printer

06
Jan
2016

Bye bye Samsung, welcome back HP

printer, hpprinter

My new HP printer. PHoto: ©nini.tjader.2015

My printer problems continued. I had to say bye-bye to the Samsung printer and got myself a HP printer instead.

The new Samsung SL-C480 color laser printer turned out to be less than compatible with Macintosh and Mac OS X 10.11.2 (my iMac) and 10.10.5 (my MacBook Pro). I installed and deinstalled, I downloaded new drivers directly from Samsung in exchange for those on the install CD. Nothing helped. Once in the blue moon the printer printed one single page. Normally it just printed gibberish. It couldn’t even print a pdf.

The newest drivers available from Samsung were released before Mac Os X 10.11 El Capitan was released. So of course they were not all that compatible. Apart form that it lacked a file it said when trying to install it. After trying to make it work for about a month, I gave up. Installing drivers and getting a printer to function shouldn’t be that difficult. And in this case, impossible. It was good at making color copies, but I really needed to print now and then.

So about two weeks ago I asked my neighbor to take me and the printer back to Netonnet to return the printer and get another one. Was a bit anxious if they would accept the exchange or not as the free 30 day return-period was passed with about 13 days. But to my relief they did accept to take it back when I explained it wasn’t compatible with my Macs (or the iPad or the iPhone either for that matter).

My choice for a new printer was between an HP LaserJet Pro 200 M277dw and a Brother DCP-9020CDW. As I had/have no experience with Brother printers, the choice fell on the HP. I have used HP printers for many years and never really had any problems with them. Both the above are sold at the same price at Netonnet (SEK 2.990) and cost SEK500 more than the Samsung I returned.

The HP printer was (and is) a totally pleasant and good experience from the very first moment. The installation was smooth, fast and easy and HP has drivers for the latest Macintosh OS. Everything just worked from the start. Both on the iMac, the MacBook Pro and the ePrint from the iPhone and the iPad. I am happy. I can finally print – even from the sofa from the iPad. Haven’t tested the copier yet, or the fax (don’t know where to connect it presently – have to find a vacant phoneline for it) or the doublesided printing, or the print from anywhere, or the scanning – but I will, soon. The most important thing was to be able to print. It has all the functions I want, including wifi-printing and much more. The HP toners are expensive, but so are the other firms toners too. May the printer last a long time.

I am happy. I can print again. And I can recommend this HP printer.

printer, hpprinter

My new HP printer. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2015

Posted by nini in Nerdish, Various, workspace, 0 comments
15
Nov
2015

Bye, bye HP – Welcome Samsung

colorlaserprinter

My old HP ColorLaser Printer. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2015

I am finally saying bye bye HP to my old, defect HP color laser printer, and welcome to a brand new Samsung printer.

colorlaserprinter

HP Color Laser Jet 2600n. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2015

I got that HP color LaserJet 2600n for FREE from my last employer (the big daily newspaper) where I worked at the support department. It was going to be thrown out and exchanged for other printers that could be run only by identifying yourself with your card of access to the offices. It was used at the newspaper for a couple of years and have served me well for at lest some seven years or so.

colorlaserprinter

The innards of my old HP color laser printer. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2015

For quite some time now it has been leaking toner onto the printers innards. This time CYAN. It has happened before, but then it was the YELLOW. I then got a new toner cartridge from the toner suppliers. This time I just gave up. I didn’t want to throw more money after this old printer. Especially as the the HP toners are quite expensive and I have to pay them myself. The toners aren’t even all that good. They are re-filled, re-used ones. I decided already a couple of month ago, when the printer started printing with blue stripes all over the paper, that I would not buy any more toners for it when it would be unusable. (I still wonder though where in the printer it keeps the surplus toner that all lasers produce, the wasted toner powder that is… never found that out).

So I began looking for a new color laser printer. A current one, with features like copy, scan, wi-fi (to be able to print from iPhone and iPad) etc. And it had to be a laser and had to be color. I looked at several ones. In the end the choice stood between a Brother and a Samsung. In the end I choose a new model from Samsung.

samsung colorlaserprinter

My new Samsung color laser printer. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2015

Friday I went with my neighbor (who has a car) to the nearest Netonnet shop and bought a Samsung SL-C480 color laser printer. Welcome Samsung.

So. Now begins that painful period of getting to know all the quirks of this printer… And quirks there are.

samsung colorlaserprinter

Samsung laser color printer. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2015

I’ve always downloaded the latest drivers from provider instead of using the ones provided on an installation CD/DVD. Normally those are newer/updated than on the installation CD/DVDs. So I did this time as well. And then it wouldn’t print anything but gibberish… An occasional page of real print, but most of the time gibberish. Wasted lots of paper on that. Today I uninstalled the printer drivers and installed from the CD instead. Same problem. One page printed, then gibberish on lots of papers before I managed to cancel the printing.

Then I found a trick. Quit the Samsung printer application after one successful print. Start the next print-job. That automatically starts the printer and the print application. And it prints as supposed to, one print-job at the time. Hm.

At least now I can print again and it prints beautifully both in black and color. I don’t know if the printing problems have something to do with my operating system (El Capitan10.11.1) or the Samsung drivers.

The printing problem (gibberish on several papers) appeared in any application I tried to print from. My MBP is still not El Capitan so will test from there when I have installed the drivers on it. I’ll wait for a while with updating the drivers again, now that I actually can print even though it requires a restart of the printing application between each print.

Also tested the copier. Nice to be able to copy in color. Works fantastic. Remains to test the wifi printing and the NFC printing… and the scanning. It installs a TWAIN driver. I thought TWAIN was dead? I didn’t buy this printer for the scanning though as I have an old Canon scanner and VueScan to run it. But I will try the scanning too.

It is nice to finally be able to print at all and not having big blue blemishes all over the print-out… The Samsung toners also cost less than the HP ones.

colorlaserprinter

Samsung Color Laser Printer. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2015

Posted by nini in Nerdish, office, Thoughts, Various, 0 comments