Shopping for a printer for nursing school: Laser or Ink? Suggestions?

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Hello all,

I've been looking at printers, maybe all-in-one, and I'm stuck in between laser and inkjet. HP has an ink program where you pay monthly and sends you ink based off how much ink you use. I was wondering, do you guys know how much you will print in nursing school or is the number of printing a bit subjective? I wonder if some or all classes use power points? I prefer to print in color because the brain likes colors when reading lol Btw, I will be using a portable wifi hotspot like Verizon or AT&T, so I'll have wifi for the printer.

There were older posts about printers but times change, like books for classes, so I was wondering if there was anyone who has owned many printers in the past and knows which to have the best luck with? I'm almost done with prereqs, and I've been using the school's printers for awhile. The MAJOR drawback of using their printers is sometimes the printers that print color is down, and I have no power points.

I hope nursing programs generally have power points instead of hand taking notes.

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Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.

I moved your post to the general student forum to encourage responses.

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I print sooo much during the school year. I probably go through 5-6 ink cartilages a semester.

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I print sooo much during the school year. I probably go through 5-6 ink cartilages a semester.

How many pages is that? You know HP has a instant ink subscription on qualifying HP printers right? The printer, if it's connected to wifi, connects to HP corporate or whatever and pre-orders you new fully filled fresh ink before you run out. Or at least it tries to. Also, you can't mess up. One page with a few lines counts as a printed page vs. a photo of your graduating class.

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I used a duplex Brother printer that was black and white laser and it worked really well. Most of the color pictures in our power points came from the textbooks, so color was not necessary for me. At any rate, my printer is still going strong 4 years later, and was about $150. I probably replaced the cartridge every 6-8 months at about $50 each. I used color pens to take notes.

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Specializes in PMHNP-BC.

See what your printing charges are at school! Some schools offer free printing or at a cheap rate. Ive printed thousands of pages and paid maybe $25 total over the past 2 years?

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See what your printing charges are at school! Some schools offer free printing or at a cheap rate. Ive printed thousands of pages and paid maybe $25 total over the past 2 years?

This. I have some dumpy HP printer for when I need to print off a page or two at home. My school offers free printing for students and I've literally printed hundreds and hundreds of pages there for free.

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Specializes in mental health / psychiatic nursing.

I've found it more affordable and convenient to print at school. I have a really old HP printer/scanner at home that I use for the occasional print job and for scanning documents to upload, but I would hate to rely on it. I can print at school (including double-sided / color) for $0.04/page which is very reasonable. My printing costs run less than $15/quarter on my school account.

Also for power point slides - look into notability, one note, or other similar apps that allow you to take notes directly on the electronic version of the slide or pdf. Super convenient and you don't need to print everything!

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I've found it more affordable and convenient to print at school. I have a really old HP printer/scanner at home that I use for the occasional print job and for scanning documents to upload, but I would hate to rely on it. I can print at school (including double-sided / color) for $0.04/page which is very reasonable. My printing costs run less than $15/quarter on my school account.

Also for power point slides - look into notability, one note, or other similar apps that allow you to take notes directly on the electronic version of the slide or pdf. Super convenient and you don't need to print everything!

I think it costs the same, but a nickel a page, and then 15 cents for color I think. It might be less than that.

Also for power point slides - look into notability, one note, or other similar apps that allow you to take notes directly on the electronic version of the slide or pdf. Super convenient and you don't need to print everything!

Are these good for Ipad? I'm thinking about buying an Ipad Pro mini.

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I've found it more affordable and convenient to print at school. I have a really old HP printer/scanner at home that I use for the occasional print job and for scanning documents to upload, but I would hate to rely on it. I can print at school (including double-sided / color) for $0.04/page which is very reasonable. My printing costs run less than $15/quarter on my school account.

Also for power point slides - look into notability, one note, or other similar apps that allow you to take notes directly on the electronic version of the slide or pdf. Super convenient and you don't need to print everything!

Oh yeah, one of the things I truly, strongly dislike about printing at school is if I'm in a really important class for nursing like A&P and Micro, I'd like to print in color but my school only has 1 printer for color printing and there were times when it was down and I needed power points like right now lol So that's one of the reasons why I dislike printing at school is because everyone wants color power points and if it breaks, you're SOL. Plus, being able to print from your living room is really nice rather than printing from school at the last minute.

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If you want to print in color, and an affordable printer, ink jet is fine. You can go on amazon and look at the printer reviews. That is a good way to narrow down your choices. I order from amazon all the time and never had a problem.

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Specializes in Cardiac Stepdown, PCU.

One of the best investments I made for nursing school was a laser printer. Mine was $250 at the time. I can print upwards of 6000 pages on one toner cartridge. My ink jet would have burn through $50+ in ink a month or more trying to do all the printing I needed. This is the real cost of an ink jet printer, which are generally costly cheap. Toner for my laser printer is anywhere from $35-$90 depending on brand.

Now, this also will depend on you. I prefer printed materials, so I printed everything. Getting the laser was great for my needs. If you're good with electronic materials, or only plan to print a small mount, it might be unnecessary.

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