Since I have worked for a non-profit, the biggest factor when figuring out what to purchase is cost. So when one of our two laser printers quit about 18 months ago (the other went shortly thereafter), I browsed our office machine catalogs and found an inexpensive laser printer.
The Okidata OKIPAGE 10ex LED Printer came in at just shy of $300. This was a good price, but what would it cost me per page? A toner cartridge retails for $28 and lasts for around 2,000 pages. The drum retails for about $175 and lasts about 20,000 pages. This means the average cost per page is about 2¢ - a great value!
The problem comes when the toner or drum doesn't last quite as long as you'd planned.
In the case of the Okidata OKIPAGE 10ex LED Printer, the problem is with the drum and paper jams. We ended up having frequent paper jams in the machine. After we'd had the printer about two months, we had one jam so bad that it scratched the drum. This meant we were getting lines and marks across all of our pages.
It's a fluke - it can happen to anyone once, right? Well after about six months with a new drum, another bad paper jam caused that one to scratch. The drum that is currently in the machine has lasted without scratches, but the printer has been giving me the change drum message for quite some time now. I have basically ignored it, since I knew I was nowhere near the 20,000 pages that is promised and the printer is working well. Every now and then I get black blobs of toner in different spots on a page, but white-out is a lot cheaper than another new drum.
The printer will also take what I consider to be a long time to generate a page. I have this problem with graphics as well as spreadsheets. It seems like I am waiting a very long time for the output after I have sent the document to the queue. It's not a memory issue - often I bring up the printer folder and watch the progress as the document loads. It just seems to take a great deal of time. It claims 10 pages per minute, but I believe that is counting the time after it has warmed up again.
The printer boasts a 250-sheet paper tray, however I have found that if the tray is filled more than 3/4 full, the paper jams more frequently. The bypass tray works wonderfully and I have used this a lot for envelopes as well as feeding in pages for 2-sided printing or booklet printing. The largest size the paper tray can handle is 81/2x11 or 81/2x14 in the bypass tray.
There is a small screen to indicate problems or other issues, as well as for using the various menu functions. I have not had to use this that much, but have found it relatively easy to follow the on-screen instructions. This is a great way to know exactly what is going on and is the difference between the 10ex model and the10e. The software provided allows you to choose to install on-screen instructions for step-by-step fault clearance and other problems as well. If you don't want that, you can also choose not to install it.
The quality of print is crisp at 600x1200 DPI. The printer comes with a standard 2 meg of memory and is upgradeable to 36 meg. I have had no problems using it with Windows 95 & 98. Like most printers, you will have to download support software and drivers from the Okidata site - www.okidata.com - if you are using this printer with Windows XP.
The printer is also very compact and easily fits on a desktop. Since the paper tray is located underneath the machine, that means that every time you have to add paper the tray slides out. I finally turned the printer so that the tray opening faced off the edge of my workstation. Too often, I would have to clean up my whole workstation just to add paper to the printer.
The printer is not the worst I have ever seen. However, its problems make it a lesser value for its cost. There are many better quality laser printers out there for the $299 price tag.
Showing posts with label laser printer review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label laser printer review. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Brother HL-1440 Laser Printer: A Workhorse Well Worth The Money
Working for a non-profit means everything revolves around cost. When the time came to purchase a new printer for one of our workstations, that was the main factor in my purchasing decision.
I am a big fan of laser printers and have owned one since they first became popular about ten years ago. We don't print or copy in color at the office due to the cost. Our output consists mostly of letters as well as educational matter and reports.
As I browsed through various catalogs, the printer which seemed to be the best value for the money is the Brother HL-1440 Laser Printer. At $299 it came in on the low end of laser printers. I factored in the cost of the toner ($55 for a 3,000 sheet yield cartridge; $80 for a 6,000 sheet yield cartridge) as well as the drum ($170 and should last through 20,000 sheets) and came out with a figure of about 2¢ per copy. This is on par with the cost of copies in our copy machine as well, making this printer a good value.
Setting up the printer was easy. Our systems are still currently running Windows 98, and there were no problems installing the software. Recently, I upgraded my home computer to Windows XP and had problems with the Brother software for my home workcenter. Knowing that, I'd advise that installing the Brother HL-1440 Laser Printer on a machine with Windows XP may require downloading the software from the Brother website.
