multi-function printer recommendation

[jealouse]

greetings

looking for a multi-function laser printer. my requirements are

- laser printing, Automatic document feeder, duplex scanning/printing
- wireless connectivity (802.11b/g)
- Comes with PDF software - planning to get rid of all the paper bills...

i don't necessarily need a color laser. i rather get a nice and reliable b&w, rather than
finiky color-capable ones, know what i mean?

planning to spend $1k~1.5k. going to grad school and will be printing a lot of

papers and stuff.

thanks

 

[Lemon law]

With a budget of that much you can afford two or three printers meeting those specs.

Often the best way to shop is to go to printer manufacturer's websites, get the toll free number for pre sales, and let their experts make recommendations.

Then you can check them out on line and maybe get a chance to see them do their thing in a big box store. The thing that all will claim to do but not all do well at is duplexing.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I just went down this road myself except I didn't need duplex copying and wanted color. I ended up getting a hp cm2320nf directly from hp. They have several models with full duplex copying and are always rated very high in all of the reviews I've read. You might try going directly to hp, they're having a sale with free shipping plus price reductions right now. If you don't find one with the pdf software you can buy it for around $200 for the full retail package. HP also has a trade and save program in place this year allowing the customer to trade an old ink/laser printer in after making the hp purchase to save even more money. Just something to consider.

BTW keep in mind that you'll need to buy regular toner cartridges since most printers only come with starter's that have about half the capacity of the normal cartridge.

 

[Zepper]

If you think you'll ever need to duplex on legal size paper (8.5 x 14" - handy for printing commercial software's PDF manuals in booklet format) be very wary of HP's duplexing - my K5400 can't do legal size paper just letter and B size or smaller and it doesn't offer a manual (software based, you flip the stack and run it back thru) alternative as most Canon inkjet printers do (even those that have duplexing hardware can do manual duplexing - which is much faster on long documents). This lack is one of the big irritants to me of the K5400.

.bh.

 

[heymrdj]

Using the Samsung CLX-3175FN. 5,500 pages later still ticking without problems. I love it and it's SmartThru software.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I bought my oldest son a samsung for x-mas but it wasn't the all in one model. He's pretty satisfied with it but I don't like the paper output vs the way that hp does theirs.