In our house we have a black/white laser printer and also a color inkjet printer (for which I always need to buy new ink whenever one of the kids has a fancy project). The laser printer gets far more usage, and I can’t recall if we’ve ever changed the toner, even.

The basic rule of thumb is that inkjet printers are cheap, but the ink is expensive (and doesn’t last long). Laser printers are more expensive, but the toner lasts pretty much forever.

Today you can have your cake and eat it, too, as long as you don’t need color—Amazon has this Brother HL-2270DW Compact Laser Printer with Wireless Networking and Duplex available for just $77.99, their lowest price ever. The reviews are great and the “starter” toner cartridge it comes with will print 700 pages, which means it does about 600 more than my inkjet printer before it complains.

If you don’t need color with your printing, this is a heck of a deal.