[mydogmuppet]

I recently looked at upgrading my two laser printers to models that were ethernet and wifi. I got burned so badly by Epson and Inkjet I'll never look at that technology again.

Got the shock of my life at wifi printer hardware prices. Expensive.

I've an ancient, tank like, Dell 5120cn that I bought new from Noahs Ark or was it eBay in 2005ish? Its lifetime page count has only just exceeded its monthly duty cycle. It will not die. A set of mfg. CMYB toners costs under $100 if purchased carefully. That's once every 3 years or so.

The back up laser is a donkey slow but reliable HP laser jet 2605dn. Solid, dependable. It was donated to me, free with a 1200 page count. The mfg. toner prices are still steep, so I avoid, and go for 3rd party cartridges. A set of CMYB is $60. I've only just put one set in since 2010.

I'll use these lasers till they or I die. Or I forget their lan IP address. Wifi connectivity is for the very rich.

I'm of the opinion that if printer manufacturers in the EU try pulling any 'use only my ink or toner' stunts they'll be facing a very very expensive showdown with Brussels or Strasbourg.

[hedora]

The top Amazon laser printers are monochrome Brother models. You can have wifi or duplex for $120. Both together costs $150. If you want color, duplex and wireless, it is $280. (Though I wonder if these have chipped toner or not.)

It was similar 10 years ago when we bought our Samsung laser. These prices seem very reasonable, especially if you subtract out the cost of included drums and toner. Am I missing something?

[fy20]

My parents have a Dell color laser print from ~10 years ago and it's amazing. It has ethernet and can scan-to-email with an auto document feeder. A full set of toners on Amazon was under $50 last time I bought some (they don't go through it much). I actually wanted to buy a new one for myself, but Dell are long out of the laser market and it doesn't seem like there is anything equivalent.

[Nextgrid]

Wi-Fi connectivity can be trivially addressed in multiple ways:

* Linux computer (Raspberry Pi, router, etc) talking to the printer via USB and sharing it * Linux computer with wireless & Ethernet acting as a network bridge, bridging the Ethernet to the wireless network * Powerline/MoCa/etc adapter - it will be fine as printers don't need a lot of bandwidth