ink heads will become blocked through lack of use.

Overview
Price = Cheap to buy, expensive to maintain
Quality = Good
Print Speed = Fair/Good

Average price for printer £29 - £200
Average price for ink £15 -£40

Laser Jet (Page Printers)
Laser Jets offer much better print quality. Not only that, but they can print faster (a page a time) then an ink jet. Laser printers are more expensive then inkjets, and so is the toner (ink) that they use. On the other hand, the toner lasts a lot longer, and is better value for money. Colour laser writers can be very expensive, so you need to work out where your priorities lie.
Laser writers are far more sopisticated then inkject printers. For example, you can connect them directly to a network using their built in NIC (they don't have to be connected directly to a computer). The laser writer assigns its own IP address, and essentially becomes another computer (or resource) on the network. Some laser writers don't come with NICs, instead they sell them as an optional item. These NICs are propriatory items, meaning only the manufacturers will fit properly.
I'd recommend a laser writer if you are going to be doing a lot of printing, and where quality is key. They are ideal for a home office, small business or corporate environment.

Overview
Price = Expensive, but relatively cheap to maintain
Quality = Excellent
Print Speed = Excellent

Average price for printer £50 - £2000
Average price for toner (ink) £50 - £200

Dot Matrix (Impact Printers)
Dot Matrix printers are similar to typewriters in the sense that they impact the paper to leave an impression on it. As a result, they are very noisy in operation.
Dot Matrix print quality is terrible, you should look elsewhere if you want to print graphics of any kind. On the other hand, they are ideal for printing financial information, till reciepts, anything that doesn't require too much print quality.
They are cheap and easy to maintain (as they use a ribbon to print), but the cost of the printers are rising due to lack of demand these days.
I wouldn't recommend a Dot-Matrix at all.

Overview
Price = Reasonably cheap to buy, cheap to maintain
Quality = Terrible
Print Speed = Fair

Average price for printer £50 - £250
Average price for ink ribbon £ no idea :P

NB: Updated 11:20AM
 
Thanks a lot, that was great info!

Ok so what about buying refurbished printers? An online electronics seller (newegg.com) offers some refurb printers at great prices, but they all come OEM or barebones. I'm not quite certain but pretty sure that means they don't come with their software CD(s). Is that a reasonable thing to do? I can download all the drivers online can't I? So it wouldn't really be a problem, right?
 
If you get barebones...mre than likely you wont get a guarantee either..even though some places do offer them.
 
DaRuSsIaMaN said:
Thanks a lot, that was great info!

Ok so what about buying refurbished printers? An online electronics seller (newegg.com) offers some refurb printers at great prices, but they all come OEM or barebones. I'm not quite certain but pretty sure that means they don't come with their software CD(s). Is that a reasonable thing to do? I can download all the drivers online can't I? So it wouldn't really be a problem, right?
Click to expand...

You can download all the software from the manufacturer's website. I recommend that people do this anyway, because the software on the original driver CD might be out of date.

What type of printers have you been looking at? A refurbished Inkjet will be fine, as long as the ink cartridges are originals (not refills).
I'd be a little more sceptical about a refurbished laser writer. Does it come with any guarantee?
 
I've been looking at laser printers only. I don't want an inkjet at all now, gonna go laser all the way. I don't mind paying a fair sum for one either, because I'm gonna feel stupid buying ink toner that costs almost as much as the printer itself. I might as well have something hardcore. Anyway, I do have 30 days to return the product, but they do not appear to come with any warranty. However, the new ones come with only 1 year or, if u pay extra, 2 years warranty. That doesn't seem like much of a warranty to me if it's a laser printer. Aren't they built to last like 5+ years? (That's what I was told by guy in store.) If that's true then it seems to me that the only useful warranty would be one that's at least 3 years. So if I don't have the 1 year warranty on a refurb, doesn't seem like much of a loss ... What do u think?
 
It's going to cost you lots of money to buy a color laser printer. I was looking some up and just getting a good black and white will run you 400USD. (Roughly 225GBP) Laser is cool, but toner is expensive about 70 USD (40 GBP), which the office I work at uses. I just bought a multifunction [link=http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7326262&type=product&id=1118844609038]printer[/link] Canon Pixma 450 for just 140 USD (78 GBP). Generally depending on the inkjet printer , ink cartridges can run between 17usd and 40usd, that is nowhere near how much a printer costs so i would not recommend simply buying a new printer when ink runs out unless you got the printer for 17 bucks (9.5 GBP). The decision is ultimately yours mate, but I wouldn’t entirely rule out inkjet unless i knew i was going to make literally hundreds of pages per week (as my current job does making fliers and brochures) For schoolwork and casual photo printing I’d say go for an inkjet. If the difference were between equally priced inkjet and laser, I’d go with laser (its just so much faster and cooler) Good luck choosing;)

edit* These are the color laserjets newegg has. The lower end models have low pages per minute, roughly between 5-8, if you can bear that then go for it and enjoy the laser! [link=http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?submit=PROPERTY&SubCategory=38&propertycodevalue=950:19018,951:19023&bop=and&Order=price]Newegg Laserjets[/link]
 
