Cost to print 5,000 B&W pages on my HP inkjet: $300 ($12 per 200-page generic ink refill).

Cost to print 5,000 B&W pages on my Brother laser: $25 ($12.50 per 2600-page generic toner).

Inkjets make no sense if you can put up the extra $50-100 up front for a laser printer. B&W is at least 10x cheaper, color is at least 5x cheaper, per page.

I have a Brother HL-2270DW for B&W printing, and an HP M251nw for color. Both are wireless, easy to set up.

Bonuses: Print 5 reams of paper before you need to swap a toner cartridge, instead of 3+ ink cartridges per ream. If you don't print anything for a few weeks, you won't need to throw out a dried out cartridge to use the printer again.

> Cost to print 5,000 B&W pages on my Brother laser: $25 ($12.50 per 2600-page generic toner).

I found an unused HP P2015dn at a family member's office. It came loaded with an aftermarket cartridge. I also found a new-in-box HP toner. Pages printed with the genuine HP part are much sharper. Maybe some generic cartridges are better than others... ?

The paper doesn't feed from the drawer anymore, but it feeds fine from the fold-down tray. It's got a wired network connection too, which works pretty well, except I can't print auto-duplex (manual-duplex only) over the network unless I'm printing from Chrome's printing dialogue (wth?).

  Total pages printed: 	60387
  Duplex pages printed: 	4279
  Pages mispicked in printer: 	783
  Pages jammed in printer: 	29
  PCL6 pages printed: 	48916
  PS pages printed: 	505
  PCL pages printed: 	12937

edit: rephrased my statement about generic cartridges

* Brother HL-5140 b/w laser printer. Purchased new in November 2004 and has been a trouble free workhorse the whole time I've owned it.

According to the printer's status sheet it's printed 7298 pages so far and jammed just nine times.

The printer is still running on its original fuser and drum units and it's on its second toner cartridge. I think it cost me GBP150.00.

It's connected directly to my Windows 10 workstation via USB and is "shared". Fairly certain I could get some sort of WiFi arrangement rigged up, but this PC is rarely switched off.

* Canon MG5500

Got this as a freebie. I use it now and again as a scanner and to print high quality Hubble pics onto high quality printer paper. It's set up over WiFi which was ridiculously easy to do. It even scans over WiFi which gave me a certain sense of wow that's clever even though it shouldn't have :)

In parting, I'd say that the economics of a half decent laser printer are a bit of a no-brainer if its mostly b/w printing you do.

[edit] Forgot to mention that both printers happily talk to Fedora.

I have a brother HL-L2320D (laser, love it). It doesn't have wireless and that was a conscious choice at the time, as an old Raspberry PI got put to work as the print server.

If you find something without networking it isn't hard to find a way to add it on!

I have a Brother HL2070N that's worked well for years.

I don't print that often, and very, very rarely do I need to print in colour if so, so I have the Samsung ML-1660. A few years old, but the line of products I would definitely recommend. There are colour versions too.

I bought a Canon imageCLASS D530 in mid-2014 for $68 new, incl. shipping (and it's a bit of a beast). B&W laser, color scanning, it's wired but no problem for me. The "starter" toner cart that came with it is just now starting to die, but if you take them out and give them a good shaking you can usually get another 100+ pages out of them. Canon-brand toner carts are stupid expensive, but third-party ones are everywhere, and they're $25 or under. I'm unsure which brand to go with, as this is the first time I've needed one, but I'm leaning towards Newegg's house brand (Rosewill, $18). It's either that or an "Arthur Imaging" branded one on Amazon for $25 (great reviews, that is if you take those seriously anymore)

HP M252dw has been the most reliable home option for me. I run a small press and have printed tens of thousands of pages in a span of about six months and all it needed was new ink. Colors look great, text is crisp. You can print to it via email which is really handy

Depending on how sensitive your documents are, you can just upload them to Staples, they print it, and you pick it up.

I have an inkjet at home, hardly use it.

When I want something to look nice, down to the ink on the paper, I use Staples.

I have an old HP 4050N LaserJet. It was old when I got, and I've had it ten years. It is a fantastic printer! Runs for years on a single toner cartridge. Prints fast, always works.

To kinda hijack this thread (but not really): I see Brother printers coming highly recommended again and again, both here and on Reddit, but for some reason they don't seem to be as prominent on the public mindshare as HP or Dell or such major companies. Is it because the other companies can afford higher marketing budgets, or is there some catch?

I bought a Canon imageCLASS MF227dw and it has been awesome. Laser printer,wireless,scans multiple pages to PDF and a lot more.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MWDYDOC/

HP LaserJet All in one purchased in 2014. For my $, laser is the way to go. They are economical on a cost per page basis and they last a long time. I purchase a Canon laser printer but returned it after spending two hours attempting (unsuccessfully) to get it set up to print.

I'm using an HP m401dn for about a year and a half that I am very satisfied with. Laptops running Linux and android phones have been able to print to it with no configuration. And while I admit to not doing a huge amount of printing I have yet to buy more toner for it.

HP Officejet 4630. It doesn't get a lot of use, so I'm using an IFTTT recipe to print a test page on the first of each month. Trying to avoid having the ink dry out. I've printed maybe 20 pages over the past 10 months.

None! Can you not change things so you don't need to print anymore?

Canon MX895 all in one inkjet with WiFi. I only print contracts I have to sign so it's OK but cost per page seems to be too high for everyday usage.

Got a Xerox Phaser 3020. Wireless Setup is a little wonky, but it has worked so far for the year I've had it and the print quality is good.

Brother HL-3170CDW color LED printer. Bought within the last year.

How good is the color printing quality?

Honestly, I would say fair to awful. Some of the "awful" is due to driver issues, I'm sure. I've seen an image come out too red looking, but it wouldn't reproduce with the same image. I've been pleasantly surprised by some of the results, but not so pleasantly by others. To land a verdict in, I would have to try something on proper glossy paper.

Anyway, to me, it's really a pointless question; if you want good color, take your files to a pro printing shop. You're not going to get good color at home.

Printing photographs (e.g.) at home is a silly waste of money.

Firstly, it requires ink, not toner. (Rules out a LED or laser printer like this). Toner is colored plastic powder: the three colors don't blend properly. On a given pixel, more of one toner is going to end up on top, and even though it's melted by heat, it's not going to produce the right effect, like when drops of liquid ink blend together.

Ink requires an inkjet, and an inkjet is a silly thing to own. The ink is used up quickly and is expensive. You have to print quite regularly otherwise they dry up and clog. If you try to refill the cartridges yourself (e.g. open holes in them and syringe in the ink), you risk introducing particles of impurities which will clog the heads, and then the unit is kaput.

After all that, the cheap inkjets that people buy for home use don't compare to big, professional printing units. You will end up pay more per image than if you send out for it.

I have this printer for printing documents and the occasional image (perhaps embedded in a document). Color adds a nice dimension to docs, and doesn't have to be correct.

Canon MF8500C aftermarket cartridges are dirt cheap