My new printer came from UPS today, a Dell Laser MFP 1815dn. It retails for $419 (currently on sale until Nov. 1 for $339), but my work’s employee discount made it $279.

It’s a black-and-white only laser printer/scanner/copier/fax @ 27 pages per minute. It hooked up via ethernet to my network, allowing all PCs (Both our desktop and laptops, 4 PCs total) to use it without printer sharing in Windows. Some of the advanced functions are unique for any printer I’ve owned.

Beyond being a traditional printer, scanner, or copier, the 1815dn can scan images to any PC. It prompts you on its LCD screen which computer’s “My Documents” folder to save the image to, but it can also scan into other programs such as Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Word. To this extent, I can scan an image, select any of the four computers in our house on the LCD screen, then it will save the image to the selected computer. It can also scan to, or print documents from, a USB key plugged into the front of the printer. Last, you can type in an email address on the printer’s keypad and your scanned document will automatically be emailed out to whomever as a PDF attachment from the printer - no PCs even need be turned on.

Anyway, we were definitely due for a new printer. Kim and I print almost daily for school related papers. The ink cartridges on our inkjet printers were $40 and could only go about 300 sheets before needing more ink. A 5,000-page toner cartridge for the laser printer costs me about $70, which is definitely a better cost-per-page value that will make up for the cost of a new printer.

The status monitoring and setup is easy, too. Since it’s networked on the LAN (and has its own IP address), I can just type in its address in my browser (i.e. “http://192.168.0.5″) and I can see from any one of our computers how much ink and paper is available, and change options just as if I were at the printer’s LCD menu.

Categories: Tech