I got absurdly lucky in late 2013 and bought a Brother MFC-9325CW, manufacturer refurb, for something like $70CAD. That's turned out to be quite a good printer for retro explorations - it supports as far back as XP on the Windows side and modern systems, and on the Mac side it will go all the way back to Tiger (10.4) on PPC. And it has Brother's variant of PostScript so I suspect you could go further back with a generic PostScript driver...

(I've used it so little that I have yet to replace any toner cartridge...)

The LaserJet 1320tn keeps plugging along here, but it's about a 15" cube so a bit of a beast.

Got an old HP Laserjet Pro P1102 that has worked perfectly for ~10 years by now. There are drivers for everything between WinXP and Win11. There are also both proprietary and open source drivers for Linux.

It's probably not that cheap to run if you buy toner cartridges (P/N CE285A) though, but refilling them yourself is easy. A bottle of refill toner costs a few bucks off Ebay, Aliexpress, etc.

The only drawback in my opinion is that it's a little bit slow, but that might not be a problem unless you're planning to print in larger volumes.

Probably an unpopular opinion: one that you can buy good quality refilled/refurbished toners that the printer doesn't complain about. I print on an average hp laserjet, but a small store in my neighborhood sells such toners that last for about 1500 pages for 7 euros. I've used around 10 of those and I wouldn't complain if the printer just stopped working tomorrow.

Yeah prob go the refill cart route. Had good luck and bad luck. Depends on printer IMHO.

Anyone have the Laserjet CP1515N or CP1525N? They seem to go cheap and have cheap remarket toners. But are these ewaste tier stuff? Bought a Samsung CLP-500 once and that was a real cheap built thing.

Back about 2016 wanted a small color laser printer to replace the old Minolta and Amazon had new Samsung SL-C410W for $99 including shipping, was impressed with it so kept an eye out for another for CHEAP and in 2018 Amazon had the SL-C430W for $115 including shipping. They both still work great and have 10/100, USB and WiFi. Drivers support XP thru Windows 11. Only the black cart has had to be replaced (do not print much color). Funny thing in between, Samsung sold their printer business to HP for 1billion in 2017....HP has good support for them still. Cheap lasers can be hard to find Ethernet+USB+Wifi combo's with XP support.....
added I still have a huge antique Lexmark commercial printer (a 2' cube of 60lbs) but rarely use it any more....

I have a Brother. The aftermarket toner is super cheap and it has no problem using it.

I used to be an Oki/Okidata printer repair guy back in the day. If you can find an Oki laser printer those things are tanks and you can replace the toner without replacing the drum, so toner is super cheap.

Anything but HP.

Brother and Epson is excellent as well.

Cheers,

I used a Laserjet 5 for several years. I can't recommend it anymore, but it's a fantastic printer. The only problem is availability of *good* toner cartridges.
It had great print quality, the toner lasted a very long time and original unused cartridges were easy to find cheap on eBay. HP changed their packaging over the years so it was easy to recognize the newer boxes, but eventually HP stopped making them altogether.
The LJ4 and LJ5 are essentially the same printer, based on a Canon mechanical platform which is built for multi-user workloads. The service schedule recommended an overhaul at 100K pages - the printers often logged a few 100K pages in offices.
They can use parallel, serial, and an "EtherJet" network card. I used the Ethernet card, but I also noticed a bug with it. If I sent multiple print jobs in quick succession, some of them would be missed. That only happened when using the Etherjet.
They have a VFD display which can be programmed to say random things through software. I remember reading a thread somewhere where somebody got fired because he thought it was funny to send weird messages to an LJ5 in an office, causing a day-long phony panic with IT.
They had a good driver for Windows 2000, but with XP I could only use a driver that was provided with the OS. It was missing a scaling option that the Win2k driver had. Fortunately the software I was printing from could work around that. Later I switched to linux, don't remember if it had a scaling option or not.
The LJ5 was a totally reliable workhorse for me - I used it daily when I had no time or patience to spare for printing problems. It was a complete cure from the aggravation of inkjets.

Unfortunately, replacement cartridges started to be increasingly prone to vertical banding. I started having to toss out cartridges from banding, and not because they were empty. Some were banding right out of the box. It got so chronic that I started to think my printer could be a factor. I thought about doing an overhaul of it, but I fear the population of toner cartridges has just gotten too old. HP stopped making them many years ago now.
So because of that single issue, I can't really recommend that printer anymore. I loved it but I'm afraid the supply of toner cartridges has become such a major problem that I'm now doubtful I'll ever get it running again.

I now use a Brother DCP-7020. No particular reason - it was at Goodwill so I bought it.
It has drivers for every OS that I've ever thought about running, but I'm not sure about Win10 or 11. I have used it on WinXP, Win7, and linux.
It seems prone to random black splotches, especially after I add paper or mess with/replace a toner cartridge. It gradually clears up. Not a problem for my usage but if print quality is critical it would be an issue. That's probably an issue with my individual printer, not the model in general.
It has some sensor that's supposed to detect when the toner cartridge is empty. Of course it says it's empty way, way early. You can easily get double the toner life by defeating that sensor, especially if you don't need great print quality. All you have to do is tape over a window on the drum assembly (which holds the toner cartridge).
Thus far the replacement cartridges have been in ample supply on eBay, I think usually about $30 for genuine Brother, never tried a knockoff.
It uses USB and parallel, no network.
The display is faded and hard to read - it hasn't held up like the VFD display on the HP Laserjet5, but the HP was a more expensive class of printer originally.
I think it's a little more prone to faux-paper-jams than the HP was, but not enough to be a big problem.

shamino wrote on 2023-10-23, 22:56:

I used a Laserjet 5 for several years... it's a fantastic printer. The only problem is availability of *good* toner cartridges.

same here, I got HP LaserJet 5MP in 2007, but back then found original HP New-Old-Stock toner cartridge. it is still working excellent, but i don't print that much. I guess when that toner cartridge is over - that's it, unless I cannot find another NOS cartridge - they are packed in vacuum and so they can be stored for decades.

