Looking for BLACK & WHITE printer

I'm looking for a black and white only printing printer.
Inkjet is the first choice, but will go laser if costs are close.
I need it to be durable as it'll be utilized on a tugboat.
I'd like to stay in the $100-200 range for the printer, and low-cost cartridges.
If I have to go laser, toner should stay around $35-40.
Any suggestions?

 

Joe Locke: I don't own one of them yet, but I researched the subject recently while planning to get my wife one to use beside her laptop in our kitchen. The HP 1018 and HP 1020 look good. I believe the 1018 is the newer model, but I'm not positive. They're both B & W lasers. Street price is in the $120 area. As for ruggedness, they're not up to military specs, of course, but HP printers have a good rep for reliability. Compare the cost of placement of toner cartridge with ink for inkjets. Check amazon.com for their prices, more details, and user reviews.

 

Get a laser printer
Cheaper in the long run.
More reliable.
The copies do not smear when wet.
The cartridges use a powder.
Some can be refilled easily.
Go to a professional inkjet refiller that refills laser cartridges - not one of the chain mall kiosks that hire stupid kids. There will be some one more senior who refills the laser cartridges . It is a matter of locating that person and asking if the cartidges are easily refillable.
The budget samsungs are no problem, the standard hps that are on sale are good too. If you get a real commercial older laser printer that has been refurbished and was originally expensive that should have a good chance as well.
I know some of the brother laser cartidges cannot.
It really is a case by case with the standard HP and Samsung being ok.
Anothe question is how much will you use the machine.
Remember a partially filled demo laser cartridge will do the equivalent of tons of inkjet cartridges
The Konica Minolta have the most filled demo cartridges ( so say the salesman at the local big box store who buy the printer on sale before exams and later .....)
HPs are about 1/2 full
The Samsung that i have was probably about 1/3 full . It has been reliable.
The only trick is that if stops working is to reset it by turning off the power and pulling out the cartridge.
Lastly if you do not mind making a mess in the tugboat is seems to me that you can buy toner kits for these laser cartidges on ebay.

 

We just got a Brother Laserjet NETWORKED printer. It's a dream come true. No issues, always able to print, has a page limit on one cartridge of over 15000 prints remaining. They cost way less in the long run if you think about how cartridges in deskjets generally go out after 100-500 prints and each cartridge costing around 30$.

I would recommend going laserjet all the way. I would highly recommend Brother printer laserjets.

-Eric.