Gravitational Pull

Better to choose form or function for new printer

Posted on 07 January 2009

Where is fantasy bred, in the heart or in the head?

-Willie Wonka (channeling The Merchant of Venice)

My basic office printer, an HP Deskjet 6980, is having major problems seeing its ink cartridges and out-of-warranty repairs cost more than a new printer so…time for something new. As HP values ink more highly than gold, it would be logical to switch to a laser printer since I mainly print long documents and web articles and the total per-page cost would be much lower. The deskjet has both wifi and ethernet networking capability but that’s not essential for its replacement.

The $100 to $150 laser printer category has been growing in leaps and bounds and it’s amazing what you can procure for a relatively minimal sum. Old fogey that I am, I remember driving to New Hampshire to avoid paying sales tax on my $750 original issue HP Deskjet back around 1990 or so. These days, HP is hardly at the top of the printer innovation game. So I started looking around Amazon and found  two interesting possibilities. One is your basic, inexpensive workhorse, the Brother HL-2170w. The other is a gorgeous, super-quiet model, the Samsung ML-1630.

Check out the photos below. The Samsung is even placed in a mod living room setting to demonstrate just how groovy it looks.

Both have very good ratings from Amazon buyers and both would meet my needs. The main difference is largely one of form over function. The Samsung is easy on the eyes while the Brother is hideously ugly. On the other hand, the Brother has wifi and ethernet connections, holds more than twice as much paper, prints faster and costs less. It’s also considerably larger.

So which way to go? Any suggestions from the peanut gallery?

UPDATE: I went with form over function and got the Brother!