Laser printer suggestions for a small business?

14 comments

1. I suggest staying with inkjet if you plan to print colour images or graphics and want the option to print little signs or handouts for your school that look decent. With that said, stay away from cheap printers that use the small overpriced ink cartridges as that’s where the printer companies make all their money. We bought this one for our small office 2 years ago and it’s been great and does scanning and can fax as well and print on A4 and A3 size paper. The biggest plus is that large bottles of ink are roughly 20x cheaper and 10x more ink then cartridges. We print quite a bit daily and the ink lasts for weeks if not months. With that said if you’re only printing black and white and don’t need the extra quality a cheap laser printer is probably the way to go.

   Here’s what we have:

   [https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B08BL92W8B](https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B08BL92W8B)

   but there are smaller cheaper versions aswell if you don’t need A3 and all the extra features.

   [https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B09JNK9ZR9](https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B09JNK9ZR9)

   [https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0B5Q4WBD4](https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0B5Q4WBD4)

2. I know you wanted suggestions other than Brother, but I am very satisfied with my wireless B&W Brother laser printer. I can get recycled toner cartridges online for about 2000 yen. Very reliable and cheap.

3. [Canon LBP6040](https://kakaku.com/item/K0000654524/) has been working for me for years now, and is on its 10th or so toner change, but its just a basic black and white laser printer with your usual usb/network connectivity.

   edit: ask for laser printer recomendations , get downvoted for recommending a cheap and reliable laser printer. okay.

4. Brother Laser are really the best option all around. Inkjet always ends up being expensive once you start replacing ink all the time, and a lot of the big brands outside of Brother are just terrible with refills, 3rd-party ink/toner, etc…

5. Is a lease off the table? I have no idea how much they cost, but the last Eikaiwa I worked at years ago had a lease on a decent sized copier.

6. We’ve had Brother laser printers for almost 20 years they seem to rarely fail, not cost much to operate and be universally loved no matter the country at this point.

   We have a Brother color laser now – HL-L3230CDW – BTW the cost per print on the Brothers is extremely great. Color for the stuff you would use in a school is also great on these printers, just as good as an inkjet. (Now photos are another story …)

   It was like 20,000 yen.

   We also have a enormous A2 sized inkjet that my wife uses to print out work preprint stuff, I swear it costs like 500 yen for each print out. It’s an Epson SC-PX1VL and is like 150,000 yen.

7. If you need colour as well, an inkjet that uses bottles to refill might be a good option. The cartridge types are fine for low volume, but can get pricey quick when printing a lot.

   For Epson these are called “Ecotank” and Canon calls them “Gigatank” for example.

8. >The Brother brand seems super popular on Reddit and I can see that they at least have a website in Japan …

   It’s a Japanese company.

9. > The Brother brand seems super popular on Reddit and I can see that they at least have a website in Japan

   Brother doesn’t just “have a website in Japan”, they’re a Japanese company that was founded in Nagoya around 100 years ago.

   For B&W volume printing you absolutely want to get a laser printer. How much printing you will be doing plays a large part in determining which printer you should get. Not so much because the printing engine won’t handle the volume of a small eikaiwa but because the (slightly) more expensive models will have cheaper toner. If you’re printing a few dozen pages per month it will not matter but if you are printing 100s or 1000s of pages per month, it will.

   You may also want to consider buying a US model on Amazon.com and having them ship it to Japan. The printer and toner will be cheaper, even considering the shipping costs. I did this when I needed high volume printing in the past as we went through a lot of toner. I was living in Kansai at the time and had 60Hz power, I’m not sure if I could do the same thing in Kanto with 50Hz power.

   If you want really high quality (photo-realistic levels) of color printing then getting a separate ink jet is likely the best option. If you don’t need photo-realistic printing then a color laser will probably be a better option. If you don’t expect to print color all that often then a color laser is for sure the better choice, ink is a pain in the butt.

   I don’t have a huge amount of experience with Brother ink jets but as far as lasers go, I wouldn’t buy anything besides Brother for home or small business.

   Oh, and stay FAR away from 3rd party toner. Many people will claim otherwise but there is no faster way to screw up your printer than 3rd party toner. It’s a business expense, get the proper toner and don’t screw up your printer.

10. My Brother MFC-L3770CDW and MFC-L8610CDW have both been really great for years – the same models are still sold today. The former is a bit smaller and a little more expensive to run but has a feed scanner that works for double-sided documents. There’s also a third – bigger, higher end – that does everything, but we have no experience with it.

    As you may know, though, inkjets are often better for color images.

11. Give your local ricoh dealer a call and see about renting an MFC. They’re not as expensive as you think, and ink is included in the rental fees so you’re not worrying about finding it when you’re running out. The other benefit is should your printer shit out, you call them up and they either repair or replace the unit with a day or two. I’ve had them come same day.

12. I would look on Yahoo! Auctions for a used full sized office printer. If you’re doing marketing materials plus making copies for students and other materials, you really want something that can handle volume. I just did a search for Sharp printers (that’s what I use) and there are many good ones in your price range.

13. Brother. I got the color 3230CDW. Its great and has continued to print effortlessly. There is a black and white version which is really cheap too.

    Toner isn’t cheap but last forever.

14. No matter how you do, color printing costs a lot.
    Laser printers are good for black and white printing.