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I finally got around to acquire a mono laser printer. Actually my first printer ever. I never saw the point before and of course, there hasn’t been any really good, affordable mono laser printers until now. Having looked at the playing field around around $100-150, read the proper reviews and calculated toner costs it came down to either the OKI B4100 or the Brother HL-2040. OKI had cheaper toners and a correctly designed straight paper path.
Obvious pros: Correctly designed straight paper path. Less complicated LED printing technique. Extremely fast and perhaps the best quality in its class. Cheap toners that come separate from the image drum.
Obvious cons: While the drum will last on average 25.000 pages, replacing the drum costs more than the printer itself. But 25.000 prints is A LOT and I reckon one will have made enough savings on the toners until then to warrant a new printer. One could of course question the environmental impact. The B4100 also isn’t compatible with OKI’s large (6.000 page) toner and so one has to make due with the smaller, 2.500 page, toner.
More generally, what I’m missing is an intelligent way to wirelessly connect a USB printer to either a print server or a router with a print server. Unfortunately, wireless USB isn’t available mainstream yet, and I don’t have a print server in my router (never crossed my mind at the time, and I again, I don’t know if there were any back then). The wireless stand-alone print servers that are available seem to be generally substandard.
Also, one can’t help but consider the power consumption. Even in its power save mode, the OKI B4100 will draw approximately 14 W of power. I imagine it’s pretty much the same for most printers of electrical devices in power save or stand-by, but still it can’t be overlooked. Between the printer and the DVB-T box I got last week, I consume 21 W more power on a regular basis. It adds up.
