What exactly does "doesn’t need a PC" mean? It means this printer doesn’t need a PC at all. It’s web-connected on its own. This is called the HP Photosmart Premium and yes, it has its own 4.33-inch touch screen. When I say it doesn’t need the PC at all, I meant it.

According to this article, this will be introduced in the fall and set you back $399.

To be honest, I’m left scratching my head wondering how this product could be useful to anybody. I mean, yeah, browsing the internet on the printer itself, finding what you want to print, then printing it sounds cool.. but I think this printer is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

Is HP trying to say you don’t need a computer, just your printer? Well, that obviously won’t work. People aren’t going to throw out their PCs in favor of a 4.33-inch touch screen with limited capabilities.

I do not see a legitimate home use for this, but I could see this for use in public places like libraries, coffee shops, airport terminals and so on. In environments such as those, yes this printer would serve itself well. If one of these were outfitted with a small meter where you could drop coins in (say $1.00 for 5 minutes), in public service this would work great. It would be like having a super-small FedEx Kinko’s or UPS Store all in a neat little box. After all, it not only prints, but faxes, copies and scans too.

But in the home? I just can’t see anybody going for it. That is unless I’m totally missing the point of what this printer is about?

Would you buy this thing for use in the home? And if so, why? Or why not? I’ve love to know.

One of the most reliable printers you can buy is a laser printer. They have less moving parts compared to inkjet (meaning more reliable), and for many models there is in-home printer service available should it bust – even if it’s out of warranty.

Inkjet printers can be had on the cheap new, but as anyone knows it’s cartridges that burn a hole in the wallet faster than anything else.

Example: You buy a new inkjet printer for $50, but then find out it comes with a "starter" cartridge. So you have to shell out some cash for a cartridge. And you’ll probably have to buy another one (or two) within a year’s time. That $50 printer can easily cost you over $100 before the year is out – and that’s not even including the cost of paper.

If you’re fed up with the ridiculous cost of the cartridges, maybe now is the time to switch over to laser.

I will say up front that there are three major disadvantages of laser printing:

1. Physically larger.

Laser printers need to be larger because they run hot on the inside and need to cool down. And the only way to do this effectively is to have a larger box.

2. May not be good for your health.

It is known that some (repeat: some, not all) laser printers do emit ultrafine particles. If you are using the printer in a room that is not well ventilated, it can pose a health risk.

Workaround: Use a wireless laser printer. More on that in a moment.

3. Toner can be expensive.

It is not uncommon to see a laser toner cartridge sell new for between $50 to $100. However bear in mind it takes a lot longer to wear out a toner compared to an inkjet cartridge.

How much does a laser printer cost?

Prices vary, but the average range for a personal laser printer is between $100 and $300.

All major printer manufacturers have laser models available. You will immediately notice they look, act and operate differently compared to the inkjet line – usually to the better on all three counts.

The first thing to take into consideration with a laser printer is the cost of replacement toner. You can search NewEgg or your preferred retailer of choice to see how much the toner will cost you. And yes it does vary significantly depending on make/model of printer.

A few words on refurbished toner

Using refurb/remanufactured toner is far more likely to work properly compared to "re-inking" inkjet cartridges. Most of the time the refurb will work well.

But not without drawbacks.

The things to note about refurb toner are:

• You will not get the same number of pages printed as you would with new toner.
• The imaging drum can potentially get damaged from using refurb (and that’s not cheap to fix).
• The refurb toner might leak.

I’m not saying to not buy refurb toner. What I am saying is know what you’re buying. Some people use refurb toner and never have a problem with it. Others say it’s not worth the hassle and that minor issues happen. And a small percentage have disastrous situations with them.

If you decide to go with refurb toner, know the risks.

Advantages of laser printing

Print more

With inkjet you constantly have to worry about ink and how much of it you have left. With laser you can just keep on printing and simply not worry about it for a good long time.

Print even more

Many affordable laser printers can print as much as 10,000 pages in a month. Some under the $200 range even have a maximum duty cycle of 20,000 pages a month.

Most home users get nowhere near that amount of printing in a month, but if you’re the "power printer" type of user, laser is definitely the way to go.

Choice of monochrome-only or color

Some people couldn’t care less about color printing. Monochrome, as in black, gets you more printed pages and the toner replacement is usually cheaper.

Wireless options available

The brother HL-2170W (NewEgg listing) is an example of how affordable wireless laser printing can be. Even at its low price point it still has a "warm-up" time of less than 10 seconds and connects on wireless b or g. It also has a built-in Ethernet port as well.

If you’ve got the space and are ready to ditch inkjet for good, go laser.

Situation: You’re going to install a Canon printer on a computer but you don’t have the driver CD for it. So, like anyone else, you go to Canon’s web site to download them. This should be an easy painless process, right?

Wrong.

Here’s what you have to do to download drivers for a consumer-grade Canon printer:

1. Go to www.canon.com
2. Click "Support" on the left (in the gray)
3. Choose your region from the map
4. Choose your landing site (e.g. Canon U.S.A.).
5. Another window or tab will open at this point.
6. Choose "Drivers & Downloads" from the left gray area.
7. Select your category as "Consumer Products".
8. Another window or tab will open at this point.
9. Next to 1, select category as "Printers".
10. Next to 2, select your series of printer.
11. Next to 3, select your model of printer.
12. Then click the almost unreadable gray "GO" button below that. AND FINALLY.. you’ll get to the drivers you need to download.

This is absolutely ridiculous I have to jump thru this many hoops just to get a STUPID DRIVER SET.

