I’m stuck between choosing laserjet and inkjet printers. I would prefer to print in color, but save money on the cartridge costs. Which printer is best for the dorms? I’m considering the size of the printer, cost, and expense of cartridges.
Please give me some recommendations!! I’m on a tight budget so I’m looking for all-in-one printers that are decent quality but not expensive!
Laser jet black, you will spend way more money on ink cartridges and have the hassle purchasing or refilling them often. Brother or Cannon sells a duplex laser jet on amazon for $80. You can always buy a cheap inkjet for color if you really need it but most of what you will do will only require black.
@CU123 hmm how much are laserjet cartridges usually?
You can buy the off brand for about $15, and it will print around 2500 pages.
Another reason to go for a laser printer other than lower print cost per page considering most of what you will be printing will be b/w documents is build quality.
IME as a user* and as a computer tech professional, most inkjet printers are built so cheaply they sometimes tend to fail in as little as 6-8 months. See plenty of tossed out inkjet printers around my area/nearby college dorms that were only 6 months to a bit more than a year old.
The exceptions to that are higher-end inkjets used by professional graphical design professionals and photographers which cost around as much as a mid-high end laser printer. AND with those higher-end inkjets…you’ll still be paying much more per printed page and replace ink cartridges more often.
There’s also the factor that if an inkjet printer hasn’t been used to print for a few weeks/month or two…the ink cartridges/print heads tend to try out which may not only necessitate getting replacement cartridges…but also in a few cases…replacement print heads. If it’s the latter, sometimes one is better off getting a new printer from an ROI(Return on Investment) perspective.
You might also consider the per page cost of using a printer at school or even an Office Depot type place. I prefer rolls of quarters because there must be a federal law saying that printers will jam, you will run out of paper or ink and the paper declines to load.
Yes, laserjet is the optimal option. I’ve made a mistake buying inkjet printer and it’s a terrible experience((( Don’t buy inkjet
I didn’t think you needed a printer at colleges anymore.
These threads that recommend over-buying laptops or printers drive me nuts.
You only need what you need. Planning formal
presentations or just printing school papers, some graphics?
We got D2 an inexpensive color HP printer at Wal-Mart, just for the convenience when she didn’t want to leave the dorm. $39. Call it 2010. I still use it. It still prints at the level I need. By that, I mean very good quality. I haven’t needed a laser printer since I stopped printing business proposals and professional documents.
Agree with @“aunt bea”. It’s highly likely you don’t need a printer at all. My kids have never had one at their colleges. With a nod to the environment and technology, most papers are submitted electronically. If you do need to print something, most colleges have printers in dorms and the library that you can print to. Check your college but I think individual printers are superfluous these days.
Depends on the college/Prof. Some Profs still insist on students handing in papers. And when one’s workshopping papers in and our of class, one will need to print multiple drafts to pass around.
Also, some colleges have very strict print quotas which if exceeded, will result in students accumulating fees per printed page. In the mid-'00s at Columbia U…it was 20 cents for each page over one’s strict weekly quota.
Last I checked, most ink cartridges are still around $20-30 and most people IME needed to replace them every month even if one only did moderate b/w documents.
Not to mention the hassle of dealing with dried ink catridges/damaged print heads if one doesn’t print for a few weeks or months.
In contrast, most laser printer toner cartridges end up coming out farther ahead in terms of cost/printed page…especially considering each cartridge lasts at least 2500 pages and toner cartridges are now as low as $30 or less.
When one is calculating overall costs of the printer, one must also account for the costs of toner(laser) or ink and the intervals of necessary replacements under normal usage.
Just calculating the cost of the initial printer purchase without accounting for toner/ink costs and the average replacement intervals under normal usage is misleading and precisely the false economy many consumer inkjet printer companies take advantage of when advertising their seemingly “reasonably priced” wares.
And if one needs to replace an inkjet printer after several months/year as I’ve noticed was the case with many undergrads in my area and neighbors, that further undermines the case of the inkjet being the most cost-effective printer option from a moderate-long-term ROI perspective.