I ask because it's on sale at staples for $180 (CAD), and I've been thinking of going laser for some time. How's the print quality? I know Denny likes it, so where do you get your toner? What's your cost per page?

Many thanks.

I don't have a good cost per page, but I am enjoying the heck out of my 4040CN. It's fast, its color quality is phenominal, and the local Cartridge World (don't know if you have any there) has just gotten the equipment to do refills for it.

Wow. If I hadn't already chosen to go with the HP photowhatever 7 series, I might have considered it. I think I'll enjoy the 6 color ink process though. I'm actually going to try putting Wormhole into action this weekend.

I've never seen any flaking either. The only issue I've seen (and Denny said it already) is some curling of the card as it goes through...which usually comes right out by counter-bending it.

Is there a particular Epson model you have in mind, Lord Ab?

Spoo check this out as it has the info.

Now upon reading this Epson has rechipped their cartridges so the Hackers of such are currently working on cracking the chip. It's a matter of time (think months).

I know the office supply chain around my area has the R290 which sits at about $120AUD.


The more I think about this option the more I amwanting to do it. The main reason I haven't is that at the moment I physically don't have the room to house yet again another printer and the supply system.




Lord Abaddon of Wormwood

Wow, MelEbbles, thank you so much. It arrived a little late to influence my decision, but since I'd come to some of the conclusions you mentioned, mainly that the inkjet + quality paper >= laser + cheap paper, I'm now the proud owner of a shiny new printer. But still, lots of great tips, so thank you again.
So, now I need advice on exactly what settings to use for prints on 200gsm (110lb) cardstock. What media type do i use? what about the "enhance black printing" and "improve grey color" options?

I use three kinds of stock, a 163gsm cover stock for small fiddly bits, a 216gsm cover stock for general use, and a 271gsm cover stock for things that need a lot of strength or thickness. Those always feed into the multipurpose tray, and use the "Postcard" media type. I don't use the 271gsm stock too often, because it's thick enough to make me nervous about feeding a lot of it through the printer. The same settings work for cardstock.

For letter-sized text documents and whatnot, I use a 32lb text stock in Tray 1, and the "Thick Paper" media type. (The media type settings for thin to thicker paper covers the 20lb to 50lb text weight spread)

"Improve Grey Color" should only be used if you're printing something like a grayscale photo or a finely halftoned black and white image. If you leave it on for color documents, it'll noticeably shift the colors. As a rule of thumb, only enable this setting if your grayscale images don't quite come out right.

The "Enhance Black Printing" and the "Improve Thin Lines" settings are best used for monochrome images where you notice errors on the default settings. Most of the time, it's okay to leave these settings off, enabling them only if you see problems with monochrome graphics not being rendered correctly by the printer.

-Mel

I see some good deals on refurbished models of this kind of printer... Do people have any thoughts on how risky that might be?

Thanks!

PS - You may recognize me as the guy with the cropping issues... If my printer is listening it should consider this its last warning to shape up...

I'd stear clear of the refurbished models, not because of any concerns over quality, but because most new printers, if you can find a decent sale on it, come with full low-capacity toner cartridges and new fusers.

It's a significant up-front investment, but it's a wonderful printer in the long run.

Is there a next step down that's nearly as good that I might consider? This thing is teetering on the edge of affordability for me...

Edit: Nevermind.

The Staples website is having a really great sale on this model of printer. If you're in the market for one, I'd recommend checking it out.

Abajan: Still haven't run out of toner yet, and I'm at the 1400+ page mark now. Yellow's starting to blink low as of this morning, though.

-Mel

Well, I didn't want to say anything about it earlier...but I don't normally go to these crazy lengths to squeeze every last drop of ink or toner out of my cartridges just to save a few bucks in the short term.

I don't really mind if there's leftover ink or toner in the "empty" cartridges as long as I get at least what the box says I get for my money before it starts complaining about being empty. If I'm paying for 1500 pages at 5% coverage and I get that much out of the cartridge, I'm satisfied. I mean, I *am* paying for that much, right? Anything more is just gravy.

There's also a line between being responsibly frugal and irresponsibly cheap, and to me, messing around with the cartridges in the fashion you suggested smacks of the latter. I don't feel like spending $600 next year to replace the prematurely fried components of a printer that I bought for $375 last year, least of all just because I wanted to milk a few more prints out of a $70 toner cart that I've already gotten my money's worth from anyway.

I'm funny that way--when I buy expensive hardware, I want to keep it out of the landfill for as long as I possibly can. That means I take care of it like I'm supposed to...i.e., maintaining it in the fashion that the engineers who designed the thing recommend. Our ancient HP PSC 1210v all-in-one printer that we bought in 2003 still sees service as a standalone copying machine in the living room corner. Our 8 year old PCs in the master bedroom closet are going to become machine tool controllers. Like I said, I'm keeping 'em out of the landfill for as long as I possibly can.

-Mel

Yep, that's the plan...the empties go in for recycling when I buy new OEM toner cartridges. I'm not a fan of off-brand refills because too many of these refill places cut costs by sacrificing quality, and I don't feel like wasting money on test purchases and potentially damaging my equipment for the sake of experimentation. Being needlessly cheap can end up being very expensive over the long run.

When I write off any piece of hardware (i.e., if we have no room or use for it) that is still functional, we're donating it to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. If something's a total write-off and can't be rebuilt, it goes to a recycling place that specializes in electronics.

I'm not a card-carrying tree-hugger or a greenie, I'm just frugal and don't like to see perfectly useful things go to waste.

-Mel

Staples offers a $3 reward per cartidge, up to 10 a month. For me this is very good since they also accept brothers brand, which are very cheap since they don't have the print head on the cartidge. Most other stores don't accept brothers. I'll still have to check and see if they'll accept my generics as well.