color or b&w printer for vet school?

hi everyone,

for those of you in vet school, do you think it would be handier to have a black and white printer or a color printer for printing out notes? I'm about to buy one and just wondering. thanks!

pika8 said:

hi everyone,

for those of you in vet school, do you think it would be handier to have a black and white printer or a color printer for printing out notes? I'm about to buy one and just wondering. thanks!

Click to expand...

Color printers are awesome for printing out histology slides. And you can always set it to print in black and white when color isn't an issue.

I never liked to print the histology or pathology pictures - they're always better on the computer screen...and I'm poor and don't feel like paying for color ink!

B&W is fine for just printing notes.

I LOVE my Canon S300 - not a new printer to be sure and not very fancy, but black ink cartridges are $6.50 at Walmart...and you go through a LOT of ink printing notes and PPT, etc. So that's definitely a plus!

i find that i don't need colour printouts if i can go back to the photo on the screen. i can adequately annotate black and white printouts so i see what's important when i go back to the photo.

hp makes a nice little laserjet printer (and some nice rebates, too):
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/s...ink=1&PROD_IDX=CB411A#ABA&PROD_IDX=CB410A#ABA

i had one of these and i loved it - gave it away when i moved overseas.

i've never been a big fan of inkjet printers. and colour lasers are expensive. we are lucky to have a colour laser to use at uni. i use that on the rare occasion i need colour printouts.

pika8 said:

hi everyone,

for those of you in vet school, do you think it would be handier to have a black and white printer or a color printer for printing out notes? I'm about to buy one and just wondering. thanks!

Click to expand...

Something else to consider would be the ability to copy or scan using the printer. Do you think you would ever want to make a copy of a page or picture in a book that you couldn't keep or couldn't take notes/draw on? What about scanning a picture from a book and adding it to your notes on the computer? Just a consideration.

I have a Lexmark X5450 and I like it. Cartridges are not horribly expensive like they are for HP and Dell printers. I enjoy the color option even though it's not necessary.

And hopefully, for the BIG print jobs, you can use the school's printers. They should be faster, possibly do front/back printing, and the ink and paper are "free" (which means it's included in your tuition 😉 ).

color printers are best for histology and gross anatomy

When I first started I tried to get away with the B&W laserjet... Just wasn't happy with some stuff (especially powerpoint slides with certain photos), and presentations and papers can be that much better in color. Also, it's nice to be able to print out some personal photos in color (although laser isn't the best choice for that).

Inkjets are cheap to buy into... but ridiculously expensive to run. For me to print B&W only on my laser I'm looking at $0.03/page. To print a mostly color document I'm looking at roughly between $0.10 and $0.18/page (Not sure how much I'm squeezing out of the cartridges). I've had an HP Laserjet 1600 for about 4 months of school now (one semester) and have only replaced the black toner, still have a good chunk of the 'starter' color toner left.

The HP I got retailed for around $450AUD, but had a mail-in rebate for $200, so total cost to get the beast (it is a big boy) was $250. Toner runs about $100 each (B/C/M/Y) and should last for at least 2000 pages depending on what you set your default settings as.

I know Samsung has a color laser (CLP 300) out there that is smaller and is in the $250 price range (You can also get it with a scanner--CLX2160N $350--keep an eye out because Samsung has been known to offer huge mail-in rebates too!)

Of course you could always pick up a B/W laser for speed/cost of printing, and then pick up a $50 inkjet for any color printing needs that might come up (or use a printing service).

I personally like the all-in-one printers from HP, which tend to be just at $100. But they have reformulated their new ones to use cheaper ink. Also, you might look into buying one online if you want it cheaper. I got the HP Photosmart 4200 all in one for $40 on ebay, and it works great for color and b&w.

The other thing about ink is that some places, like Walgreens, will refill your old cartridge for cheap. I think b&w is $10 and color is $15.

It's definitely an advantage to have color when printing powerpoints for class since some professors like to use background colors that blend with font colors when in b&w, or like Nexx said, with certain photos.

also, don't forget to check into what resources are available to you through the school. At WSU we have free printing and scanning 24/7, with plenty of computers and printers to go around. (ok, not totally free as it's all wrapped up in 'student fees' but you're paying for it, might as well use it!) Just one other point to consider before shelling out...

i'm sure those making the decision have already purchased a printer, but here's my .02 on the debate.
i have a color laser printer/scanner multi-function. its great for printing slides and scaning stuff in books to send to classmates or keep for future reference.
i love it. its a little slower than i'd like, but i got tired of replacing my inkjet cartridges every week (no kidding, i averaged a cartridge a week). even with the refill kits, they were expensive and once i ran out of ink in the middle of a print job and had to beg my prof to let me email the paper so i could turn it in on time.
yes, i paid a little more on the front end (i got it on sale though) but the savings in ink and time more than makes up for it imo. i print a lot and printing at the school is inconvenient and expensive (not included in our tuition). i plan on having this printer for all 4 years and then some, so it was worth it to me. that and buying toner once or twice a year is a definite plus over buying or refilling ink cartridges every week.

I'm sick of HP printers. They are cheap to buy and have a lot of diversity but the quality is low and they always need to be replaced. Some of them actually self destruct —*they're made with parts that are too wimpy for their speed. Sheet feeders on multi-function units break really early.

I don't know enough about other printers to have an opinion as to what's better. Perhaps they're all bad. I just wish HP would stop making pieces of crap.