While I've read the thread on quiet keyboards and mice, I haven't seen a thread discussing quiet printers. I have a HP 4L laser. I do a lot of printing that requires laser quality output. Now that my PC is whisper quiet, I notice how loud the printer can be...especially when the rest of the house is quiet at night.

What's everyone's experience and input regarding printer noise

Recommended models

My HP 1220C is about the quietest printer I've ever used. But a $400 wide format inkjet may be overkill for most people. I know one thing though, the el-cheapo Lexmark I bought for my parent's PC is wickedly loud. I'd avoid them at all costs.

HP 5550 inkjet is pretty quiet.

My survey partner has an HP Deskjet 1220cse. It's huge, fast, and very quiet. I imagine that some of the other HP's are also quiet. I also guess that the larger high-end Canon's might be quiet, but it's just a guess based on the need for higher quality mechanicals for the bigger printers to work at speed without destroying themselves. That's all I know.

From my experience HP printers are quieter than other makers. No clattering noises, just smooth zips back and forward. Obviously it still makes noise, but is far quieter than Epsom, Lexmark etc.

Thumbs up for the HP 5550c, an excellent all round peformer.

ive got an hp5550 also. its a pretty damn good printer, not too loud. And they have/had them at walmart for like $90

I recently got a Samsung ML-1430, which is a small personal-use laser printer. It's silent in standby mode, and not too wickedly noisy when in use or when cooling down, although the noise it makes is frustrating compared to my PC. At about $150US after rebates, the price is very agreeable. HP inkjets are great quality wise, but they have the highest consumables cost of any laser or inkjet. I'm also of the opinion that lasers always look better than inkjets, but that might just be me.

I suppose it's pretty easy to go into a place like Best Buy or CompUSA or what have you and use the Demo feature on the display printers so that you can evaluate their noise level, provided you're in the market for the kind of thing those places sell.

I think the best strategies to keep a printer quiet are simply moving the printer somewhere where the noise isn't bothersome, or keeping it in a mostly enclosed area, like under a desk. The latter could be trouble with the heat laser printers give off, but such is life.

All told, I'm just thankful that the days of my screeching-harpy Imagewriter II printing my primitive desktop publishing documents from Appleworks GS line by tortuous line are behind me.

The Canon I850 is very quiet and rather highly rated as well. You an find them for around $150 if you sniff around. Cheap ink replacement too.

I think most laser printers are going to make a good amount of noise while printing.

But if you can get a laser printer that at least does not have a cooling fan, you'll at least get silence when it's not printing. The Laserjet 4L you have and a LaserJet 1000 I've used are good in this respect. A LaserJet 4M+ I have has a cooling fan which is very loud even during idle or "powersave" mode.

Funny this thread should start now: I just received a multifunction printer/scanner/fax/copier and a laser printer to review. Should be up before the end of the month.

I have a HP4050N network monochrome laser printer, a big beast that is silent in standby, very fast but noisy when printing, and somewhat noisy in active idle. Got it a couple years ago when I was doing tons of long document printing writing and designing manuals. Still useful now but overkill as I am doing much less long doc work.

Well I have an old hp 720C desk jet,
it makes a sort of a ziping noice with a bit of a "stutter" included when printing but it is not loud by any means.

It is dead silent when it is not printing.

my epson has a buzz i think. its a 1290 but its resonably quiet. but wanna know what makes a big difference? im using audio fome rubbery blocks to put the printer on. i had no choice cos me printer bigger than what it is on
just found hte box thing for em
"polipods" deflex isolation feet
want me to scan in the info off box? i would take piccy but me digi cam is in france atm wid parents

CORRECTION: After hearing another printer yesterday, then listening to mine it was printing out some stuff this morn, I realize I was wrong in my original statements.

1) It is silent in standby AND in idle mode.
2) There is at least an 80mm fan in there which seems to come on only during printing.
3) The noise of the printing is actually quite smooth and modest in volume.
4) Unless a whole lot of pages are printed and the unit gets hot, the fan either runs only during the printing or turns on only when it gets to a certain temp. Usually it does not seem to run.

So all in all, it is a very quiet printer. Sorry about my earlier misinformation. One thing I did not mention -- the original price I paid was ~US$1500-1600. Not cheap for personal use. I figured it would be the last monochrome printer I ever buy. I think a slightly upgraded model is still available -- called the 4100.

I'm w/ Ralf. I love my Canon 850i inkjet. It is quiet in normal mode...and can be used in an even quieter "quiet" mode...it just prints slower when you select it. Prints great pictures on photo paper also. And since it is a Canon, it uses less ink than any other brand per page and the ink doesn't cost as much.

