Mono laser printers for personal use at home

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  scrimshaw on 02/10/2014 - 15:39

  Well the toner cartridge, called TN-1070 is sold at $59
  http://www.dicksmith.com.au/ink-toner-paper/brother-toner-tn…

  The high yield drum is $95 dollars and gives you 10k pages, 10 times the capacity
  http://www.inkstation.com.au/brother-dr1070-genuine-drum-uni…

  The small $59 cartridges yield 1000 pages which is 5x compared to an ordinary black cartridge ($20+ bux) that perhaps, yield only 220 or 300 depending on whether it's high yield or low yield. If you buy the drum, that's a very costly initial outlay but that means you will cut down the cost per page very dramatically.

  So, ongoing costs: You can calculate this by dividing the number of pages an ink or toner cartridge can produce (this figure is provided by the manufacturer) by the price of the cartridge. This doesn't include the cost of paper though (but this won't change depending on the type of printers). If you do the math you can work out which is cheaper in the long run.

  Formula is
  Cost of consumable / Page yield = Cost per A4 page

  • 

    SaberX on 02/10/2014 - 23:30

    THanks I'll have a look when I get home (on site currently) at my inkjet canon for the yield. I would assume the ink does less pages per cartridge and by multiple cartridges than one toner.

    Excuse my ignorance but what is the difference between the high yield drum and toner cartridge?

    Per the posts below it looks like you need both - i've never used a laser printer before but I thought the toner is the equivalent of 'ink', therefore what is the difference with the high yield drum printing 10k pages, and the toner 1k? Is it just one or the other you can use?

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      scrimshaw on 03/10/2014 - 03:08

      Oops, made a mistake regarding the drum. That drum is strictly the drum only and doesn't include toner, the toner cartridge is basically what holds the black or color toner, and the drum is a seperate consumable part that is required for the printer to work (lasers deposit the toner onto the drum and the drum rolls over the paper to print the image) This drum is usually very long lasting and will last you 10,000 prints before it needs to be replaced. Some laser printers have toners that incorporate the toner and drum in a single part, but with low and midrange printers, the toner and drum is sold separately, and might not be bundled in a single purchase.

      Obviously with that brother unit, the laser printer comes with a drum already attached, and you may buy just the toner cartridges and continue to use the original drum until it conks out. For a cheap sub $80 dollar laser printer it may be just cheaper to toss the entire unit and replace it with a new printer rather than replace the drum unit, which can cost as much as the printer.

      • 

        NosDan on 03/10/2014 - 12:21

        So, ongoing costs: You can calculate this by dividing the number of pages an ink or toner cartridge can produce (this figure is provided by the manufacturer) by the price of the cartridge. This doesn't include the cost of paper though (but this won't change depending on the type of printers). If you do the math you can work out which is cheaper in the long run.

        what that dosnt take into account tho is usage patterns. the laser printer ive owned for maybe 10 years now only gets used maybe once a year, apart from that it sits in a cupboard unloved. if you did that with an ink jet the heads would have dried out and probably destroyed the printer.

        if your not using an ink jet constantly you will have issues with the heads drying out, sometimes just doing head cleans will get it working again tho that also wastes a lot of ink where as lasers are happy to not be used for years and work just fine next time you want to use it.

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  kathmandu-jeff on 02/10/2014 - 16:04

  You don't need to buy a drum as one comes with the printer itself. What happens at the end of the drums life cycle is the quality of each print start to deteriorate and specks of toner start to form on the page. I would just buy a new printer at the end of the drums life. The good thing about brother laser printers is that the toner and drum unit are separate reducing costs. You can also buy generic toners for less that $20 off eBay.

  • 

    scrimshaw on 02/10/2014 - 16:06

    Another thing to note is that the starter toner that comes with the new laser printer is going to be much smaller than that of a regular toner; obviously its a tactic to get you to buy a spare toner either now or shortly down the road when it starts to run out.

    • 

      Colombian on 02/10/2014 - 19:14

      And another thing to note is that inkjet cartridges can get dry overtime.

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        SaberX on 02/10/2014 - 23:32

        Saw the same printer on ozbargain deal posted up - the toner lasts 700 pages (smaller). LIke my post above, i was wondering the diff between a drum and a toner, or do you just need both?

        Some said there are cheaper generic toners and stuff on ebay etc, but do these brother printers and stuff not have those electronic chips that cause issues when it senses you aren't using genuine brother?

        The ozbargain deal post also mentioned that this uses powder ink - whatever that is? But supposedly it doesn't dry out unlike the inkjet? Or do all laser printers use 'power ink' technically - and therefore never dry?

        Would be handy if so for me to switch as I'm away from home weekdays currently with my new job, so printing on weekends or weeks apart at times i assume would cause the ink to dry out.. once dried out can you just an inkjet a few times and it's on its way?

        i also noticed that sometimes some inkjets to print 'black' require a colour cartridge still, which i think is stupid haha. black should just be the black cartridge….

    • 

      terrys on 03/10/2014 - 08:55

      +1

      No, there is no starter' toner with the brother printers - and the page' assessment is more conservative than the fanciful imaginings you get with ink-jets, as they don't have jets to keep feeding ink through to keep them functioning if in low use.

      I have had a Brother 2132 for 15 months now, and am still on the original toner. I also like how it works in Windows vista/7/8.1, Ubuntu and Mint without any fluffing or hassles, and I do not need the dead-weight of Epson, Canon or [especially] HP's spam/spy/zombie-ware clogging my start-up and status bar in Windows.

      • 

        kristo on 03/10/2014 - 13:50

        That's true for most all printers — a generic printer driver will suffice for 99% of printer usage, (leaving aside stuff like colour correction or copy auditing).

        However, if you have a multi-function print\scan\copy device you will need the whole shitload of installation from HP\Canon\Epson\Brother\etc - or you won't have access to the scan-to-PC (and some other) functions - Brother is no better or worse than the others in that regard, requiring you to load a kinds of guff at every computer bootup and let them remain running, in order to utilize the secondary functions. Hopefully Microsoft has a better solution to this in Windows 10 — it was much simpler with twain (SCSI) scanning.

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  BobD on 03/10/2014 - 07:47

  Just buy the cheapest mono laser printers. When the toner runs out make a financial judgement on whether to buy new toner or just buy another printer with toner. Do the maths. The advantage of this approach is you can update the technology. Generic cartridges are much cheaper and seem to work OK.

  Some Brother printers (maybe all?) make a judgement on empty cartridge based on how many prints you may have made. This may not be an accurate assessment. You can reset the toner cartridge empty indicator if printing is still good. Just Google for how to do it.

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  retiredfeline on 03/10/2014 - 07:50

  +1

  Give the toner cartridge a shake when it "runs out" to redistribute the toner. It will then be good for some more copies before it really runs out.

  • 

    Colombian on 03/10/2014 - 08:03

    Yep, I also do that. And after shaking the toner it lasts for lots of copies more.

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  kristo on 03/10/2014 - 13:53

  I suggest looking at the price of replacement toner before deciding which brand of laser printer to buy — Samsung and Kyocera tend to be better value than Canon\HP\Epson\Brother if you're looking at original cartridges - albeit unbranded generics are often cheaper.

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  jaydean on 23/05/2017 - 09:02

  This printer would be fine if you are happy to use generic toners. Personally I prefer inkjet printers myself. I used a Brother mono laser for about a year in the office but I couldn't wait to get back to a multifunction inkjet printer. Just depends what your criteria for the printer is.