Anyone know much about printers? Ink vs. laser

Bornstarch

Bornstarch

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I need a printer to print knife sketches for knife making. Something that only gets used very rarely but works when I need it, like once a year or so. I just found out that laser printers don't need ink? I only need to print in black and white.

All the printers I've used in the past use ink and only works for like a few years and when I need to use it again, it doesn't work anymore.
 
Bornstarch said:
I need a printer to print knife sketches for knife making. Something that only gets used very rarely but works when I need it, like once a year or so. I just found out that laser printers don't need ink? I only need to print in black and white.

All the printers I've used in the past use ink and only works for like a few years and when I need to use it again, it doesn't work anymore.
Click to expand...
Laser printers don't use ink but they need toner. The main difference is usually you can get more prints out of laser printer for the price of supplies but Ink Jets have better colors. Laser gives a more sharp image. So it really depends on the situation. If you need a lot of detail then laser is better but more vivid colors would be for ink. You can get upwards of 1200 pages on some toner cartridges where an inkjet might get 300.

Inkjet printers are generally cheaper for a good quality one and and they have newer ones now with ink tanks that give you many more pages at a lower cost too than regular ink cartridges.
 
Pencil and a sketchbook would be cheaper if you are only using it once a year..
 
The rundown is this:

Inkjet = printer machine is cheap to lure you in, they make bank by scamming you with the ink. Complete garbage, jams constantly, getting it to print both sides is hell

Laser = printer is more expensive upfront, works amazing, ink ("toner") is cheap and can be sourced from third parties.

Always get a wired one with no smart features whatsoever, wireless will break eventually

For your uses inkjet would work fine. If you think you'll ever need to print any significant amount of stuff, get the cheapest wired laser brother printer you can find that has duplex printing, like this. I got mine secondhand for 50 monopoly Canadian money. Imo y'all dumb for buying inkjet since everyone needs to print something eventually, but it's your funeral
 
Renard said:
The rundown is this:

Inkjet = printer machine is cheap to lure you in, they make bank by scamming you with the ink. Complete garbage, jams constantly, getting it to print both sides is hell

Laser = printer is more expensive upfront, works amazing, ink ("toner") is cheap and can be sourced from third parties.

Always get a wired one with no smart features whatsoever, wireless will break eventually

For your uses inkjet would work fine. If you think you'll ever need to print any significant amount of stuff, get the cheapest wired laser brother printer you can find that has duplex printing, like this. I got mine secondhand for 50 monopoly Canadian money. Imo y'all dumb for buying inkjet since everyone needs to print something eventually, but it's your funeral
Click to expand...
I agree with everything you said except that inkjet would work fine for the TS. He said he'll only use it a couple times per year, and inkjet printers are notorious for getting all clogged up if they're not used frequently.

The newer ones have automatic cleaning cycles that prevent it from getting clogged, but all that does is squirt some ink through the nozzles occasionally to keep things from drying out. Eventually you'll run out of ink and it will dry out and get clogged anyway.

A laser printer is vastly superior if you're going to let it sit unused for months. Because instead of ink it uses toner, which is actually a powder, so drying out is not an issue.

Laser is more expensive usually but if all you need is black, with no other colors, then you can get a black only one for cheaper.
 
Whatever you get, get it at Costco so when it inevitably breaks you can return it no hassle
 
Ok so far what Ive learned from this thread is get a laser printer and get a wired one.
 
Fedorgasm said:
I agree with everything you said except that inkjet would work fine for the TS. He said he'll only use it a couple times per year, and inkjet printers are notorious for getting all clogged up if they're not used frequently.

The newer ones have automatic cleaning cycles that prevent it from getting clogged, but all that does is squirt some ink through the nozzles occasionally to keep things from drying out. Eventually you'll run out of ink and it will dry out and get clogged anyway.

A laser printer is vastly superior if you're going to let it sit unused for months. Because instead of ink it uses toner, which is actually a powder, so drying out is not an issue.

Laser is more expensive usually but if all you need is black, with no other colors, then you can get a black only one for cheaper.
Click to expand...

I see what you mean, but in my mind I'm picturing TS wasting a few sheets of paper getting the inkjet to work again after not using it for a while and then printing what he needs. Cheap inkjets are a terrible experience in general anyway, left unused or not. So if he's really strapped for cash someone's secondhand free inkjet is workable.

You gotta love how they added cleaning cycles to inkjets. Gotta get them to waste even more ink so the plebs buy more.
 
I know they are all a ripoff. With companies like snapfish, shutterfly,vista print...ect...ect, And printers not letting you print B&W if the color cartridge dries up, i don't even bother. I guess if i had to buy a printer again, it would be a B&W laser printer.
 
3D Printers are better. They print in 3D. Paper printers only print in 2D. Throw them out they suck.


We need 4D printer.
 
If you don’t need color go for laserjet without a doubt. Inkjet sucks for the most part.

If you need color you’ll have to make a choice bc color laser jet can get a little spendy.
 
Laser if you print a lot and only need black/white. You can get it in color but it's sort of not worth it if you don't use it. Get ink if you want color. It does dry up if you leave it out too long.
 
I only use a printer a couple times a year. I use to have an inkjet printer but the ink cost more than the printer and they always break. What I do now is just save my documents to a USB drive and take it to Staples or Office Depot and print it there. It cost about $5 to print several color documents. Explore this option.
 
Buy whatever Brother printer Costco has.

Laser printers don't use ink. They use toner which is powder arranged on the paper, then the heat makes it stick to the paper. I know this because when the paper jams, sometimes it gets stuck prior to the heat stage of the printing.

Also, I read some of these shit shady printer companies make some software update that disables your printer's ability to use third party ink. Didn't know you could do that. I think they said HP and another company does that so you must use their ink.
 
Bornstarch said:
I need a printer to print knife sketches for knife making. Something that only gets used very rarely but works when I need it, like once a year or so. I just found out that laser printers don't need ink? I only need to print in black and white.

All the printers I've used in the past use ink and only works for like a few years and when I need to use it again, it doesn't work anymore.
Click to expand...

I've been at my current job over a year and have never printed anything, isn't that a fun fact? (Can't help you sorry Sherbro)
 
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