Personally, I wouldn't accept an inkjet as a gift. You use them like
crazy, and you go through absurdly overpriced cartridges like crazy. You
*don't* use them like crazy, and those absurdly overpriced cartridges
clog, and you still go through them like crazy. And the pages come out
soggy, and are even more vulnerable to water damage than what I write
with my fountain pens. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing they're
good for is edible printing, and for what little of that I do (typically
one page every few months), it's far cheaper to email an image to the
local cake supply, and have them do it.
(The first rule of edible printing is you don't run anything but edible
ink in that printer. The second rule of edible printing is you *DO NOT*
run anything but edible ink in that printer. And you still don't talk
about Fight Club.)
I have had three monochrome laser printers (an HP 4ML, followed by an HP
2100M, which I then replaced with a rebuilt 2100M, which I still have.
And I've had two color laser printers, a Samsung CLP-315, bought new and
used until it wore out, followed by a rebuilt Samsung CLP-415, which I
still have.
And I have an ALPS MicroDry, that I bought used, after they'd been
discontinued.
Before the Samsungs, bought a Xerox color laser. It went back to Staples
the day after it arrived: It was a lot bulkier in real life than it was
in the pictures, it made the devil's own noise when it was running, and
it claimed to be a PostScript machine, but curled up its toes and said
"helllpppp meeeeeee" if I actually fed it a PostScript data stream.
That's not to say that the Samsungs will do anything if fed PostScript,
but at least they were relatively inexpensive, as well as being almost
as compact and quiet as my 2100M.
What I've seen of HP lasers more recent than the 2000-series has not
impressed me. That's a major reason why I went with a rebuilt 2100M,
instead of something more recent. That and the fact that being able to
accept and RIP a PostScript data stream, fed through a Centronics port,
is a non-negotiable requirement for me: it's either that, or I have to
dump the data stream to a file, distill it into a PDF, and print that.
--
James H. H. Lampert
Professional Dilettante
