Looking for advice about printers...

I'm thinking of buying a new printer. My trusty old HP Laserjet 4+ died last summer - well, actually, something jammed, and I pulled the paper out and killed it. So I replaced it with a reconditioned Laserjet 4, which was even older, but cheap and serviceable.

Or maybe less than serviceable. I've had a lot of problems with it, and it really just isn't up to printing much. It can't handle my apazine, for example.

I don't like Inkjet printers. The ink gets used up almost immediately, or dries out, and costs a fortune. And they seem kind of... tinny. Lightweight.

lunacy_gal told me about her beautiful new Brother Printer that prints on both sides of the paper and is $99.99 at Best Buy. I don't know exactly what model she has but I'd guess it's the Brother Laser Printer HL-2270DW. It looks good to me. deakat recommends it, and says she's heard that people who have it really like it.

I browsed at Staples on my way home, and saw they are selling the HP Laserjet P1102W for only $79.99 till the end of the month. Great deal. It doesn't do anything my current printer doesn't do, except be wireless, which isn't a big consideration - though it might be handy. I don't have a lot of experience with wireless electronics. And the Brother is wireless too.

I asked my trusty computer guru Sheila from Computertamers and she said I should phone our mutual friend Bobbi at Integrated Lasers - from whom I bought the HP Laserjet 4 - and ask her advice. So I did. Bobbi said that the Brother, besides needing toner cartridges, needs a new drum from time to time, which makes it expensive. She suggested an HP model that prints double-sided and costs about $300. I told her to research it more completely and get back to me; my thought is basically that it would be nice, but I really don't have $300 to spend up front on a printer, and don't want to wait to save up for one. And I might have more faith if the printer I bought from her last year wasn't a bit of a dud.

I did some research: a Brother HL-2270DW cartridge prints about 1400 pages, and you're supposed to get a new drum every 12,000 pages or so. A toner cartridge costs about $55. A drum costs about $200. The HP toner cartridge costs about $95.00 and has about the same output. That doesn't look like all that much difference to me; at $40 less per cartridge, I could buy a drum every 5 cartridges for the same money. (You'd tell me if I messed up the arithmetic, right?)

So the Brother's looking good. I could buy it at Best Buy for $99.99, and they deliver, but I hear their servicing is poor. I could buy it at Staples for $119.99, and they have a decent 2-year warranty. I could buy it at Amazon for $105, and they deliver too.

So: do any of you have helpful advice? Which would you buy, and where? Is there a decent printer that I'm overlooking?

With thoughts of Nicholas and Kathi...

Fascinating video of the Grimsvotn volcano.

From the people who put butter on my bread...

I love the new website of Gay Lea Foods and their motto: The world is our community. Ontario is our home..

These are the people responsible for Stop toast brutality ads.

Nighty Night...

Besides being what I say to my budgies, Nighty-Night is the name of an album recorded by Neal Gaiman, Amanda Palmer, Ben Folds and Damian Kulash. They were supposed to do eight songs in 8 hours and so they called it 8in8 but it turned out to be six songs in twelve hours, and I'm sure it was hard work at that. Amanda Palmer talks about it on her blog. I imagine Gaiman talks about it on his, but I haven't gone to look yet. It's a creative commons project, which of course I heartily approve.

I love it. I have a my kind of people feeling about this, except that I'm not, like them, talented and successful. But that's beside the point.

Aah, punk cabaret, how I love it.

Thanks to random for bringing this to my attention: Nighty-Night.