Does anyone have any advice on what brand/model color laser printer to get? My old Canon inkjet bit the dust. Looking for a multifunction machine. When I look at Consumer Reports, and then look at Amazon reviews, it seems even the best are all riddled with problems (I always read the 1-star ratings and they appear to be written by competent people with lots of frustrated details). There is no good printer!

I'm using a Mac computer, so something that works seamlessly with Mac OS X. PC's are in the rearview mirror for me due to reliability. Now if I can just find a reliable printer to match.

Brother black and white laser printers have one of the lowest cost per page for toner. I have had over 15 brother printers over the last 20 years for the office

You were interested in a multi-function machine. This one will scan, duplex copy, and print at 42 pages per minute plus it is wireless.

staples.com/Brother-MFC-L5850DW-Mono-Laser-All-in-One-Printer/product_1897695

If you just need a printer, then this is the one to get. 48 pages per minute, duplex printing, wireless, fits a whole ream of paper in the tray

staples.com/Brother-HL-L6200DW-Mono-Laser-Printer/product_2072143

Office Space - now that is funny. That poor fax machine.....and how many times have we all felt that way.

Brother is the way to go. I've researched this and Brother always rises to the top for recommended printers.

I loved my Canon Pixma color printer (2010-2022), but when the time came to replace it, there weren't any good comparable non-Canon products. I liked it because it had five tanks (C, M, Y, and a big K and a small K.) So that way, I wouldn't have to replace my still-full blue just because I ran out of red, in the way that you do when you have a two-cartridge color printer.

Even though I was sorry to abandon my color printer, I ended up going with a b&w Brother that DH liked and had already bought another model of. The biggest plus is that it prints significantly faster than what my old Canon used to print.

I haven't had to change out the toner yet. So that's good-- in that you get a whooooole lot of pages off one toner cartridge.

The cons are that, of course, I can't print color. For the most part, I've gotten away from the "For Rent" sign with a box with a flip lid attached to it, so I'm not printing out 30 copies of my flier. Instead, most of my rentals are getting filled either (a) online, or (b) word-of-mouth. When I want to advertise, I'll (c) go to the library, print out one copy of my flier, and post it to the bulletin board of one of our local employers. I design my flier so that the main information is in the main body of the page, and then along the edges, I have contact information, which I scissor into tabs, and it's easy for someone to tear off and take with them, but the main flier is left behind for others.

I always use to prefer HP monochrome laser printer.

Then I tried HP inkjet that was color. I liked the occasional color it made available but I don't really need color that much. I prefer the higher resolution of laser printer in situations where there is small print.

So I went back to monochrome laser printer but I tried Brother last time and bought it at Costco. It has worked well.

You might want to know that some laser printers such as the Brother I bought require you to occasionally replace the drum in the printer. I had been used to using a laser printer where the toner change also resulted in a new drum as part of the toner cartridge. But some laser printers separate those 2 components. It wasn't hard to do but just something you might want to be aware of.

Epson Eco Tank -- we used to spend a FORTUNE on ink cartridges; and since we live in a rural area, we just can't run out and get one on the spur of the moment.

The EcoTank machines are all in one; a little pricier than some of the others, BUT you save a bundle on ink. We purchased one in Dec 2018. So far, we have only gone through 3 bottles of black and 1 each of the other 3 colors. We print A LOT! And they are very easy to refill -- on the front of the machine, you can see how much ink is in each of the 4 colors.

My only complaint on the model we have (and it may be an operator error), is that I have never figured out how to print envelopes. Other than that, we love it. Check out the EcoTank from EPSON.

I am very happy with my Brother black and white laser multi-purpose machine. This is my second Brother. The first one ran from 1996 until 2009 -- 13 years without a problem. My second Brother printer ran from 2009 to today (and beyond, I hope!) -- 14 years and counting.

I understand that the OP wants a color, and I am not experienced with color printers, but if I wanted a color machine, I would start with Brother. Or hire a kindergartener to color between the lines!

When I need color images, I use Office Depot (or for a large number of color photos, Walmart -- three sets of move-in and move-out photos, for example).

But bonanza, you had 15 of the Brother brand in twenty years. Should not have broken. Every brother thing I bought broke too fast.

First printer I had was an HP Laserjet to do all the printing of my Master's project and an IBM PS2 Model 30 and a coupon book with payments in it since all that was five grand.

I have a Xerox multifunction monochrome laser printer that has a cooy, scan to network function and a fax to email function.

Epson with the ink tanks. No cartridges. If you do lots of printing, this is the way to go!

Lauren,

I bought 3 of these used online. LOVE them!

HP Color laser with copier/fax/autofeed 30? pages, can print 2 sides. HP LaserJet Pro M283cdw Wireless Color PrinterI can lay in bed, order something from my phone and print the receipt wirelessly from my bed.

Buy the XL size toners. Be aware they come with a smaller INTRO size toner so be prepared to buy 4 cartridges.

