Peripherals New laser printer - mono or colour?

Urefilltoner have a good coverage of toner refill steps for nearly every model, but they are toner sellers so take with a pinch of salt.

 

They list both models but I couldn't find any filling instruction. Also, they sell refill bottles instead of non-OEM cartridges. I may consider refilling if it is significantly cheaper.
Replacement cartridges for my current mono laser are so cheap I never bothered.

 

On the bottle pages click full info and there is some limited information and a video I think. For mine the refilling information includes the line "You will need your own drill and 5.5mm drill bit to drill out 3 plastic rivets"... I'm sure that nothing could go wrong when drilling into a plastic box full of toner...

 

Brother MFC-L3710CW 4-in-1 wireless colour LED laser printer £150
Brother TN-247BK Toner Cartridge - Black 3,000 pages RRP £91.19
NON-OEM TN247BK Black Toner Cartridge - 3,000 pages £28.41

HP Colour LaserJet Pro MFP M281fdw Wireless Multifunction Printer with Fax £137.99
HP 203X High Yield Black Original LaserJet Toner Cartridge 3,200 pages RRP £79.20
NON-OEM HP 203X (CF540X) Black Toner Cartridge - 3,200 pages £27.80

Some HP non-OEM listings mention having the newest chip, this may explain why these cartridges are much more expensive than my current printer.
It does seem that the HP cartridges are much more common on eBay.

Apparently it's such an important "security" feature that it is shown at the top and bottom of the product.

 

In the event anyone else is looking to buy a brother laser printer- this is a useful table comparing similarly priced printers. The four on the right are all "£50 cashback or 3 year warranty"

 

Skip the MFC-L3710CW, manual duplex, that not a hardware feature that is software and you might as well be printing single sided.

I have only used 3rd party tonner in a brother printer. Not sure if it was the tonner or the the printer but it left tonner splotches on the page. I cannot recall every having stray tonner from my HP printers or the ones in my office. As for the cost of official HP cartridges, sure its a lot upfront, but based on estimate page counts it's in the $0.05/page and if like me that is amortised over 5 to 10 years. My experience with colour laser printers, home and in the office, is you are usually only replacing one cartridge at a time not the whole batch (unlike my experience with inkjets).

 

I found the next two models up are pretty cheap from a seller on ebay with a 10% off code. I'm just waiting to hear back from a few interviews.

 

I like the look of the first one (DCP-L3510CDW). I'd rather not have the automatic document feeder unless I think I'm going to actually use it (it takes up space, gathers dust and makes the flatbed slightly more awkward to use), and I actually quite like the lack of touch screen.

I assume the toner is shared across them, which means a full set of compatibles for under £30 which seems good to me. They also have good Amazon reviews, which suggests good compatibility.

 

I didn't think about the document feeder being a pain in regards to dust.
The downside is that it cost more and doesn't have a 50 off discount making it one of the most expensive on the list
DCP-L3510CDW - £209.9
DCP-L3550CDW - £186.17
MFC-L3710CW - £200.57 - 50
MFC-L3730CN - £200.57 - 50
MFC-L3750CW - £222.17 - 50
MFC-L3770CW - £299.99 - 50

 

My new printer finally arrived.

Brother MFC-L8690CDW. Brother sells it for £478.80 but I found it on eBay for £300 with a 10% sitewide code and £100 mail-in rebate bringing the price down to £170.
This thing is bigger and much heavier than I expected. I actually had to look up and "unboxing" video to figure out how to get the thing out.

 

27.9 KG, I didn't see anything on the outside of the box or quick setup guide about the box separating. I watched the video because I was stumped. It's a very clever design, but I've never seen it before.

It seems that all colour laser printers are pretty big because of an extra three toners. Even the MFC-L3750CDW is 23.4 KG.

 

I picked up a used Dell C1760nw a couple of years back - £25 in the local free ads.

Before that, I picked up a used Samsung CLP-315, also in the local ads for £30.

The last four or five years printing has been trouble free - you can leave a laser printer for months, switch it on and you're ready to go. Unlike inkjets which, in my experience, clog up and use up a quarter of a cartridge cleaning the head.

My next printer will also be a laser used or new.

 

The MFDs are chunky because they generally have a duplexer unit (flips the paper around the print both sides) along with a scanner mechanism (usually with a document feeder). A non-MFD laser will be smaller and lighter, and a non-MFD 'LED laser' (repalced scanning laser with fixed high intensity LED strip) lighter still.

My Brother MFC-L8650CDW is still going strong after 3 years of doing nothing for months then farting out a ream of print, without a single hiccup. No way would I ever go back to an inkjet.

 

This is my third Brothers laser printer. I bought my first in 2002 for college, the second when I arrived in the UK and the third because I really wanted scan/copy function and decided to go colour.

Multifunction printers tend to be on the large side and this one was not much more than the LED variants with much better printing speed and lots of extra functions. I've always had good luck with Brother and it seems I can get a 6000pg capacity black toner for a tener on eBay.