The Laser Printer Died
My daughter needed to have about 18 pages printed out for a school assignment, and because the only printer we have is a very old, it's connected to my laptop by a simple USB cable. Sure, it's still working fine, and the pages are fast enough, and sure, it's only Black and White, but for an HP LaserJet 1200 that's more than a decade old, it's doing pretty well. Or so I thought.
I got about three pages out, and then it started making a screeching noise that didn't sound good, and nothing I could do was going to bring it back. It had printed it's last page. I tried power cycling... removing the toner cartridge... opening it up... nothing was going to get rid of that screech, and so I had to let her know that the pages weren't coming, and to let her instructor know.
So I started looking around, and the review sites seemed to really like the HP Color LaserJet Pro M255dw - it's color, double-sided printing, WiFi and Ethernet, as well as USB, and works with Macs as well as AirPrint for iOS and iPadOS. Just exactly what I was looking for, because with this I don't have to be The Print Man in the house, and she can print from her desk and just pick it up in my office.
I was a little surprised that it was only really available from HP Direct, and the larger toner cartridges as well. But it wasn't really that much more than some of the online sites were advertising. So I ordered it, and will press it into service as soon as it arrives.
I'm looking forward for it lasting another decade... 🙂