If You Need a Good Printer

 I won't call this a review because I'm not going to go into details but... I love this printer:

Brother HL-L2300D Monochrome
 Laser Printer with Duplex Printing

I bought the first one almost exactly 6 years ago in January of 2016. That poor thing was carted all over the place - from Alaska to Iowa, back to Alaska, and back to Iowa. I probably could have treated it better because I had a habit of just stuffing it in a packing box with bath towels and crumpled newspapers for shipping it everywhere. It survived cold weather, extremely hot and humid weather, and being thumped on like a drum by my little nephew. I once dropped it (onto carpet) when I was moving it to a different corner of a room. I even spilled coffee on the top once. And it just kept going.

Sometime last spring, it shut off (I usually kept it powered on) and wouldn't turn back on. I was panicked because I was trying to print some important documents to mail off. I searched for possible problems and solutions online and found something from a man who'd had the same thing happen to his machine. 

Don't ask me how the guy came up with the solution but it was specifically for this model of printer. His fix? Unplug the power cord and pull out the paper tray then plug the cord back in - and this is important - while you are holding down the Power button.

The dang thing powered up like new. 

This solution worked until a couple of weeks ago. Once again, I was having to print out a bunch of really important documents - a lot of them - and found that nothing worked to power the printer on.

~Sigh~

I went online and found the exact same printer model. Yay! But the price had gone up quite a bit. Boo! I happen to have a credit card with a flexible payment plan for purchases over a certain dollar amount. I got the printer (and a protection plan) and re-vamped my budget for groceries and any extras for the next few months.

The new printer arrived and the set-up was easy. The old one donated the USB for connecting to my computer and the toner tray - just in case. I will be putting it into the special garbage bin we have for electronics.

I hope the new printer is as reliable as the old one. That thing was a workhorse. Also, the toner cartridges can be found on the cheap and they last forever. 

If you need a good, basic printer that can take a beating, this is the one. It's fairly lightweight and does not eat up a lot of desk space. Of course, it's monochrome so only black print is the only option. I don't mind that because I don't need color.

Here's a shot of it on my desk across the room:

I use the USB to connect to my laptop that doesn't have a CD-ROM drive. However, the printer does come with a set-up disk if you go that route. It also comes with one toner cartridge. Nice.

Keep in mind that you can probably find the same model in a refurbished state for a cheaper price. But for 6 years of service under rough treatment, I don't think that $120 is too much to pay. 

This time, I will treat the printer better. I think that the whole Power-off issue was due to damage to the end of the power cord that connects to the back of the printer. I didn't always do a great job of packing the printer for shipping.

 Peace

--Free