Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

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DWesterb2iz2
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Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by DWesterb2iz2 »

My senior citizen mom needs a new black and white printer. I’d like to get her a small, reliable, easy to use laser printer. No more ink jet printers. She does not need to print in color and does not print very often. Can anyone recommend one? Refurbished is likely fine. Thank you!
HereToLearn
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by HereToLearn »

Brother makes a nice B&W laser with a small footprint. I sent one off to college with my son and it worked through all four years.

I don't think I paid more than $60 for it during a summer/early back-to-school sale at Staples.
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dwickenh
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by dwickenh »

Brother HL 2320D is a great black and white laser printer. Mine is 3 years old and no problems at all. Ink lasts forever and easy to use.
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FrugalInvestor
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by FrugalInvestor »

Mine's a Brother HL-L2380DW. It's nearly 3 years old and cost about $100. It's a great printer, I've never had a problem with it and toner is dirt cheap compared to ink....not to mention that it hardly ever needs to be replenished.

I resisted recommendations for laser printers here (primarily Brother brand) and stayed with injets for years. I should have known better. Take a look at available Brother printers, pick one with the features you want and buy it. You won't be sorry.
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by friar1610 »

FrugalInvestor wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 8:27 pm
I resisted recommendations for laser printers here (primarily Brother brand) and stayed with injets for years. I should have known better. Take a look at available Brother printers, pick one with the features you want and buy it. You won't be sorry.
+1
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tomd37
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by tomd37 »

+2 on Brother printers. Love my HL-2280DW laser printer.
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by Sandtrap »

I still have some older basic HP (Hewlett Packard) laser printers in our offices that have run for a very long time.
It might be a good idea to find out how much the laser printer cartridges cost and how many pages they will print as you shop for a laser printer.
Cartridge availability and prices and capacity are important.

Inkjets are way more spendy in the long run.

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KlangFool
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by KlangFool »

OP,

Go with Brother Laser printer. You can get compatible cartridges for a very good price. I bought one for myself and one for my daughter when she went to college.

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DWesterb2iz2
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by DWesterb2iz2 »

Thanks everybody for all the helpful responses. I really appreciate them.
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by Vanguard Fan 1367 »

I find my Brother Laser printer that also copies and scans to be really useful. It isn't small though. But if there ever was a situation where copies and scans might come in handy you might consider going that way. I don't find faxing to be super useful but you can also get a Brother that will do faxing in addition to copying and scanning.
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anoop
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by anoop »

Forget Brother. Get this.
https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-laserjet-pro-m118dw

Much quieter and super easy to setup.

(I had a really bad experience with Brother trying to replace my old Brother with a new one. I just couldn't set the thing up and ended up returning it and getting the HP instead.)
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by Chip »

Another vote for Brother. I have a $100 HL-L2340DW that's been going strong without a hiccup for nearly 3 years. A replacement 2600 sheet generic toner cartridge costs $13 on Amazon.
HereToLearn
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by HereToLearn »

Vanguard Fan 1367 wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 11:59 pm I find my Brother Laser printer that also copies and scans to be really useful. It isn't small though. But if there ever was a situation where copies and scans might come in handy you might consider going that way. I don't find faxing to be super useful but you can also get a Brother that will do faxing in addition to copying and scanning.
I have a Brother laser that also copies, scans, and faxes, and I agree that its footprint is not as small as the basic Brother monochrome printer. I believe the four in one was also several hundred dollars. The ability to shoot and crop a very clear photo of a document on the phone even without the use of a scanner app has really eliminated most of the need to scan. The scanner is still convenient for multipage documents, but I really should try the phone scanner app that my college children use.
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by MathWizard »

Brother is a good option. I've had one for 3 years. I've only had to change toner once.

Mine is wireless, which I like, but I have had to put it back on the network twice, each time this was a pain.

If it is directly connected, this would not be an issue.
ddd
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by ddd »

Avoid all printers with a starter cartridge. Look for a Brother laser printer with a *standard* toner cartridge. Mine is a $50 HL-5240. The first cartridge lasted more than 5 years.

As an added bonus, if your router has a USB port, plug it in and make it a network printer.
CFM300
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by CFM300 »

Brother HL-L2380DW here. Printer/scanner/copier. Six years old. Moderate use.

Had to update the BIOS to get it to work with Windows 10, otherwise no issues at all.
retiringtype
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by retiringtype »

Yet another vote for Brother. I wasted money on three inkjet printers, all of which failed within a year. The Brother is far superior, both in terms of reliability and ultimate expense.
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by aristotelian »

Very happy with Brother HLL2395DW. Monochrome laser with scanner. It is bigger than I expected but easy to connect via Wifi, fast, works great.
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Orbuculum Nongata
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by Orbuculum Nongata »

I’ll jump on the Brother bandwagon. We switched to one from inkjet and have never looked back.
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by Big Dog »

also vote for Brother. Cartridges available on Amazon.
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by JoeRetire »

DWesterb2iz2 wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 7:16 pm My senior citizen mom needs a new black and white printer. I’d like to get her a small, reliable, easy to use laser printer. No more ink jet printers. She does not need to print in color and does not print very often. Can anyone recommend one? Refurbished is likely fine. Thank you!
Just a printer, rather than an all-in-one?