Costco has it for $489. $389 on last week's promo.

Great reviews. Brother reviews were not so hot even with Shaq's big grin.

BRAD

@Alley(NJ). I have a dental office so I have at least 4 printers here, I have 3 printers at home. When I want a faster better printer the office gets a new one and the old one comes home. I go through cases and cases of paper every month. The brother printers I listed just plan work.

If you do purchase a Brother printer, please keep the installation CD if it comes with one. Those printers have sensitive buttons. If your printer has an network card/connection, the settings may be wiped out if a button is accidentally pressed for too long. Only the installation CD can help reconnect the printer to the internet.

Like Ally, I too rely on FedEx or mailbox stores to print optimal color printouts instead of using my inkjet printers.

As an IT person, I disagree with that a bit. The first thing I do when settings up a new printer is throw out the installation CD from the packaging.

You should always go to the website and download the latest driver for printers. They are often updated frequently and the one on the CD is often WAY out of date.

Networked Brother installation CDs should be kept. The latest downloaded bradmin and drivers do not help if the printer accidentally loses its ip address. A hard reset, pin-method reset, and arp fail to connect it even if the printer is connected via an ethernet cable. A third-party networking peripheral easily resolves the issue.

Before tossing a Brother installation CD, please check online to make sure that a drivers are available for the printer. We have another Brother printer whose drivers weren't online. Drivers of adjacent models did not work.

John, one of the reasons I have to get a new printer is the one given to me by a friend (that is in perfect working condition, Dell 2016 laser color, C1760nw) won't work with my Mac (MacBook Pro OS X Yosemite 10.10.5). However, if I had the old disk that came with it, I'm pretty sure it would (at least it would be an option!)

I've downloaded the latest printer driver from Dell's website, which was the ONLY printer driver option, and it simply won't work because, according to the tech at Dell, the printer is too old (???) so I have to buy a new one. That's a bunch of bull and why our landfills are filling up! (Don't get me started on computer waste and forcing people to have to spend more ridiculous money). The printer will work just fine when hooked up to an "older" PC.

Hi Lauren, Others found a solution to a very similar issue with their Dell C1760nw printers. You may read a rather popular thread with solutions by using the search terms, "apple discussion thread 7117367". The title is "Dell C1760NW - Yosemite 10.10.4 Installation Issues". A similar thread comes up with resetting the printer system for "Dell C1760NW - Yosemite 10.10.5 Installation Issues" but contains just a couple of suggestions.

Lauren: Dell printers are crap, sorry.

Salernitana: I do this for a living. I've never, ever found a printer (that wasn't ancient and not worth using any more) where the driver was not available for download, but the install CD that came with it would have worked fine. It just doesn't happen.

Also, the idea that "only the installation CD can help reconnect the printer to the internet" doesn't make any sense to me. Anything on the install CD, you can go download from Brother to reconfigure the printer. I do it all the time.

To answer your question, all printers suck. :) IT people hate printers -- because they are mostly garbage.

That being said, if someone just needs a personal black-and-white laser printer, I recommend Brother and Canon these days. Have used many good Brothers and I have a Canon sitting on my desk in my office.

Note that I provide services for an accounting firm that prints thousands of pages a week (or even a day sometimes). For those, I recommend very different printers, of course. So, here, I'm really only talking about personal "I want to print a few pages now and then" usage.

Lauren: Also, that printer was released a few months BEFORE Yosemite was released. So, the original install CD would most likely not have had a driver for it either.

In any case, my understanding is that the 10.10 compatible driver is still available from Dell:

www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=h8rd5

We're talking about an almost 10 year old operating system and an almost 10 year old printer though... So, it may be time for an upgrade anyhow? :)

John is right that it may be time for Lauren to upgrade.

The typical home user should keep their installation CDs, or at least copy and back up the installation files from their initial setup to have if needed when changing their setup.

I will continue to throw out all installation CDs for myself and all of my clients.

To each their own...

You guys still have your AOL CDs? :)

Indeed, printers are problematic for many IT professionals.

Printer companies tend to offer excellent online drivers immediately upon releasing their models. The incentive for perfect drivers degrades just as fast as they release new printers. One blinks, and the printer is now old and outdated, its drivers no longer being updated so well. An installation CD would have quickly solved an old printer's driver or wifi connection problem particularly for a home user.

As noted, downloadables for an old but perfectly working wi-fi printer did not work, according to every shred of knowledge found online. Again, we easily found a solution with a third-party old wifi printer peripheral. I work in IT and adore finding solutions for impossible printers.

Salernitana: Again, the printer that she has was released months BEFORE Yosemite. How in the heck is the old CD -- which was released before the OS existed -- going to have a driver for that OS on it??

That makes no sense at all.

Also, I literally linked to the driver that should be compatible with that printer and her OS. Why should she go hunting for an ancient install CD when the driver can be downloaded directly from Dell?