How easy are the others?

For HP printers:

1. Go to www.hp.com
2. Click "Support & Drivers" from the top.
3. Choose "Download drivers and software (and firmware)"
4. Enter the model of your HP printer and click "Go"
5. Download drivers

And that’s it.

For Lexmark printers:

1. Go to www.lexmark.com
2. Hover over "DRIVERS & DOWNLOADS" from the top and click "Driver Finder"
3. Type in the model of your printer
4. Click "SEARCH"
5. Select your operating system.
6. Click red "DOWNLOAD NOW" button.

And that’s it.

My personal score for each

HP
Score: Good

If you own an HP printer, the drivers are easy to get, the text they use on their support site is readable and easy to understand and you don’t feel like you’re getting lost at any time.

Lexmark
Score: Somewhat crappy

Light gray tiny text on white background = HARD TO READ. In fact, almost the whole site is in itty-bitty text with not enough contrast. Is this a nit-pick? Hardly. A support site should NOT have hard-to-read text anywhere.

Tip: When using Lexmark’s support site, increase the size in your browser by using Control-Plus. When done, reset back to normal with Control-0 (that’s a zero).

Canon
Score: Satan-spawned crappiness of doom

It is so easy to get lost in their support site it’s not even funny. Tiny text is everywhere and it’s not obvious where to click to get what you’re looking for (whereas it should be).

Case in point: After you selected your landing page, did you know you could also click on "Product Search"? Of course you didn’t. Want to know why? It’s not underlined or even a color that even remotely resembles a link.

Canon’s support site is a big steaming pile of you-know-what. To navigate it is a nightmare.

If you have a Canon printer and need drivers.. or heck.. even if you don’t need drivers I’d go get them now while it’s fresh in your mind from reading this article – because I guarantee you’ll forget how to do it later. Who could remember all that crap?

My suggestion for all printer manufacturers

There should be a big obvious search box right on the home page that says "Enter your model here to search for drivers". It should be that obvious because I can guarantee the vast majority of your web traffic is for driver downloads.

FedEx Office (formerly known as FedEx Kinko’s or just Kinko’s) is a 24-hour-a-day shop in most places where you can walk in to do a quick scan, print, fax or any other number of office-related stuff.

To note: FedEx Office is just one example of a store like this. Even the sleepiest of small towns in the USA have some kind of local office store when you can run off a copy, print something, get something faxed out, etc. They’re usually located in the busier part of town. Continued

A cat. This will save the company millions as his only compensation requirement is Tender Vittles.

Note: The last cat tech got the sack for eating too much paper.

If you print often, most likely you encounter the ‘useless page’ (the page with 2 lines at the end, a banner ad, etc.) quite frequently. These pages are a waste of ink and, more importantly, paper (trees). To help alleviate this problem, give GreenPrint a look.

GreenPrint’s approach is simple: it intelligently determines which pages are ok to remove from your print job based on whether the page is blank or if it prints only ‘useless’ lines. Of course, you can go in and change any of the settings before sending the job to the printer. GreenPrint also keeps a running tally of the estimated number of pages, ink and CO2 you have saved by using the program.

Download.com has nice Editor’s Review on their page to download this product which gives you a bit more information. I’ve been using it now for a couple of weeks and it works well (although, I don’t have the need to print too often). Many people making a small difference adds up to a huge difference…

Sharing a printer on your network is another very useful feature of a network. Allow all of your computers to use the same printer.

There are three ways to accomplish this:

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If you’ve been using computers a long while you probably have an old printer lying around somewhere. And it’s most likely true the only reason you don’t use it is either because:

1. It’s too big to fit on the desk.
2. It uses an insanely thick cable with a Centronics connector to connect to your computer.
3. Your computer (especially if a laptop) doesn’t have the port where that insanely thick cable is supposed to plug into.

Assuming you can acquire a printer ribbon (if dot matrix) or replacement toner (if laser) for it, you can resurrect that printer using modern tech.

Converting Centronics to USB: Only takes a single cable to do this. And being the printer is old it’s more or less guaranteed to be recognized by your computer without the need to install any drivers whatsoever.

Connect printer directly to the router: Requires a miniature print server. This connects via Ethernet directly to the router and network-enables the printer. No connection to the computer required (but some setup does need to take place.)

Connect printer over Bluetooth wireless: Requires an (expensive) adapter. Also may require another (not-so-expensive) USB Bluetooth adapter if your PC isn’t Bluetooth-enabled. The adapter mentioned for the printer does Centronics and USB! Wireless range is stated to be 100 meters (328 feet) but in practical application you’re “safe” with about 25 meters (82 feet) at the most. Works well in most instances. The best part is that you can have the printer in a completely separate room – leaving you more desk space.

Some quick truths about older printers

Dot matrix printers while loud and have a slow PPM (page per minute) speed have two distinct advantages.

1. Tractor feed paper, if available, is dirt cheap.
2. You can easily go for an entire year without having to change the printer ribbon.

Older business-grade HP LaserJet printers also have a slow PPM but have the following advantages.

1. New toner, shockingly, is sometimes cheaper than inkjet replacement cartridges.
2. Toner lasts far longer than inkjet cartridges do.
3. Biz-grade LaserJets can be easily serviced. Chances are high that there’s a local certified HP tech close to where you live – and he does house calls.
4. Older LaserJets require no stupid proprietary drivers because support is built-in to the OS. Windows, Mac and Linux will “see” these printers with no fuss, no muss.