I won't be a senior citizen until later this year. I find that I seldom need to print much any more. But I still need to copy things.
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FreeAtLast
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by FreeAtLast »

OP -

I've owned a Brother B/W Laser HL-2270DW for 5.5 years and have not experienced even one problem with it. When your first Brother standard toner cartridge is finished, replace it with a high capacity Brother cartridge. It's worth the extra cost.
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mighty72
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by mighty72 »

FreeAtLast wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 6:49 pm OP -

I've owned a Brother B/W Laser HL-2270DW for 5.5 years and have not experienced even one problem with it. When your first Brother standard toner cartridge is finished, replace it with a high capacity Brother cartridge. It's worth the extra cost.
+1 I used the monochrome version for 5+ years till we needed something more due to kids school work
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by arf30 »

Brother is the gold standard for consumer printers.
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by bluebolt »

JoeRetire wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 6:03 pm
DWesterb2iz2 wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 7:16 pm My senior citizen mom needs a new black and white printer. I’d like to get her a small, reliable, easy to use laser printer. No more ink jet printers. She does not need to print in color and does not print very often. Can anyone recommend one? Refurbished is likely fine. Thank you!
Just a printer, rather than an all-in-one?

I won't be a senior citizen until later this year. I find that I seldom need to print much any more. But I still need to copy things.
As long as your copying needs are light - If you get an app for your smartphone like Camscanner (there are tons like it), you can snap photos of the documents and print them out. Also combines multiple pages into a PDF. So, you could get by with just a printer. Won't work if you are copying stacks of documents.
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by KlangFool »

bluebolt wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:05 am
JoeRetire wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 6:03 pm
DWesterb2iz2 wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 7:16 pm My senior citizen mom needs a new black and white printer. I’d like to get her a small, reliable, easy to use laser printer. No more ink jet printers. She does not need to print in color and does not print very often. Can anyone recommend one? Refurbished is likely fine. Thank you!
Just a printer, rather than an all-in-one?

I won't be a senior citizen until later this year. I find that I seldom need to print much any more. But I still need to copy things.
As long as your copying needs are light - If you get an app for your smartphone like Camscanner (there are tons like it), you can snap photos of the documents and print them out. Also combines multiple pages into a PDF. So, you could get by with just a printer. Won't work if you are copying stacks of documents.
bluebolt,

In the case of the Brother laser printer, the difference is about $50. It is worth the extra money in my case.

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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by bluebolt »

KlangFool wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2019 5:56 am
bluebolt wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:05 am
JoeRetire wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 6:03 pm
DWesterb2iz2 wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 7:16 pm My senior citizen mom needs a new black and white printer. I’d like to get her a small, reliable, easy to use laser printer. No more ink jet printers. She does not need to print in color and does not print very often. Can anyone recommend one? Refurbished is likely fine. Thank you!
Just a printer, rather than an all-in-one?

I won't be a senior citizen until later this year. I find that I seldom need to print much any more. But I still need to copy things.
As long as your copying needs are light - If you get an app for your smartphone like Camscanner (there are tons like it), you can snap photos of the documents and print them out. Also combines multiple pages into a PDF. So, you could get by with just a printer. Won't work if you are copying stacks of documents.
bluebolt,

In the case of the Brother laser printer, the difference is about $50. It is worth the extra money in my case.

KlangFool
Understood. It's more about the footprint than the cost. Just pointing out that for anyone who rarely needs the copy function, there is an alternative.
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by oldlongbeard »

Another for a Brother.
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by oldcomputerguy »

I'm another Brother printer user (actually an HL-2280DW all-in-one), and am quite satisfied with it.

An added plus for me as a Linux user is that Linux Mint's CUPS installation finds and installs the printer fairly painlessly, plus Brother (to their credit) provides drivers and instructions online for getting the scanner portion working under Linux.
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arsenalfan
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by arsenalfan »

Another cheap Brother Laser user here.

The WiFi cloud setup is easy, print from any iPad, phone, iMac, macbook effortlessly. It really works as advertised.

This, and the iOs note app that lets you use the iPhone a a scanner, has really streamlined my paperless office. Still use a Fujitsu SnapScan for large batches of documents about once every 6 months.
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by rich126 »

I've had a Brother laser printer for a good 10+ years. I don't print often (mostly boarding passes).

