Mac-friendly networked laser printers?

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Hi all. Not sure if this is the right place for this question, so please recommend alternatives if appropriate.



I have a a mix of macs and XP/W7 machines on a home network. I am in the market for a good small workgroup laser printer, and have been doing a lot of reading, but have not come to any great conclusions on brands. (Macworld's reviews seemed worthless)



I'm leaning towards Brother 4570CDW for cost of ownership, and have had HP's forever, but am tired of paying what appears to be premium prices for toner/ink. I know nothing about Brother products.



Any thoughts on brands with good cost of ownership for laser printers that play well with a mixed set of computers?



Also - another question about color lasers. If you print black text primarily, is it only using the black toner? And therefore the color toner cartridges can sit for months without issue? I ask as I read people complaining about having to replace color cartridges but claim they are just printing text....



Thanks.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 1
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    Brother's tend to have fairly cost toner but make sure to get a model that a local supplier can get you compatibles and check if you get high yield compatibles.



    Any modern networked printer should work fine with t Mac/Windows as they use postscript. It does help to get one with full Mac driver support though as you get tools to check ink levels and printer status over the network.



    If you only print black then generally it will only use black toner, though sometimes you get colours that are slightly off-black and it will use a mix of the colours but mostly, it will use up the black first.



    Also check out the Brother DCP-9045CDN, which has a scanner/copier part too and the Xerox Phaser 6280DN.



    I think the one you mentioned would be a good choice though and looks pretty stylish (for some reason, printer manufacturers don't seem to have realised computers don't come in beige much any more).
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