<p>What print capabilities are in the dorms? If my student wants to bring a printer, can anyone recommend one? Thanks.</p>
<p>My son does have his own printer - just a low end hp color. I am pretty sure there is a blk & white laser printer in dorm - but not sure, so I emailed him. He liked the hp because of separate color cartridges, and new printers are under $100 and wireless.</p>
<p>Heard from son. Here’s his response to your question:</p>
<p>Depends on the residential hall/residential college. E.g. my dorm has a black/white laser printer that you must supply your own paper for. Not sure about other residential halls/dorms</p>
<p>If they are going to be an engineer (McCormick), they get something like 300 pages of black/white printing a year (maybe quarter, not 100% sure). And not sure about other colleges.</p>
<p>What to get? Probably something cheap. I only use mine semi-often because I don’t want to pay for ink. It is nice to have though. BTW I have had my inkjet cartridges dry up - didn’t really use the printer enough. Each person is different though. They might want to print out lecture slides or something, which I don’t do.</p>
<p>Look online to see reviews. Wait for back to school sales. You don’t need wireless capability though! USB is a LOT better. You can’t put your printer on the NU wifi, so you could only direct print to it if you did not have a USB A/B cord (standard, but may depend on printer). Most printers will come with it anyway. But this should not, in my opinion, be a major deciding factor.</p>
<p>What direct print entails is establishing a direct connection to your printer and printing wirelessly that way, instead of over a network. This means that you cannot print something directly off the internet because you cannot be connected to the Northwestern WiFi and the direct print printer at the same time. You would have to save whatever you want to print first, then print it. It’d be pretty annoying. Unfortunately, most printers no longer come with a USB A/B cord in the box.</p>
<p>Hope this helps,</p>
<p>Thanks to you and your son! </p>
<p>I know this is a bit old now, but I just wanted to say that if you haven’t already got one, I’d just wait until you’re there. His roommate might have one, or someone right down the hall might have one that they’ll offer in exchange for paper. I wouldn’t trust the dorm printer. It’s a nice resource, but it’s not always working because printers are evil and it’s nice to have backup.</p>
<p>We bought an inexpensive canon printer for our daughter. She used it frequently (lab reports, papers, etc.) and let other students from her residential college use it also. I’m not sure there was a printer provided by the university there, because students would turn up at her door with "I hear you have a printer. . . "</p>