The software also installs a HL-1440 Interactive Help right on the desktop. For anyone without a good knowledge of computers - specifically printers - this can be a blessing as it takes you through the steps to clear any problems which may occur.
Features of the Brother HL-1440 Laser Printer:
Up to 15 ppm print speed
1200 x 600 dpi resolution
2MB standard memory, upgradeable to 34MB
Optimized drivers for Windows® 95/98/98SE/Me/2000 Professional, NT® 4.0, XP and iMac™/iBook™/G3/G4
Parallel and USB ports standard PCL4 emulation
Universal 250-sheet adjustable paper cassette
Single sheet manual bypass with straight paper path for envelopes and thick media
Shockwave-based animated help system
Brother Solutions Center (requires Internet access)
Manual duplex, watermark, poster and N-up print modes
Energy Star Compliant
Optional external Ethernet interface
The Brother HL-1440 Laser Printer comes with a 1 year warranty.
We don't generally do anything with heavy graphics, so the amount of memory that the printer was shipped with is adequate for our use. The print comes out very crisp and clean. We haven't had any problems with mysterious in spots on the printouts where they shouldn't be. There also have not been any paper jams - even with envelopes which were my nemesis on my old printer for many years. The tray holds an impressive 250 sheets of paper which means long periods of time without having to fumble around to fill the tray.
We have been using the Brother HL-1440 Laser Printer for 8 months and haven't had to replace either the drum or the toner cartridge as of yet. I am very happy with the performance and quality of this low-cost printer and would recommend it to anyone. If you will be doing printing which consists of a lot of graphics, I would recommend upgrading the memory.
I am a big fan of laser printers and have owned one since they first became popular about ten years ago. We don't print or copy in color at the office due to the cost. Our output consists mostly of letters as well as educational matter and reports.
As I browsed through various catalogs, the printer which seemed to be the best value for the money is the Brother HL-1440 Laser Printer. At $299 it came in on the low end of laser printers. I factored in the cost of the toner ($55 for a 3,000 sheet yield cartridge; $80 for a 6,000 sheet yield cartridge) as well as the drum ($170 and should last through 20,000 sheets) and came out with a figure of about 2¢ per copy. This is on par with the cost of copies in our copy machine as well, making this printer a good value.
Setting up the printer was easy. Our systems are still currently running Windows 98, and there were no problems installing the software. Recently, I upgraded my home computer to Windows XP and had problems with the Brother software for my home workcenter. Knowing that, I'd advise that installing the Brother HL-1440 Laser Printer on a machine with Windows XP may require downloading the software from the Brother website.
The software also installs a HL-1440 Interactive Help right on the desktop. For anyone without a good knowledge of computers - specifically printers - this can be a blessing as it takes you through the steps to clear any problems which may occur.
Features of the Brother HL-1440 Laser Printer:
Up to 15 ppm print speed
1200 x 600 dpi resolution
2MB standard memory, upgradeable to 34MB
Optimized drivers for Windows® 95/98/98SE/Me/2000 Professional, NT® 4.0, XP and iMac™/iBook™/G3/G4
Parallel and USB ports standard PCL4 emulation
Universal 250-sheet adjustable paper cassette
Single sheet manual bypass with straight paper path for envelopes and thick media
Shockwave-based animated help system
Brother Solutions Center (requires Internet access)
Manual duplex, watermark, poster and N-up print modes
Energy Star Compliant
Optional external Ethernet interface
The Brother HL-1440 Laser Printer comes with a 1 year warranty.
We don't generally do anything with heavy graphics, so the amount of memory that the printer was shipped with is adequate for our use. The print comes out very crisp and clean. We haven't had any problems with mysterious in spots on the printouts where they shouldn't be. There also have not been any paper jams - even with envelopes which were my nemesis on my old printer for many years. The tray holds an impressive 250 sheets of paper which means long periods of time without having to fumble around to fill the tray.
We have been using the Brother HL-1440 Laser Printer for 8 months and haven't had to replace either the drum or the toner cartridge as of yet. I am very happy with the performance and quality of this low-cost printer and would recommend it to anyone. If you will be doing printing which consists of a lot of graphics, I would recommend upgrading the memory.
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