Sunday, April 23, 2006
No - not THAT kind of hardware. The computer kind!
Today I was bemoaning the fact that the pages I was printing for my critique group meeting were taking forever. Now, I have a very nice little Deskjet 880C printer that can do glorious color printing and even photo quality. But it's definitely set up for that and NOT speedy black & white printing.
We won't go into the fact that, had I actually thought about it, I could have started to print said pages last night instead of this morning. Sigh....
But the lovely C and I were talking and he was having to endure my bitching so he suggested we look into what a small laserjet printer would cost. Since he was going to Costco with Morganator while I was at the critique group AND he's the resident hardware guru, I asked him to look into it.
And off I merrily went to the meeting.
When I get home, I tell him how things went and ask him how Morganator did. All was well. Then I ask if he looked at the printers at Costco and found anything suitable and how much....
He says "Did you look on the stairs?"
I was boggled. Usually it takes C a while to determine what hardware is the best deal/best option. But the man did deal with a LOT of printers and printer companies for a while....
On the stairs was the lovely box for a brand spanking new HP LaserJet 1160Le. Up to 20 ppm and a decent paper tray capacity!
I just got it all set up and drivers installed, I'll have to make another trip to fetch its paper so I've not printed anything yet.
But what a loving hubby!
Today I was bemoaning the fact that the pages I was printing for my critique group meeting were taking forever. Now, I have a very nice little Deskjet 880C printer that can do glorious color printing and even photo quality. But it's definitely set up for that and NOT speedy black & white printing.
We won't go into the fact that, had I actually thought about it, I could have started to print said pages last night instead of this morning. Sigh....
But the lovely C and I were talking and he was having to endure my bitching so he suggested we look into what a small laserjet printer would cost. Since he was going to Costco with Morganator while I was at the critique group AND he's the resident hardware guru, I asked him to look into it.
And off I merrily went to the meeting.
When I get home, I tell him how things went and ask him how Morganator did. All was well. Then I ask if he looked at the printers at Costco and found anything suitable and how much....
He says "Did you look on the stairs?"
I was boggled. Usually it takes C a while to determine what hardware is the best deal/best option. But the man did deal with a LOT of printers and printer companies for a while....
On the stairs was the lovely box for a brand spanking new HP LaserJet 1160Le. Up to 20 ppm and a decent paper tray capacity!
I just got it all set up and drivers installed, I'll have to make another trip to fetch its paper so I've not printed anything yet.
But what a loving hubby!
posted by Maura Anderson at 12:12 AM
Yeah I've dealt with a lot of printers and printer companies over the years.. Including writing priter drivers for a CAD (Computer Aided Design) product in the pre-windows days (when you had to do all your own drivers for everything..)
byBottom line is that I've NEVER been unhappy with an HP printer.. and with the prices these days being what they are, my big choice was between a $150 model with smaller paper holding tray, and slower output, or the $250 model that had 66% larger paper try capacity, and 33% faster printing.. Since the complaint was print speed.. and having to constantly refill a paper-try is a huge hassle, I figured the extra $100 was worth it. Didn't hurt that the budget model was 'blah-beige' color, and the upgrade got me a sexy black one that better matches the monitors, keyboards, computers, etc..
Now if we were talking about more coin, this probably would have been a longer more drawn out process to be sure I was getting the best value.. but HP brand, 20 Pages per minute, and $250 price? even if it wasn't the absolute best deal, and best printer for the bucks.. how wrong could I go?
You gotta love technology prices.. Laserjets where $3000 when they first came out (probably $6000 in today's money).. and 6 pages a minute if you were lucky..
Now they take up half the desk space, weigh 1/4 as much, are 3x faster, 4x the resolution, and 1/12th the price. WOOT!