Printers

I'm doing a partial restack of computers from office to office at a church in Arlington and I'm noticing that the older laser printers and some inkjets are connected to the network with external print servers from Hawking, Linksys, and Netgear. I can remember when HP Jetdirects cost $500, so I'm thinking that the previous IT guy was smart to do this since you could buy the non-HP print servers for a lot less. Well, he was (and is) a smart guy, but ever-curious, I decided to do a little "shopping" to see if today's external print server would still be cost effective versus a built-in network printing solution. I was surprised to find out that virtually across the board, the difference in price between the major manufacturers' "with or without" network printers was a C-note ($100.00)

HP Laserjet 2430 - 649.00
HP Laserjet 2420 - 549.00

Lexmark E330 - $399.00
Lexmark E332n - $499.00

HP Laserjet 1022 - $199.00
HP Laserjet 1022n - $299.00

Dell Laser 1710 - $199.00
Dell Laser 1710n - $299.00

In order for an external print server to be almost worth the trouble for me, I figure that I should be able to get one for $50.00 or else no deal. Sadly for the externals, $50.00 was the starting price and went up to $150 (wired or wireless were the same prices).

Conclusion: if the printer you want comes in a network version, go for it. However, if you want to put a cheapie inkjet printer on the network, then get an equally cheap external print server.