Getting a personal laser printer can be a very cost effective way to reduce cost for students or home office. They cost slightly more than a colour inkjet printer, but if you keep it for a while (3-4 years of college/uni course for example), the running cost might save you a lot. Read my previous entry on those mono personal laser printers.

I have blogged about Deals Direct’s previous budget printer Lexmark E230, which is out of stock at the moemnt. However I saw they just put another budget printer onto their product list — Kyocera FS-720 (product specification here) — and this time it is going for $129 (+$9 delivery).

Yes. A laser printer for less than $130. Maybe it is just me who need to overcome the fact that they used to cost me $600+ 6 years ago (which mine is still working fine).

Running cost is quite good as well. Its long running toner cartridge TK-110 costs around $110 and can last for 6,000 pages. Kyocera printers have permanent imagine drum which lasts 100,000 pages which further drives down the running cost.

The only issue I can see is that Kyocera FS-720 is a GDI printer, i.e. it does not emulate any standard printing language, and only Windows is supported. It is not suitable if you need a printer for your Linux or Mac computers. One step up the range, Kyocera FS-820, should do the trick as it has PCL-6 emulation implemented.