Hey what is this I'm hearing about toner refill kits? U can bypass buying cartriges with them right? I found this nice deal on a Samsung all-in-one laser monochrome printer. It's quite an attractive deal for me, but I notice that Samsung doesn't have the best cartridge prices around on any of their models. They're better priced than average, but if there was a similar deal on a Brother printer, I would grab that in a heartbeat instead. Brother is absolute best on cartridge prices compared to Samsung, HP, Lexmark, Canon, and Konica Minolta (I looked at cartriges for several models from each company). So I was wondering if I can offset the fact that I'm not getting the best deals on cartridges by using those toner refill kits? Aren't they supposed to be cheaper in than replacing cartriges?
 
DaRuSsIaMaN said:
Hey what is this I'm hearing about toner refill kits? U can bypass buying cartriges with them right? I found this nice deal on a Samsung all-in-one laser monochrome printer. It's quite an attractive deal for me, but I notice that Samsung doesn't have the best cartridge prices around on any of their models. They're better priced than average, but if there was a similar deal on a Brother printer, I would grab that in a heartbeat instead. Brother is absolute best on cartridge prices compared to Samsung, HP, Lexmark, Canon, and Konica Minolta (I looked at cartriges for several models from each company). So I was wondering if I can offset the fact that I'm not getting the best deals on cartridges by using those toner refill kits? Aren't they supposed to be cheaper in than replacing cartriges?
Click to expand...

No, no, no, no, no! :)

Toner refill kits are a bad idea!

Toner cartridges contain various rollers (sometimes the whole printing mechanism). These rollers can become worn through over use. They are only designed to last the duration of the original toner.
You also have to consider that the replacement toner may be the wrong type, and this can cause major problems with print quality!
 
Ok Brother sells toner cartriges and also drum units. I don't get quite it, does the drum unit contain toner as well or not? It does not, right? When it says that its "approximate page yield" is 12000 pages based on 5% coverage, is it saying that it's designed to last that long before it breaks/wears down again? Cuz that's exactly like what toner cartriges say when they're referring to how much toner they contain so I'm a bit confused.
 
Yes sometimes the toner cartridge contains everything - drum rollers, laser, drip tray etc.

You need to check with the manufacturer.
 
Ok so I connected everything and turned on my comp and then as soon as WinXP booted up this icon appeared in the right of the taskbar (u know, the rectangle on the right) and it said it detected printer and then proceeded to install ... something ... for it. Some window popped up for like one second and it was done. In the right side of the taskbar, the little icon then said your printer is now configured and ready to use or something like that when I moused over it and then the icon disappeared.

So what exactly was that? I was just about to install the driver off the CD, so what was the point of that? ... And that was not a full-fledged driver that it installed, was it?? Like I said, it only took like a second. Is it something just to make the printer kinda work until I install the real thing, or what? I don't even know how to find out what exactly XP did ...
 
Not to worry...

All it is is Widows XP has obviously got a driver for your printer. It could be a generic driver which will allow you to print/scan etc, using basic settings. It happened to me the other day after a fresh Windows install.... my son printed something without me even setting up the printer. Windows did it all without even telling me about it (talk about security....:confused: ).
Anyway, you now have two options:

Try and work with this driver (windows) or install Samsung's one.
Personaly I would install the Samsung driver.

There are a two ways of doing this:
In control panel open the Faxes and Printers and then either:
1. Right click on the installed printer and go to properties. Somewhere there (I think it should be under the Advanced tab) you should be able to update the driver. in source or path choose the CD-ROM.
2. Delete the installed printer and install again using the driver on the CD.
 
Windows has lots of drivers in it's database. Most of them are fine for use, but i'd recommend you use your manufacturer's drivers for something like a printer.

All you need to do is stick in the CD, and it will probably 'autorun' by itself. All you need to do is follow the on-screen instructions. The CD will automatically write-over the Windows drivers, so it's pretty trouble free!

NB: If the CD doesn't autorun, you should look for an executable called 'setup' or 'install'.
 
Does windows regularly add drivers to its database when u update it? Like if I go from SP1 to SP2, will it get more?
 
DaRuSsIaMaN said:
Does windows regularly add drivers to its database when u update it? Like if I go from SP1 to SP2, will it get more?
Click to expand...

It's less likely you will see new drivers from a Service Pack. But every new version of Windows brings a fresh set of drivers. Windows XP has far more drivers then Windows 2000 for example
 
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