Best Printer

[Gail in Virginia]

Margaret CPA in Ohio, yes I did keep the same number for my fax line.  I do miss being able to use a real phone on that number sometimes, but I don't miss coming in to find printed out truck ads, etc.  I have really like this service.  I use RingCentral if you are interested.  

[Slippery Pencil]

7 hours ago, BulldogTom said:

Don't hold back Pencil....tell us how you really feel.

No, if I don't hold back, people get too upset with me.  Plus there would be too much cussing for these forums.

23 minutes ago, Lion EA said:

one after another Brother fax machines that broke down fast when I started, so switched to all HP for anything that prints.

I think Brother & HP have switched places.  Decades ago I heard lots of ridicule of Brother printers.  Now they get pretty high praise while HP is scorned.

[Lion EA]

The "switch" has been my experience, but I might have only 3 printers of all kinds at any time. In the 90s, I quickly moved from Bother to HP and stuck with HP for decades as they lasted and lasted. Now my workhorse is the Brother that prints returns, thanx to my IT guy's recommendation. My IT guy's experience, servicing hundreds of clients a year, has him recommending Brother printers now. I'll be adding 1-2 more Brothers this year.

One of my clients worked for HP for years (no longer) and told me HP bought technology from Canon, so he uses Canon in his home office.

[Margaret CPA in OH]

My Brother return and other document printer, HL-L2325DW - is laser, fast, double-sided, does envelopes and labels.  I also have a Brother MFC-L2710DW that is also laser, fast, makes good copies and scans and, of course, sends and receives faxes.  Yes, I still have folks sending me faxes and I have had to fax documents to IRS agents while on the phone.  I believe it can also work through the computer but have not set that up.

[Lion EA]

My Brother is HL-L2370DW. I love all the same things about it as Margaret. The only downside is that the bypass door is too shallow to hold a page of labels securely enough to feed straight; but I can put a sheet of labels in the paper drawer for better results. The bypass is fine for feeding an envelope, though. Or, card stock.

[mcb39]

Personally, I will never consider an all in one; though my son has good luck with and likes his.  I prefer to use what I understand.  Old dog, you know!

[Margaret CPA in OH]

Marilyn, my all in one is my backup laser printer.  When my old fax went out (I just received a 30 page fax this morning from a less techy client), I decided to have the all in one with laser to use as my back up printer. I've had to use it just once but belt and suspenders....

[Lion EA]

My inkjet all-in-one (that's old and not printing right now) was for anything that wasn't a tax return: copies, quick scan to paper or .pdf to give to client, color printing, faxing a piece of paper when I didn't have it as .pdf, etc., and it talked back and forth with my computer. At the time I bought it (2nd printer I owned), I had a color laser printer (1st printer I bought decades ago). The color laser didn't die; a non-HP cyan toner exploded inside it. At that time, it was so old that I wasn't going to spend time trying to clean it or pay money to clean it, if it was even possible (it was a LOT of toner). By that time I also had a fast black-only printer for tax returns. Margaret makes me think that my next all-in-one should be a laser, so it truly will do everything but tax returns, but could be a backup for tax returns. Two printers are enough, if both of them are laser. Thank you, Margaret, for telling me about your backup laser printer!

[mcb39]

I just took a good look at my old Brother Intellifax, which is laser and can also be used as a copier as well as a backup phone.  I also noticed that the copier that we love is a Canon.  Just stuck in the mud on older version HP printers.  I just bought one at an estate sale for $40 which came with two brand new OEM X toner cartridges.  The printer itself looks as though it was never used. Just have not had time to wire it up to something and try it out.

[BTS]

Remember when HP LaserJet III was the best printer in the 90's ?  Plus you had to buy a Tax Font Cartridge.  Crazy expensive back then too.  About 3k for the printer and fonts.  Still have two of them.  Collecting dust in the basement !!!

[Abby Normal]

Might want to stock up on some printers now before the tariffs increase prices by 25-50%.

[mcb39]

16 hours ago, BTS said:

Remember when HP LaserJet III was the best printer in the 90's ?  Plus you had to buy a Tax Font Cartridge.  Crazy expensive back then too.  About 3k for the printer and fonts.  Still have two of them.  Collecting dust in the basement !!!

My first printer and computer in the 90s was also about 3K.   My printer was a Lexmark that we had to fool into thinking that it was a HP.  Could my IBM PS1 possibly have had 4G Ram?  I wish I had the money that I spent updating that first machine.

[Abby Normal]

I can't remember the brand of my first laser printer (Panasonic?) but it was around $700 and printed 4 pages per minute, but dot matrix printers were more like 4 minutes per page. I was still on DOS at that point so I liked that I could set the number of lines per page on the printer to 72, from the default of 60, since 72 lines was exactly 3 print screens at 24 lines per monitor, and it was nice to have long reports fit on fewer pages.

[BTS]

5 minutes ago, Abby Normal said:

I can't remember the brand of my first laser printer (Panasonic?) but it was around $700 and printed 4 pages per minute, but dot matrix printers were more like 4 minutes per page. I was still on DOS at that point so I liked that I could set the number of lines per page on the printer to 72, from the default of 60, since 72 lines was exactly 3 print screens at 24 lines per monitor, and it was nice to have long reports fit on fewer pages.

Dos !!!  I remember when Dosshell came out (before Windows).  Was so cool.  Instead of typing in the command line to do things, you could create menus to do them.  I think I still have all those MS Dos discs.  Im a pack rat with computers.  Still have old 286 systems with floppy drives.  And a couple Ditto Tape Backup units.  Feel sorry for my kids having to get rid of all my crap !!!

[Abby Normal]

44 minutes ago, BTS said:

Still have old 286 systems with floppy drives.  And a couple Ditto Tape Backup units.  Feel sorry for my kids having to get rid of all my crap !!!

Maybe they can find a computer museum that wants them... or just some nerds.

[Jim Oh Bkkr]

19 hours ago, Abby Normal said:

I can't remember the brand of my first laser printer

I can!  Epson Action Laser.  I STILL wish I had it.  Absolute workhorse.  Replaced the "fuser", (or whatever it was called), about 5 times, but probably printed 200K+ pages.

[mcb39]

19 hours ago, Abby Normal said:

Maybe they can find a computer museum that wants them... or just some nerds.

I still have my "DOS for Dummies" book and assorted other junk down in the basement.  

 

[Abby Normal]

I had a huge book with a disk called DOS Power Tools and I was DOS wiz. I hated having to start over with windows, and waited until Win95 to make the move.

[BTS]

21 hours ago, Abby Normal said:

Maybe they can find a computer museum that wants them... or just some nerds.

I actually sold an old Compaq portable pc to a museum in California about 10 years ago.  Was the size of a small suit case and weighed about 30lbs !!     Sold it and some old Voodoo Video Cards to them.  You know your old when your crap you bought new belongs in a museum !!