Maybe I should just buy a laser printer

Tech Writing, Experimental Psychology, and Operating System Theory seem to be collaborating to run me bankrupt. This is the second black ink cartridge I've put in my printer in three weeks, which is a new record for burning through one- also half a ream of paper. (Yay proofing of 25-page documents.) How much for a cheap laser printer? Mucho bonus points if it's also a scanner. I've gotten that reliant on MS OneNote- it would be nice to be able to do better than crank my digital camera up to high resolution, mount the page on my document holder, and hope it comes out legibly.

I don't even want to think about how many rainforests I've killed in the last month.

edited to add

Although I have to confess that OneNote does do a fairly good job with letting me store and mark up images from my digital camera that are photographs of documents. The visual results are still somewhat surrealistic- a paper document marked up with digital pens, which really do look like they were written straight on the original paper, except for a few little perspective issues...

9 comments — :

( 9 comments — Leave a comment )

thrames

2005-10-08 01:57 am (UTC)

What about computer labs? Can't you print stuff for free on them?

kistaro

2005-10-08 02:23 am (UTC)

Nope. One ream a semester (500 sheets), then it's five cents a page beyond that. I usually use abuot 450 pages of my quota just in usual day-to-day code listings in lab work; if I try to do homework assignment printing very often, I'll run out of quota. Paper plus ink for my inkjet printer come to about four cents a page, and I don't have to run all the way across campus, so it's a better option.

2005-10-08 02:27 am (UTC)

Ah. Over here I get free printing for all my stuff, but, then again, my campus is significantly smaller than yours.

good luck on that, though. Wish I could help you out, but I've no clue about base costs of a laser printer or anything of that nature. You might call a few places, though, and ask if they have anything on a signficant discount that you could pick up.

puropis

2005-10-08 02:08 am (UTC)

If I remember correctly, cheap laser printers are in the $400 range. (no guarantees on correctness of memory) I looked at them when I was looking for my new one, on Best Buy's website. There probably are cheaper places out there, though.

altivo

2005-10-08 02:39 am (UTC)

You may think a laser printer is cheaper but it really is about the same. The toner cartridge lasts longer but costs around $100 to replace in most of the smaller ones.

If you are printing "drafts" (as I often do with serious writing) your printer or your word processor may have a draft mode that uses about half as much ink.

2005-10-08 02:42 am (UTC)

I should add that the Hewlett Packard 1012, a small personal laserjet that understands PCL and connects via USB, can be had on sale or with a rebate for under $150. But the toner cartridges cost $89 or so to replace.

You might consider a dot matrix for code listings and such. They can still be found, used for as little as $25, new for about $100. Much less costly to run, but they do make noise.

2005-10-08 02:50 am (UTC)

One Canon S330 black ink cartridge using heavy coverage sees about 125 pages. (I can't use draft prrints for my Tech Writing homework- I need to know how things will look at a reasonable quality. The inaccuracy of a draft print can change how the eye flows down the page.) This costs about $7. One laser printer toner cartrdige for a medium-level printer is usually worth, in my father's experience, about ten to twenty reams of paper, or 5000 to 10,000 pages. It's cheaper overall- assuming you get mileage like that.

mithent

2005-10-08 07:33 am (UTC)

We have a Canon printer at home.. it does appear to use very small ink cartridges.

Looking on a totally random site, I found an HP scanner/laser for $309.99:
http://www.superwarehouse.com/HP_LaserJet_3015_All_in_One/Q2669A/p/384244

I don't know whether the printer or the site are good - just a possible price.

kamoranakrre

2005-10-08 03:23 am (UTC)

We just bought a colour laser printer for our apartment for somewhat less than US$400, (I forget the exact price.) If you only need black and white, it's probably even less.

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kistaro

Kistaro Windrider, Reptillian Situation Assessor

Unfortunately, I Really Am That Nerdy