[plug] Printer advice

[Craig Ringer]

Cameron Patrick wrote:

>I'd look for something with built-in ethernet that speaks Postscript
>to ease the pain of finding decent drivers for it (on any platform!).
>  
>
I'm increasingly inclined to argue that "speaks PCL" is just fine too, 
unless you're doing really high end work (think desktop publishing / 
page layout). If nothing else, PCL helps avoid the trap of poor quality 
low end PostScript implementations ("PostScript Emulation" as Adobe 
insists it be called) that can be buggy and frustrating. PCL is also 
much faster on cheap printers with hardly any RAM and a pathetic 
internal CPU for rasterisation.

The downside is the need for a CUPS-specific PPD for that printer to 
tell CUPS what PCL variant to produce and what the options are; you 
can't just use the manufacturer's PPD.

I know I've ranted about the need for PostScript support in the past, 
and I stand by that ... for higher end printing work, and only when you 
can get a _proper_ PostScript RIP that says "Adobe" (or "Artifex" - 
recent `gs' versions are _really_ impressive) on it. I've just seen too 
many problems with cheap PostScript interpreters, especially ones that 
claim to support PS3 but would be lucky to pass a test suite for PS1.

GhostScript can generate good PCL, and CUPS will happily use it to 
convert a job before lobbing it off to your printer, so for most users 
it won't even matter.

>>I've heard that HP always have good drivers available for them, but
>>the printers seem to cost more and the specs seem to be a little
>>depleated.
>>    
>>
>
>They're improving on that score.  We looked at a low-end HP which
>was similarly priced and features to the Brother but ended up avoiding
>it because they used "chipped" toner cartridges which count the number
>of pages they've been used for and refuse to print more than X number
>of pages, no matter how much toner is actually left in them - the kind
>of disgusting practices I thought we'd left behind when moving from an
>inkjet to a laser printer :-(
>  
>
They're doing that even with quite high end laser printers now. I know 
at least HP and Xerox do it, probably more by now. @!#$@#$@#W!%. The 
Xerox at work sometimes gets confused and rejects a cartridge within a 
week or two of its installation, either claiming it's empty or reporting 
an "OEM Cartridge Error" (which the manual translates as "naughty boy, 
you tried to buy cartridges from someone other than us"). I have to 
return these cartridges for warranty replacement. It's insane.

When work had to replace the second laser printer, we ended up doing so 
by getting a large integrated Canon photocoper / network printer and 
doing away with the old copier too. Toner handling on that unit is 
impressive; the toner "cartridges" are cannisters you empty into the 
printer's internal toner hopper. It costs less than 1/2 as much to run 
as the Xerox N4025, including maintainance and paper, and produces 
better results too. Too bad about the buggy PostScript interpreter that 
forces the use of PCL or the Canon-supplied PostScript drivers (for 
Windows only).

Avoid chipped toner cartridge-based printers like the plague. They're 
more expensive to run, less reliable, and downright offensive to boot.

--
Craig Ringer