Recommendations for cheap monochrome laser printer

[JayM]

Don't forget to post on Craigslist too.

[handy]

Craigslist doesn't work in Oz unfortunately.

Beyond that, due to the good advice that I've received in this thread, I've had a look on Gumtree & found that there are Brother & HP printers there for good prices. It is likely the way I'll go when one springs up close enough to where I live.

[j2mcgreg]

Toner cartridges for Brother printers are about half the price of those for HP printers. Part of the reason for the price difference is that HP laser cartridges come with a replacement printing drum while Brother replacement cartridges only contain toner. Eventually with Brother lasers you will have to replace the drum unit which can cost about $120.00 U.S. However, even when you factor in the cost of the replacement drum, over the life of the printer Brother Lasers are cheaper to run because of the substantially lower toner cost.

[handy]

Thanks j2mcgreg, for more very worthwhile advice. :)

[TTwrs]

The wireless Brother DCP-L2540DW works very well with Linux and cartridges are cheap, available at Costco or as a 'Replacement' on Amazon, eBay, etc.

[handy]

I found a Brother MFC-L2713DW mono 4-in-1 printer. In one of the two major electronic superstores that I checked. Only one of them had any laser printers & the one that did only had 2 models, both of them Brother & both of them mono. Ink jet printers were more common, but not a great range there either.

Anyway, I've installed it via RJ45 type network cable, it on one of my Win7 setups & am about to start down the road to getting it functioning on MX. I'll let you know how it goes... :)

[handy]

I just wrote an in depth post on the installation & troubles involved installing the Brother printer, code pasting & all of that. When I submitted it I found that I had timed out, which would have been due to my testing as I was writing.

I REALLY don't feel like doing all of that again! :(

[asqwerth]

If you have issues with your brother MFC, open a new thread, and I'll see if I can help. I've had 2 Brother MFC's since 2011, and they have been fine.

Once in a while when there is a new release of your distro (or inevitably as Manjaro and other rolling distros roll along) the newer packages or setup in the relevant distro may cause issues with the original drivers provided by Brother. But by that time there should be a working open driver in foomatic ppd package of your distro, which would work with the said Brother unit.

And my 2nd Brother MFC, bought in Jan this year after the first one died after 9 years of faithful service, works OOTB with MX19.

[handy]

OK, will do, thanks for your help asqwerth. :)

[ckester]

I have an old HP LaserJet 4Plus and I agree, the thing is built like a tank and has delivered rock solid service for many years.

But it does have some issues: the most critical is a well-known and annoying tendency to jam or spit out pages with an accordian-like pleat. I think this happens when the rollers in the paper path aren't kept clean. But it might also be an indication that the toner cartridge needs replacing; I've never pinned down the exact cause.

Mine also lacks two-sided printing, and that along with the jamming issue has me thinking about a new printer -- probably one of the HP LaserJet Pro's like the M118dw or M203dw.