Im looking for a laser printer for at home business, but have no clue about printers.
Any advice on what to look for? We will print about ±500 pages a month, and need a colour printer
As an IT person, I hate all things printer related.
That being said, maybe look at an Epson with the refillable tanks. The ink is way cheaper. No cartridges required.
Something like this
https://www.loot.co.za/product/epson-l382-multifunction-inkjet-printer-with-refillable/vcyc-4930-g720
Edit: Disclaimer: I don’t keep up to date on printers
4 Likes
I remember those days…
2 Likes
Step 1 is to figure out the environment its gonna be used it. will it be used by more than 1 person? EVER? if so, get a network printer (wireless printers are usually shit and gimmicky). USB/Print sharing etc is really painful and not worth it usually, especially when people don’t actually understand how it works.
Thats the only thing I can add that hasn’t been mentioned previously 
As for brand names, they all have their own stupid drivers/software etc so look at toner/cartridge pricing.
1 Like
This is the most important thing
We are currently paying about 1.3k per cartrigde for the boss’s printer and his needs one yellow, cyan, magenta and black.
Look for the cheapest toner cartridges, then figure out which printer uses it. PS - it won’t be the cheapest printer. Rinse and repeat until you find the balance between what you want to pay for toner and a printer.
Stay away from wireless (as @Mottamort said); also, any silly features like finisher (e.g stapling, hole punching, sorting, etc etc) is just looking for something non-essential to break. Simple paper loading mechanisms are also better. If the paper has to zig-zag and follow a maze through the printer in order for it to come out again it just means that it has more places to jam up.
Personally, if I wasn’t that bothered with printing fancy pictures for my son to color in and other fancy things I would just get myself a dot-matrix printer and get it over and done with.
They never break, they will last until the cockroaches die out.
2 Likes
Me and my dad will use it, but i can use his laptop so no stress with that. the refillable tanks seem to be decently priced, has anyone used them?
yes, they clog. Check the price of replacing the entire tank. Then check if the print head, nozzle, etc etc etc is field replaceable and how much that is.
One that i’ve seen the print head is integrated in the “tank”, which is basically just a standard cartridge with a lid, and if it clogs up then you have to replace the entire tank. Which incidentally costs more than then entire printer.
1 Like
Lazer is great if you not doing a lot of pictures but just need some colour here and there, they are also the fastest to print but can sometimes become the most expensive to run.
Inkjet gives great pictures, is slower per a page can also cost more but with the right printer can easily out class a laser in the long run.
If you looking at the most affordable, I’d say have a look at Brothers J105 or J200. The ink cost around R200 for a cartridge on 5% page usage and offer around ~1000* on colour and ~2000* on black.
There is Samsung colour laser printers but then you got to pay ~R900 for a toner which offers ~900* pages on colour and ~1200* on black, then you’ll also have to eventually pay ~R2000 for a drum/imaging unit when it finally needs replacing.
*with 5% page usage
FYI, This is 5% page usage:
As for generics. Well those work fairly well but a lot of printers today simply refuse to function with them in. Additionally if something happens while your printer is under warranty and you where using generics, then you going to have a bit of trouble.
1 Like
There’s also Thermal Wax / Solid Ink printers…
1 Like
We’ve got an Epson L386 Ink Tank System printer and has definitely been worth the purchase. The stats show we’ve printed over 8800 pages, over 6000 of them colour (my wife is a preschool teacher so lots of colourful pictures). The refill bottles are about R115-R130 each. And so far I’ve only bought one of each colour since the printer came with 2 spare black ink bottles.
The printer itself is quite pricey though, the new version of what we have is around R3k but you can get cheaper if you don’t need scanning, wireless etc.