Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2010 00:05:43 +1000 From: Da Rock <freebsd-questions@herveybayaustralia.com.au> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: printer recommendations? Message-ID: <4CFA4AB7.7030900@herveybayaustralia.com.au> In-Reply-To: <20101204042318.91883.qmail@joyce.lan> References: <20101204042318.91883.qmail@joyce.lan>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On 12/04/10 14:23, John Levine wrote: >>> Network is the way to go. USB *may* be okay. Parallel is not >>> living anymore - allthough I'm still using it that way, but >>> my home setting is a life support system for obsolete >>> technology anyway. :-) >>> > My printer is a sturdy old Lexmark Optra T610. CUPS has a driver, > which does duplex, N-up, and so forth. Each toner cartridge is good > for over 10K pages, so I buy one about every two years, and I can > usually find one for $100, making the per page cost very low. > > I bought a USB to parallel adapter cable for about $10 which works > well, drives the printer fast without swamping the PC. > > R's, > John > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > Pardon me, but Oh God No! Anything but that! As a tech from the industry (and I'll have to adjust my comments from before) I must say some manufacturers were never meant to build printers! IBM should have stuck to the computing and stayed the hell away from printers... Lexmarks are very badly designed (but very slowly getting better ergonomically), expensive to run, and crap themselves with generic toner. They are unreliable, and I've seen big corporations jump up and down about it not running, and then if they're not in an IBM contract they will go out and buy two small kyocera 1010/1020 (whatever they're up to now) to do the same job better and with more features for a lower cost- and give them redundancy to boot. Bottom line is that unless they've entered a contract with IBM there are many _far_ better printers out there cheaper and heaps more reliable. And a 610 was one of their first- so not only was is crap to start, its worse now, and EOL by about 5 years so no parts. For comparison the closest Kyocera (the most reliable cheap printer I've experienced- and I've been repairing printers for over 10 years now, and Xerox biased) say 10xx is half the footprint, at least triple the output per month, double capacity toner, and half again in speed. New they're about 1/6 price, and I've only serviced them a third as much. Lexmark parts are double and more the price, and last half as long. I'd visit them around once a fortnight (and thats being nice) for service, more frequently under heavy load. The newer ones can be worse- they look like kyoceras but are very touchy and a pain to fix. So, to adjust my earlier statements: just about any printer will work, just don't expect photo quality- just stay very well clear of a Lexmark! I agree ink would not be a good way to go, toner is more efficient and cost friendly, but either way cheap upfront and low cost maintenance is still a very tall order. As others have mentioned, a good ex-office HP is probably a good investment. Very durable and parts plentiful- and probably the only way to achieve the cheap tall order :) HTH BTW if you have a HP laser check Canon for toner compatibility- cheaper and essentially the same.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?4CFA4AB7.7030900>