[PLUG-TALK] HP4050 printer turns 21 this year

[Rich Shepard]

On Sat, 22 Feb 2020, Tomas Kuchta wrote:

> Case in point - I've been on the market for small, low volume color laser
> for years. Three basic things stopped me from purchasing:
> 1. Non-standard, extraordinarily expensive toner cartridge locked to single
> supplier. This guarantee that I will not be happy with the printer for the
> next 20 years to print my 10k pages. I need to be able to buy toner in US,
> EU, everywhere for reasonable price. Non standard, single vendor products
> do not provide this value at all.

The Dell C1760NW color laser printer is a rebranded Xerox and uses the
Xerox_Phaser_6000_6010 driver. Commenters on amazon say that non-OEM
cartridges work well and sell (on amazon) for $22 and $26.50 for a set of
four. I'm still working with the toner shipped with the printer.

> 2. It needs to be powered be both 110V and 240V. There are no laser
> printers like that, so I'd have to trash them every time I move. So far at
> least once a decade.

I don't think it's dual voltage.

> 3. Standard PostScript/pdf format support, so that I know it will work on
> Linux for the next 20 years.

Yep. It does this well.

Don't forget that Walter Gillett set the example by giving away razors and
selling the blades. Companies soon learned that the cash cow revenue stream
was in selling consumables, not the devices that consumed them.

Rich