[kbmn]

Personal recommendation:

A while ago I bought a bw laser printer from a brand I've never heard of: "Pantum". Specifically the Pantum P2500W, for 49,95€ (~ 53$). I have never seen them in a store in (western/central) Europe either.

It does not have a display, in general it's the simplest, minimalist printer I've ever owned I'd argue.

CUPS configuration exist in the Arch AUR (for usage with USB), and driverless printing with AirPrint (which also works with CUPS) is supported. This new driverless stuff works really nice in general, glad to use this instead of unreliable driver printers (which sometimes are not even available in low quality for Linux).

It does not require an internet connection and appears to not have any DRM on the cartridges: I use a 20€ (~ 21$) no-name toner cartridge from Amazon, and it works perfectly fine. In fact it doesn't have a display to complain about this (like my 10+ year old HP, which even back then showed me ads for their own cartridges, and HP paper).

[heffer]

Pantum is a brand of Ninestar, a group of companies that pretty much make every major component across the entire value chain of laser printers.

They bought Lexmark in 2016 (which is why some Pantum printers look like Lexmark printers).

The company has origins in manufacturing third-party replacement ICs for building compatible consumables and as such has extensive experience reverse engineering many printer designs. Many compatible printing consumables outlets carry Pantum brand printers, as they are essentially buying them through the same channels they buy their compatible consumables.

Pantum has a program for identifying genuine Pantum consumables as well, as any respectable printer manufacturer would ;-) It's a fun little sticker with some tricks up its sleeve: https://global.pantum.com/support/identification/

[mamonoleechi]

Thanks to share! any estimate on how many regular text page can you print with your 20€ cartridge?

I have some questions: - what model did you buy for 50€ ? was it second hand? (i only see 150+€ pantum laser printers) - any links to buy the printer/cartridge ; i'm super interested!

[kbmn]

  > - what model did you buy for 50€ ? was it second hand?

No, it was new. A "Pantum P2500W". However, it's from a retailer (iBOOD) known for buying surplus/overstock/special-purchase items from the US and UK market (at reduced prices), and reselling it in the EU. I would imagine the prices to be slightly lower there than in typical big-box stores, but I have simply never seen the brand in any physical store, so can't really compare it obviously.

  > any estimate on how many regular text page can you print with your 20€ cartridge?

According to the toner manufacturer, it's 1600 pages. And generally, all toner cartridges that come up when entering "P2500W" into Amazon suggest 1600 pages. I don't print that much that I can verify it; with just the occasional shipping label every couple weeks I would last quite a number of years if that was correct.

  > any links to buy the printer/cartridge

For the cartridges, I see a plethora of options when entering "P2500W" into Amazon.de, the majority of which are between 19€ - 23€, 4.5 to 5 stars, all of them mention 1600 pages.

Regarding the printer itself, I don't have a good recommendation. iBOOD (where I bought it) does not sell it anymore (iBOOD mostly sells a quantity-limited amount of surplus/overstock/special-purchase items, and it was in September 2023, so there for sure is no stock anymore). When looking at the price graph of a popular price aggregation site (https://geizhals.eu/pantum-p2500w-a1474488.html), I can see that the price started out at 55€ in July 2016, the lowest price a store was selling it for was 35€ in 2017 for a month. Then it was available for 50€ a couple of times for a few weeks - months per year, and otherwise out of stock; until it seems to now be sold at Amazon.de by a third-party seller from China (without going out of stock constantly) for reliable 90€-110€ (this very second for 109,90€).

[yborg]

Doesn't seem to be available in US right now; apparently Micro Center used to carry them, they're still listed, but out of stock. Pity, looks like a perfect basic bitch monochrome printer.