[Mark]

A quick question for you hardware gurus.

Someone gave me a new in the sealed box Samsung laser printer from about 7 years ago. Should I take the time and effort to unbox it, connect it and install drivers to test it out for possible resale or do these printers or toner cartridges have a limited lifespan?

[deuxsonic]

Toner is a dry powder. It gets fused to the paper using static electricity and a fuser which heats it up. They should last a long time. The toner is likely sealed in a foil bag as well which would protect it from moisture.

[Kyanos]

Should be good to go, printers are a bit finicky though, unless it froze and thawed a few times or shows signs of rough handling it should still be fine.

Re-read your post. I would sell it in the box as is.

[Mark]

It was inside temp controlled storage and on the same shelf for those 7 years.

[Person of Color]

Toner cartridges DO have a limited lifespan.

I recently bought a Dell 1110 off Craigslist, which is a rebadged Samsung ML-1610.

This printer had printed only 370 pages in ten years. The original sample cartridge was still in there. Toner is plastic particles, and over time moisture will bind them together.

I got a brand new cartridge for $12 off eBay. The text quality was much better but the graphics quality was horrible due to the inferior drum, not that this model is known for good grayscale to begin with. Next time around I'd spend more on a better cartridge, but 1,500-2,000 pages for twelve bucks keeps me from bitching.

Oh, I also paid $15 for it and it came with all the cables and manauls LOL. Talk about a steal. The drivers are also only 7MB in size and most of that is the manual...which REALLY kicks ass IMO. So sick of bloated bullshit.

[Mark]

I have the ML-2510. I guess I'll open it up and test it. I'm going to ask only 25-30 dollars for it so I didn't want to go through the effort if there was a good chance something deteriorated with age.

[Robman]

Printers are cheap as shit compared to what they used to be, even now combined with a scanner. For how much the average user uses a printer I'm damn sure any modern day printer will do.

Mark, if it's still in the box... sell it that way. The new owner can always purchase the perishables that it may need. The hardware will still be just fine.

I have a canon printer/scanner thing, I rarely use it and got it years ago for like $49 CDN from a liquidation place.

[Person of Color]

Mark., on 10 September 2016 - 05:20 PM, said:

I have the ML-2510. I guess I'll open it up and test it. I'm going to ask only 25-30 dollars for it so I didn't want to go through the effort if there was a good chance something deteriorated with age.

That looks like a newer version of what I have. Why not just keep it for yourself?