Recommended printers for use in SHASS Sections
For the administrative office environments
Xerox Phaser 4600DN (~$1010-$1050) High volume, solid workhorse, doubled-sided, letter-size, black and white printer
NOTE: Please be aware that there may be newer models available.
NOTE: Enshittification is the word of the year in 2024. According to Gizmodo.
https://gizmodo.com/enshittification-is-officially-the-biggest-word-of-the-year-2000530173
Enshittification- “the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.”
We have witnessed this word in action as we talk about printer technology and quality. Printer quality is something that has been sliding in the past decade as companies try to cut costs by using cheaper and cheaper components. For many printer brands this has caused a significant dip in quality. Printers from HP and Xerox that used to be solid 10. 20, and 30 years ago have been caught replacing metal parts with plastic ones resulting in new failure modes especially in things like gears that may be used in the paper feed mechanism. We have had quite a few Xerox printers fail in rooms where the ambient temperature of the room was 80-90 degree F since someone decided the AC didn't need to be on since there was no one in the room most of the time. The high warm temperatures. The plastic gears soften and cause the teeth to be stripped during use. Once the gears are stripped the printers no longer function properly since they can no longer advance the paper through the system. We have also had HP printers fail with bad control or networking boards causing the printers to be unusable.
The only desktop printer brand that we have had pretty good consistent multi-year success and reliability with is Brother. Having said this, users are free to choose any brand they are comfortable with. No one is required to use or feel they have to use any brand or model we recommend. We absolutely DO recommend buyers ALWAYS check the user reviews on Amazon to make sure the printer meets their needs and make note of any unusual reported failure modes and to make sure those failure conditions are not or cannot be reproduced in the local computing environment.
For the administrative office environments with high volume printing
Brother HL-L8260CDW Business Color Laser Printer, Duplex Printing
httpsLast checked on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/sdp/B06XDS1XW7?ref=nb_sb_noss/190-4469090-1987617?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=xerox%20phaser%204600%20dn
Xerox Phaser 6500DN ($350-$400) Color double-sided letter-size laser printer. Not as heavy duty as the Phaser 4600 for high volume printing so don't use this printer for high volume.
Brother HLL8360CDWT multi-tray Business Color Laser Printer with Duplex Printing:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XDM9FG3?ref=emc_p_m_5_i_atc&th=1
Toshiba e-Studio 3555c Multi Function Printer (~$6000-$20,000 depending on installed options) This copier, printer, scanner, business grade multi function printer does it all. It prints legal, letter, tabloid, double sided, from a usb drive, it does color, it does black and white, it scans to email. There are additions for stapling and collating. However, the breadth of this functionality comes at a hefty price.
Xerox Workcentre 7845 Multi Function Printer (~$8000-$21000 depending on installed options) Very similar to the Toshiba but the admin panel and web access admin software has a lot more options including firewall and file encryption.
COPYTECH: For areas looking to rent or own high performance standing multifunction printers, we would recommend contacting MIT CopyTech to get the best information and offers available.
https://mv-ezproxy-com.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/distributed-printer-programs
For individual users or small offices with low printing volume
Brother HL-L3270CDW Compact Wireless Digital Color Printer with NFC, Mobile Device and Duplex Printer (~$350) micro or small office, or a workgroup duplex printer.
Purchasing link: httpsLast checked on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/6500DNBrother-HLL3270CDW-Color-LaserWireless-Printer-Ethernet/dp/B004MSN4A4B07KGVTMHJ/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF84?dchild=1&keywords=brother+home+laser+printer&qid=13844417371612190402&sr=8-1&keywords=xerox+phaser+6500+dn
Xerox Phaser 7400 (out of production) Solid color tabloid-size (11X17) printer. Great for high volume print environments and printing. Be careful not to put transparencies in this printer.
Xerox Phaser 7500DN This color tabloid-size (11X17) printer replaced the Phaser 7400. The more affordable of the reliable tabloid printer options.
Last checked from Xerox:
http://www.office.xerox.com/printers/color-printers/phaser-7500/enus.html
Xerox Phaser 7760 (out of production) This color tabloid-size (11X17) printer was one of the best large format printers ever made. Great for high volume print environments and printing.
For individual users
Brother HL-L8360CDW Wireless Color Laser Printer (~$350) micro or small office, or a workgroup duplex printer. This is an older model and may be harder to find.
Review: http://www.pcmag.com/review/354052/brother-hl-l8360cdw
Purchasing link: https://www.amazon.com/Brother-HLL8360CDW-Business-Printing-Networking/dp/B06XDSMKLT?psc=1&SubscriptionId=AKIAICE7LOAJMK3SSLPA&tag=pcm_rounduptable-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B06XDSMKLT&ascsubtag=d9c1341c-eec7-4546-9821-1cf6713a02e9
Brother HL-L6200DW Wireless Monochrome Laser Printer with Duplex Printing (~$180-$220) micro or small office, or a workgroup duplex printer. This is an old model that might still be available.