Quiet + Cost Efficient = Happy Me

Some of the posters have brought up noise when idle for laser printers, some of which runs fans all the time.

Inkjets should be silent when idle, but as we're finding out, bad power supply design can make CRTs, USB hub wall warts &c whine & buzz. In a "normal" environment, we'd never notice this.

My epson 820 whines when idle. I haven't figured out whether it's all the time as I'm so frustrated with cleaning up for a WIndows XP upgrade that I forget to listen. The noise does sound more like the (piezoelectric) heads charging than the power supply.

Some reviews would be helpful, but printer needs are so varied that it can be hard to cover the huge field. Also, there can be unit-to-unit variation. Solution: buy from 30-day-no-questions-return-with-no-restocking-fee places (e.g. Circuit City) & return if at all in doubt (I made the mistake once of thinking something was my fault, then not getting around to thorough testing until it was too late).

If you return a device for noise, make sure you tell them the reason.

-M

My parents use a HP 660Cse and it's fine but the inline (brick, or whatever you call them) power supply makes a very annoying buzz whenever it's plugged in no matter if the printer is on or not. I don't have a printer myself but my roommate has a Lexmark which is acting up, but it's ok to a bit noisy in the noise department. My roommate in school had an Epson and it had an annoying habit of making noises well after anything needed to be printed, it had a mind of it's own.

gotta add the third vote for the canon 850...great reviews on it (thanks for the recommendation earlier, Ralf), good price point for both printer and ink. the print quality is excellent especially for text and the printer feels well put together and does not make a lot of noise. I have owned HP inkjet printers and most recently the epson 880 (which isnt too bad), but these products don't even match up with the canon 850 in terms of $$$, print quality, and reliability. i'm not a big fan of HP's printers as one of my three HPs had to be RMAed and another broke two months after the warranty period. bummer. but i can comfortably agree with ralf and mdaniel on the canon 850!!! best printer EVER!

I'll second that... we've had a long string of HP printers die on us, and this time we tried an i850. It hasn't died on us yet (though all the HPs lasted quite a bit longer than this) and print quality is excellent...

Hi people, I'm planning for getting a laser printer and trying to find out if its cheaper to use laser toner or inkjet cartriages. The inkjet cartriages are expensive and I have to keep buying them. Would a monocrome toner cartriage get me more pages for less money than a handfull of inkjet cartriages? How many pages can I get out of a laser printer and what is a duty cycle? Any helpful suggestion will be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.
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printer ink

If you do a lot of laser printing heat is going to be an issue.

The warm feeling of a freshly zapped page tells me things get pretty hot in there.

It would seem necessary to have a fan on a laser printer that prints long runs. Longevity probably comes as a serious premium to silence.

The answer depends on how much printing you do. If you only print a few pages occasionally and need colour then I'd stay with an inkjet. If you need to print a few pages regularly and don't need colour a small lower end laser might be a good investment. For frequent print jobs or large infrequent ones a laser is definitely more cost effective.

A small personal or small workgroup laser good for 20,000 pages per month will get between 3000 and 9000 pages per toner cartridge which generally cost between $50 and $150 each depending on capacity.

If you go with say HP, the fusing drum and toner are integrated so you replace them both together which, while a bit more expensive, ensures a better print quality on average. Those with replaceable drums vary considerably on the price and how many pages they need to be replaced after.

I have a small laser for everything but colour and for that I use an inkjet as i can't justify the cost of a good colour laser for my needs.

Brand recommendations:

Mono laser - HP, Brother
Colour laser - Xerox, Canon

Hope it helps.

Actually, integrated fuser drums usually have the worst quality images. While the drum may image fine, the anchorage to the material (if you use heavier stock) will suffer as the fuser drum is not capable of getting hot enough because of the cheaper material. However, on the whole, toner/fuser cartridges are cheaper in the long run as the components are much cheaper to make. Trust me, I have a print lab at work with 5 laser printers of various types and my color Okidata and monocrome IBM with separate fuser drums are much more expensive to keep up than the cheap integrated cartridges. But the cheap ones print for crap.

That being said, the inkjet is definitely the cheaper way to go, especially with the proliferation of cheap ink cartridges on ebay and the like. But if all you do is print one page a month in black and white, get the cheapest laser you can find as many inkjet cartridges will dry up without being used at least once a month or so (HP Photosmarts are notorious even with their ink).

This is probably not the solution you are looking for, but I've skipped printing altogether by getting a large high quality monitor where it's a joy to read pdf documents on. I can fullscreen 2 sheets of (A4 or letter) side by side with _larger than native_ size, and just lean back in my chair, occasionally pressing page down, to read long documents.

Paperless office is already here.