For the LaserJet 1320tn I have bought two packs of reman/cheapie 10,000 page cartridges off Amazon for about $30 and have not had a problem with those. I have an old Laserjet III in storage and two sealed HP cartridges for it, so I guess if older type toner is hard to come by, those will be the end of it.

I gotta dig out those stray random carts I had somewhere and post them in the freebie thread though in case any of you guys can use them.

The problem with aftermarket toner is when the printer uses a toner cartridge that includes the drum. Cheap toner companies put used drums in their cartridges so you get banding. I prefer printers that have the drum separate. You then replace the drum after a certain page count.

kingcake wrote on 2023-10-24, 02:02:

The problem with aftermarket toner is when the printer uses a toner cartridge that includes the drum. Cheap toner companies put used drums in their cartridges so you get banding. I prefer printers that have the drum separate. You then replace the drum after a certain page count.

+1 Me too and yes 😀

kingcake wrote on 2023-10-24, 02:02:

The problem with aftermarket toner is when the printer uses a toner cartridge that includes the drum. Cheap toner companies put used drums in their cartridges so you get banding. I prefer printers that have the drum separate. You then replace the drum after a certain page count.

All the cartridges I've used were HP.
Makes me wonder if HP was reusing drums themselves towards the end, before they discontinued production entirely.
My earlier cartridges ran until the toner ran out, but the last few didn't make it that far, they started banding instead.

shamino wrote on 2023-10-24, 04:40:

All the cartridges I've used were HP. Makes me wonder if HP was reusing drums themselves towards the end, before they discontinu […]
Show full quote

kingcake wrote on 2023-10-24, 02:02:

The problem with aftermarket toner is when the printer uses a toner cartridge that includes the drum. Cheap toner companies put used drums in their cartridges so you get banding. I prefer printers that have the drum separate. You then replace the drum after a certain page count.

All the cartridges I've used were HP.
Makes me wonder if HP was reusing drums themselves towards the end, before they discontinued production entirely.
My earlier cartridges ran until the toner ran out, but the last few didn't make it that far, they started banding instead.

Doesn't sound like a very HP thing to do. But then again HP wasn't itself anymore.

I guess that any laser printer would be fine (if you don't make many printings) but I really wonder why do you love Brother printers. I have to do maintenance/repairs to many printers and:
- Brother printers are not that good. They're cheap, and they're fine for home users, but they won't age well. I've got many printers that killed their fusers before 50000 printings, and using (cheap) recycled toner would lower that mark.
- HP cheat printers... are cheap. Medium sized ones are indestructible; but cheap ones are not built up to the same level of quality. Worst offender: HP Color Laser 150nw (a Samsung design), because their cartridges are way too small (700/1000 printing per cartridge) and fuser only lasts about 5000/6000 printings. I guess that M203 cartridges are very small, too.
- Beware of "e" HP printers: they need to verify from time to time that their cartridges are original. If they're not, or the printer (not the computer!) can not get to HP servers, they won't print.
- Also, HP is being very seriously about those non-original cartridges. Some printers rejects any non-original or refilled cartridge from the beginning; other starts to do so after firmwares updates.
- OTOH, Lexmark medium-sized printers are indestructible. I've retired a Lexmark E460dn with half a million printings, and they usually runs happily with non-original cartridges (but those cartridges tends to have leaks and you'll have to clean your printer from time to time).
- Most HP printers are PCL, most Lexmarks are PCL and PS. Knowing that, you can make them print with generic drivers... so you could even make Windows 3.x and some DOS applications print on them (but I'd use a network printer for that).
- About refilling toner... please remember about waste toner containers. All laser printers have some waste container (in most small printers, it is placed on the drum or the toner cartridge if it has no separate drum); if it fills, it will probably leak some waste on your printer and damage the drum. So, if you need to get the most of your cartridges, empty the waste toner container before refilling your cartridges.

Zup wrote on 2023-10-24, 05:04:

I guess that any laser printer would be fine (if you don't make many printings) but I really wonder why do you love Brother printers. I have to do maintenance/repairs to many printers and:
- Brother printers are not that good. They're cheap, and they're fine for home users, but they won't age well. I've got many printers that killed their fusers before 50000 printings, and using (cheap) recycled toner would lower that mark.

50,000 pages is a lot of pages for home use, especially if you don't have kids (and even if you do... to be honest, I have no idea how print-heavy kid stuff these days is. Probably less than 20+ years ago.). The total page counter on my Brother (described earlier in this thread) is at 854 right now, and I've had that printer for a decade. So... even if it falls apart at 15,000 pages, at that rate, it'll outlive me.