Dell 81160W Monochrome Laser Printer

I was thinking about buying a printer because my online job requires or strongly suggests that I print out my work material rather than look at it online. My techie friend Mike suggested that I get a laser printer because he said they last longer in the long run. Since I would mainly use the printer for school papers and word heavy instructions from my employer, I decided to get a monochrome laser printer, and since I have Amazon Prime as a student, I ordered the printer from Amazon. Of course monetary issues were important to me also. Two weeks ago I got it for $79 and now it is down to $59. Maybe I should have waited longer?

The set-up was pretty easy. I only had to attach one part myself, the part that the paper comes out on when I print. Not having a mechanical mind, I had to google instructions for this task, and then I noticed the little knobs on the part that fit and the little holes on the printer it fit into, and they fit together with minimal moaning and tears. Yeah!

I had a new power surge protector that I had just bought. I plugged the printer into that. I wanted it to be wireless but I had to plug the cable in first and put in my network password in the set-up before it would go wireless.I was glad the cable came with because, believe it or not, I have a couple of computers that don't work wireless or at least I don't know to get them to work wireless and I still have programs on them that I might want to print out if I ever had enough time to go back and play with them.

So, I printed a paper I had. It was a short three page paper. It came out flawlessly. I have always felt the printers I had at home before were fragile but I did not have the same feeling with this printer. It seems very sturdy. I did not have to align and re-align to get the paper to look okay. It looked fine from the beginning. Of course the machine is a printer. It is not a three-in-one fax, scanner, printer. It is a printer, a laser printer. And it works great for printing! I don't know about longevity yet but so far so good.

I had one small scare. It was kind of chilly last night, and I plugged my space heater into the same power surge protector that the printer is plugged into. This morning I started to print out my work material, and my printer would not power up. My heart sank. Even though the space heater was not putting out heat, the light was still red on it. I unplugged the space heater, and then push the button on the printer, and the blue light came on. I felt a surge of relief.

I think the Dell1160w monochrome laser printer is a good product for people who want to print out school papers or black and white documents at home for business purposes. It is compact, and does not take up a lot of space. It is also very cheap, and the price is dropping. Right now the cartridge replacement cost about $37 from Amazon. I don't know if the price on the replacement cartridge will come down as the price on the printer comes down. Hopefully, that will be the case.