Brother HL-L6210DW Business Monochrome Laser Printer with Large Paper Capacity (~$300) newer model.
Purchasing link: https://www.amazon.com/Brother-HL-L6210DW-Business-Monochrome-Networking/dp/B0CGC9HPNH/?th=1
Brother HL-L2300D Monochrome Laser Printer with Duplex Printing (~$100) Small footprint personal black and white double-sided laser printer. This small laser printer is for low print volume, single user environments only. It sacrifices performance for its small size. Price per page is significantly more per page but if the user doesn't really print that often, this is the ideal printer. For individual users, the decrease in performance compared to larger capacity laser printers is not noticeable if they are replacing any ink jet printer. No WiFi.
This printer replaces the Brother HL-2240DXerox Phaser 3600DN ($450-$500) Black and white double-sided printer. This printer is ok for a small office, but really recommended for a single user environment.
Last checked on Amazon:
httphttps://www.amazon.com/XeroxBrother-PhaserHL-3600L2300D-DNMonochrome-Printer-Printing/dp/B0019AU2KSB00NQ1CLTI/ref=srpsdc_sp-atf172648_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384441693&sr=8-1&keywords=xerox+phaser+3600+dn
Xerox Phaser 6500DN ($350-$400) Color double-sided laser printer. (Standard US Letter 8.5X11)t3_B004A16L2Q
Brother HL-2240D (~$200) Small footprint personal black and white double-sided laser printer. USB ONLY.
This small laser printer is for low print volume, single user environments only. It sacrifices performance for its small size. Price per page is significantly more per page but if the user doesn't really print that often, this is the ideal printer. For individual users, the decrease in performance compared to larger capacity laser printers is not noticeable if they are replacing any ink jet printer. This model is not readily available anymore and has been replaced by the Brother HL-L2300D.
Experience notes: These small printers are rock solid. One of our sections bought 30 of them and for the first 3 years ago not one of them has failed. 2 failures after 5 years. 11 years after introduction this basic laser printer is still in production.
Last checked on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/6500DNBrother-ColorHL2240D-LaserMonochrome-Printer-Ethernet/dp/B004MSN4A4B004A16L2Q/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=13844417371413392871&sr=8-1&keywords=xeroxbrother+phaserhl+6500+dn
Questionable brands
Important Caveats
- Across the board all new printers use more plastic and less metal parts. This has resulted in poorer component reliability OVERALL. We have seen plastic gear, capstan, and feeder tray failures on printers that are subjected to a lot of printing. The failure rates increase when the printers are subject to high temperature environments (>80F) without adequate air conditioning or external cooling. To appropriately manage expectations, do not expect these printers to last more than 3-4 years under a steady load in a heavy printing environment without adequate AC cooling.
- DELL- Based on our past experience, we recommend users avoid Dell re-branded printers for the time beingDELL- Users should avoid Dell printers. Non-working and poor driver support for both Mac and Windows, non-user serviceable parts, and poor under-performing overall printer reliability have lead us to advise all users to steer clear of Dell branded printers.
- LEXMARK- Lexmark has been another brand that has produced products with driver and hardware reliability issues. We recommend staying away from Lexmark branded printers for the time being.
- HP- HP used to be from the 80s-early 2000s, HP was the standard by which all other printers were compared against. Unfortunately printers produced by HP in the late 2000s and early 2010s were manufactured with an excessive quantity of plastic parts that may have contributed to poorer overall hardware reliability. If you consider an a new post 2013 HP product, be sure you read the reviews carefully to confirm for yourself that the model you're purchasing is a departure from the recent trends of cheaper and less reliable productswill fit with your reliability expectations.
- Inkjet printers- We do not recommend the use of inkjet technology printers for the reason that print quality tends to be sub-standard, the ink cartridges are overly expensive , and the ink cartridges themselves go bad dry up if the printer is not used for a while. Shelf life is typically better with laser printers
- NONE of the WiFi capabilities listed on any commercial printer sold today will work in MIT’s Enterprise WiFi environment. The WiFi many of these printers have is built only for home WiFi environments, not Enterprise. This means that work printers at MIT rely on Ethernet networking or USB printing for direct computer to printer printing.
- Desktop multifunction/all-in-one printers (different from the large very expensive free-standing multifunction printers) are generally not recommended because they do not do any one thing well and because of a historically high failure rate. The function that typically fails first in these desktop models (HP or Xerox or Dell) is the scanning capability.
- As noted above, there may be newer models of the listed recommended printers available. Please check the reviews of the new models to make sure they are still as reliable as the models listed.