I’ve decided we need to get a new printer for home/home office use. The main requirements are for black & white, with some colour printing (but not necessarily photo-quality). We’re happy to continue to get our digital photos processed commercially (eg. when Harvey Norman has a special!)

We’ve previously had a old Canon BJC-2100SP, which was never that impressive. More recently Gary gave me a second-hand HP LaserJet 2100, which does a very nice job except when it jams (which is becoming all too frequent).

One thought was to get two printers – a B&W laser and a cheapish inkjet colour printer, but talking to the guys at work yesterday, Timothy pointed out that if you don’t use the colour regularly then it can dry out. So maybe a colour laser printer might be a good option. The idea of having a network-enabled printer is attractive, though obviously you do pay more for that feature.

Here’s a few of the models I’ve been considering, and a rough calculation of the cost per page for black and white printing.

Model Toner Toner Cost Pages Per page Printer Cost Retailer
Samsung CLP-300N Black $89 2000 0.04 $179 MSY
Epson C1100N Black $115 4000 0.03 $579 MATS
Canon 5200 Black $133 5000 0.03 $376 MSY
Canon 5050N Black $88 2300 0.04 $389 TechBuy

Maybe the network option isn’t really necessary. Going on the figures above, the Canon 5200 does look like a good compromise between upfront and ongoing consumable costs.

Any other suggestions?