Laser printers have come on since I last got one

[anonymous-user]

HP Laserjet 4100 that I bought off the bay used about 3 years ago for about £80 died its death. Had been quite happy with it up to the point it stopped working

Replaced with a HP Laserjet P3015 that I bought of the bay used for £54.98

Surprised (but probably shouldn't be) by how much faster it is, how much sharper the print is, how much less fussy it is about handling different media (labels in particular) and how much lighter it is

Bargain imo

[davepoth]

To be fair to the 4100 it was released in March 2001, and was based on the 4000 which was released in 1997. The print engine is nearly 20 years old!

[anonymous-user]

davepoth said:

To be fair to the 4100 it was released in March 2001, and was based on the 4000 which was released in 1997. The print engine is nearly 20 years old!

I didn't know that. 20 years is a long time in computing technology. Even less reason for me to be surprised

This P3015 was, the sticker on the back tells me, manufactured on 18 Jun 2013. Which, in terms of my frugal technology equipment purchasing strategy, makes it the newest hardware I have right now!

Next on the list of bits to update are the monitors and graphics card. Maybe I will even go so far as to get some screens with 1920 x 1080 or greater resolution this time....

[plasticpig]

davepoth said:

To be fair to the 4100 it was released in March 2001, and was based on the 4000 which was released in 1997. The print engine is nearly 20 years old!

They were very well engineered though. We still have a LaserJet 6p printer in the office and my parents have a LaserJet III. Both still work.

[anonymous-user]

The HP Laserjet 4 must be toughest printer known to man. I am sure there are thousands of these things still used every day that have never had any maintenance apart from having the toner cartridges shaken when the print gets faint.

[davepoth]

Joey Deacon said:

The HP Laserjet 4 must be toughest printer known to man. I am sure there are thousands of these things still used every day that have never had any maintenance apart from having the toner cartridges shaken when the print gets faint.

Rumour has it that it was so well engineered that it nearly broke HP.

[FurtiveFreddy]

The early Laserjets were based on Canon print engines and I was closely involved with these products when they came about in the 80's.

They were (are) quite complex pieces of engineering/electronics for their time and it's is quite amazing how well they've endured.

I had a Laserjet III which lasted for a good 20 years and was so economical on toner it made modern laser printers look like a con.

Of course, the printer manufacturers quickly caught on to the fact that there was a lot more money to be made in the consumables than the printers themselves...

[hidetheelephants]

I have a Laserjet 4; I suspect it will outlast me and as the sun expands in its death throes to swallow the earth in 4bn years, the LJ4 will probably be there with the cockroaches, witnessing the fiery end days while noisily churning out print at 8ppm.

[All that jazz]

I've got an old Lexmark C530dn laser printer which weighs about 3 tonnes. It's got to be 10 years old now at least and despite being used at least once a week I've yet to replace any of the toner cartridges in it!! It's become a bit of an in joke with my mate as he's got some all singing and dancing Epsom printer about 12 months ago now and he's already had to replace the black cartridge 4 times and his use isn't much different to mine.

[Halmyre]

Eee, I've gone all nostalgic for PC LOAD LETTER error messages and discovering that your three-page Word document has transformed into a ream's worth of hieroglyphics (although in the latter case, nostalgia is probably the wrong expression).

[SystemParanoia]

I have a HP laserjet 6P here.

I've had it over 10 years, and it was a freebie when i got it as an office was chucking all their old stuff so who knows how old it actually is!!
Ive never had to refill to ink to date! and it just keeps going!

Indestructible!