Personally I'd recommend against all in ones. Just not worth the trouble. If one thing breaks then you have to throw the whole thing out. Buy a printer and if you need a scanner, buy it separately. In my experience all in ones seem to break more often, and some of them do stupid stuff like preventing the scanner from working when you have no ink even though the ink isn't needed for scanning.
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by TomatoTomahto »

arsenalfan wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2019 7:15 am Another cheap Brother Laser user here.
The WiFi cloud setup is easy, print from any iPad, phone, iMac, macbook effortlessly. It really works as advertised.
This, and the iOs note app that lets you use the iPhone a a scanner, has really streamlined my paperless office. Still use a Fujitsu SnapScan for large batches of documents about once every 6 months.
+1
I am surprised how easy it has become to do two sided printing. A bit of a pain initially to set the printer name for iOS devices (I have both a color and B/W printer), but otherwise 5 out of 5 stars.
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AAA
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by AAA »

I was thinking of replacing my ink jet printer with a laser printer but read about health concerns of breathing in toner particles that get into the air, especially in enclosed areas or when doing a lot of printing. I was wondering if a knowledgeable person can comment on that (as opposed to uninformed derision :wink: ).
Last edited by AAA on Mon Jun 03, 2019 10:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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telemark
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by telemark »

She does not need to print in color and does not print very often.
For this use case, the cost of toner does not matter much. I also don't print very often, and I got six years of use out of the starter cartridge on a Brother HL2270DW. What does matter is reliability, and this is where laser printers shine. I can leave mine powered off for months, then turn it on and expect it to work on the first try. With the ink jets I used to use, there would always be a prolonged sequence of print, clean heads, try again, clean heads, rinse and repeat until either it becomes acceptable or the printer announces that it's out of yellow and therefore will not print in black and white.

One caveat at least on the older Brother models: the toner warning light goes on very early and the printer may refuse to continue. You have to go into the printer settings (point your browser at the printer's IP address), find the "Replace Toner" setting, and change it from Stop to Continue.
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DWesterb2iz2
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by DWesterb2iz2 »

Thanks Everyone. This was hugely helpful. I took the advice of getting more functions than printing. I got the Brother HLL2390DW (which is an update of the HL2380DW). With tax it all came to about $138 from Amazon. That seems like a good choice for Mom.

Thanks again everyone. This site continues to amaze me!
Dave
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by mariezzz »

DWesterb2iz2 wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2019 12:29 pm Thanks Everyone. This was hugely helpful. I took the advice of getting more functions than printing. I got the Brother HLL2390DW (which is an update of the HL2380DW). With tax it all came to about $138 from Amazon. That seems like a good choice for Mom.

Thanks again everyone. This site continues to amaze me!
Dave
If you read the Amazon reviews, the starter toner cartridge may seem to run out of toner at far fewer pages than it should. However, apparently there is a youtube video which tells you how to reset it, and it will continue printing.
Also only can connect with wifi - no ethernet. Reviews are very mixed.
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DWesterb2iz2
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by DWesterb2iz2 »

mariezzz wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2019 1:27 pm
DWesterb2iz2 wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2019 12:29 pm Thanks Everyone. This was hugely helpful. I took the advice of getting more functions than printing. I got the Brother HLL2390DW (which is an update of the HL2380DW). With tax it all came to about $138 from Amazon. That seems like a good choice for Mom.

Thanks again everyone. This site continues to amaze me!
Dave
If you read the Amazon reviews, the starter toner cartridge may seem to run out of toner at far fewer pages than it should. However, apparently there is a youtube video which tells you how to reset it, and it will continue printing.
Also only can connect with wifi - no ethernet. Reviews are very mixed.
Well, ok, now I've cancelled that and gone back to the simple copy-only copier. Can hardwire to router. Extra cartridge. Simple is likely best.
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by HereToLearn »

Re: toner running low. I assume that I am not the only one who takes the cartridge out and tips it from side to side to distribute the contents so as to ensure even printing across the full page. It can print for months after the low toner light appears.
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by politely »

Another Brother recommendation, for now, at least for the simple machines. My experience with the MFCs has been a bit spotty. After trying many brands, both lasers and inkjets, it seems that each manufacturer seems to have their moment in the sun; although I've now sworn off all injkets until the earlier of (i) they develop *guaranteed* non-clogging heads, (ii) I have an urgent need to print a large number of compromising photos at home in high quality, and (iii) I develop a sudden desire to flagellate myself with inexplicable random moments of fuzzy-printing torment with accompanying multiple rounds of head cleaning, test sheet printing (then searching for skips or uneven lines or misalignment), restarting, ink cartridge replacement, followed by desperate searches on the internet for solutions (usually links to ink cartridge re-manufacturers) - and yes, the occasional bonus of doing one or more useless software and firmware updates - which do nothing to fix the problem but do manage to effectuate the manufacturer's aim of invalidating my existing ink cartridges.

Actually, went to buy a 2370DW at Best Buy this past weekend (Memorial Day sale), but saw that it was $130, and the 2395DW was on sale for $100, so I bought that instead. Checking today, looks like the 2395DW is up to $156 and the 2370DW is now $90.
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Re: Recommend a small inexpensive laser printer?

Post by 123 »

dwickenh wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 8:10 pm Brother HL 2320D is a great black and white laser printer. Mine is 3 years old and no problems at all. Ink lasts forever and easy to use.
+1 We've got a Brother HL-2320D as well, had it a few years, works great. We paid under $60 for it new. It has a wired connection to our desktop. I'm sure there are alternate newer models that have a wi-fi connection. Uses a TN-630 or TN-660 refill cartridge.
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