[mdlug] Inexpensive printer recommendation

[Peter Bart]

On Thu, 2008-09-25 at 06:37 -0400, Peter Bart wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-09-24 at 18:49 -0400, R. Kannan wrote:
> > Thanks for all the recommendations. It looks like I am better off getting a laser printer but I am worried about the price and capacity of the cartridges. Also whether to go for b/w or color.
> > 
> > Brother HL-4040CN is on sale in Staples for $250. Does this printer work with the variety of OSs that I have on my network (Linux, Windows Vista & Windows XP). BTW, I have a networked print server and so I don't need networking built in. How much does the brother cartridge cost??
> > 
> > -

	Here is the Brother website where you can check all the specs, etc
<http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/BSC/public/us/us/en/model_top/colorlaserpri/hl4040cn_all.html?reg=us&c=us&lang=en&prod=hl4040cn_all>. I was actually looking at the HP Color LaserJet CP1518ni when I found the Brother on sale. The Brother prints faster, at a higher resolution and is almost half the cost of the HP. The Brother comes with the standard TN-110 BK/C/M/Y cartridges, the HP comes with starter cartridges. Brother toner is cheaper than the HP for about the same page yield. The Brother is a slightly larger printer than the HP. This is my second Brother printer. Still happy. The standard TN-110 Blk is $60 at Office Depot <http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/306465/Brother-TN110BK-Black-Laser-Toner/>. The standard TN-110 C/M/Y color toner is $70ea at Office Depot <http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/306444/Brother-TN110C-Cyan-Laser-Toner/> <http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/306479/Brother-TN110M-Magenta-Laser-Toner/> <http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/306535/Brother-TN110Y-Yellow-Laser-Toner/>. The TN-115 Blk high capacity toner is $93 at Office Depot <http://www.officedepot.com/catalog/txtSearchDD.do?jopa=Tc6lVrf-WYIhqD2xva7ouhl&norefinement=true&searchTxt=tn115bk>. This supposedly doubles your page count/cartridge. The TN-115 color toner is $130 at Office Depot and supposedly more than doubles you page count/cartridge <http://www.officedepot.com/catalog/txtSearchDD.do?jopa=Tc6lVrf-WYIhqD2xva7ouhl&norefinement=true&searchTxt=tn115c>. I had to download the Brother drivers from <http://solutions.brother.com/linux/en_us/download_prn.html#HL-4040CN>. I used "Install Software" to install the driver bypassing their detailed instructions and then used CUPS to tweak it to my likes. You can set it up as a mono printer in CUPS and then use the print properties dialog popup to print color when you want or vice versa. Works great for me YMMV. I had to get a separate scanner for my use, oh well. Used HP with an adf from <http://www.usce.org/catalog/index.php> for $40.00.

Best Regards,
-- 
Peter Bart <peter at petertheplumber.net>
http://petertheplumber.net