OT B&W Laser Printer

A lot of these cartridges can be refilled 2 or 3 times. You can buy a bottle of toner and fill it through the hole provided. Even if no entry hole if provided on a particular toner cartridge, there are kits available to melt a hole into the cartridge. Do some googling and save some money.

Yep - I agree -- but it is quite slow - and if the new one does have a scanner (which most seem to) then all well and good.

It is certainly an option - and I am thinking of giving a refill a go before I dump it.

cheers.

Personally I would not buy an all-in-one scanner/copier/printer. I know they save on space, but if one part goes wrong then the whole lot becomes scrap. I prefer to have a separate scanner and printer, and then replace them as they fail, or when I want to update one or the other.

For 40 for a Hewlett-Packard combi from Tesco, with guarantee and online support, separate units become stupidly cumbersome to manage and wasteful of space and USB ports. Hint: this is 2009- shop around.

If you are happy with a mono printer then a cheap laser printer is much cheaper to run that an inkjet., and you don't have that problem of the ink drying out when you don't use it for a couple of weeks. I bought a cheap Samsung laser printer about a year ago and find it perfectly adequate. This is similar to the one I bought:

Thats all well and good in principle - but lasers need 'developer' which transfers the toner from the drum to the paper, and this wears out as well.

Don't buy HP original (OEM) toner cartridges. Remanufactured (recycled) cartridges are significantly cheaper and just as good. There is not that much difference in cost per page between any home / small business laser printers using OEM cartridges, so unless you need a faster / better featured printer, you may as well stick with the Laserjet 5. It has the advantage that there are a lot of used cartridges for it about, which has a direct effect on the cost of remanufactured cartridges.

Colin Bignell

Well you've first got to decide whether you want to stick with a mono laser printer or get a colour ink jet one.

Laser printers are probably cheaper to run, and generally give a crisper image, as the liquid ink used by ink jet printers tends to bleed into the paper. The Dell 1110 sells for £102.

All-in-one print/scan/photocopy ink jet printers are very nifty and can do pretty much everything you want to do with a printer, including printing colour prints from a digital camera. Ink jets can be very expensive to run, as the ink cartridges don't last long. There is an enormous variation in the running costs - you would have to consult Which? (at your local library) to see which are cheapest. You need one with separate black and colour ink cartridges as the ones that make black by mixing the colours don't produce a good black. I use a Dell which is excellent - but I don't know about the economy as I don't do a great deal of printing. The current Dell V305 (currently £57) is worth a look.

The developer transfers the toner to the drum, not to the paper.

Look at the Brother range.

I've used them for years, trouble free. Toner is sensibly priced - and lasts far ages. Low-cost non-OEM ones seem fine, too. You buy the drum separately if and when needed. Only downsides I've met are (a) the toner supplied with printer is only half capacity - though I think loads of printer makers do this; and (b) not the smallest footprint in the world.

HTH

The 5MP is one of the printers made in the 1990s when printer manufacturers weren't into the cheap-printer-expensive-ink model. So toner should be dirt cheap. Toner is much more expensive on more modern models.

OK...

Going rate seems to be about 15-20 quid including postage. Some of those are HP original, some are remanufactured.

Theo

I had a LaserJet 5MP for many years and it served me well. I can't remember why I got rid of it but now I have a LaserJet 1020. It's much smaller, much lighter, much faster, much quieter, has better print quality, and cost about the same as the £80 you're looking at for a cartridge. The 5MP is a real dinosaur.

SRP of the C3903A OEM cartridge is 72 + VAT. Of course, not many people sell it at the SRP.

Colin Bignell

Another advantage with those printers is that they ain't heavy ('cos its your Brother) :-)

Many thanks for all suggestions and responses.

And the answer is:

keep the Laserjet and either refill or buy refilled cartridge. Treat my self to separate scanner.

The Laserjet really is a work horse - and I really can't see that the quality of newer printers will be any better. They will be faster - but the speed of Laserjet is acceptable.

Again -thanks to all.

If it's good and does the job, stick with it. I have a LaserJet 4 which I have used and still using for nearly 6 years (I even bought it second hand) - ignoring the odd paper jam, the printer is a solid work horse, I use it, the kids use it for their homework etc... and the toner is still going strong, - it was put in nearly 3 years ago. I dread the day it dies on me......... I will have to wear a black arm band that day.....it has served me so well.