Home printer question

[pop058]

Chasing opinions and recommendations for a home printer. Currently have a couple of cheaper Canon printers but having driver issues. Main use is for Nan's scrapbooking stuff with a couple of customer invoices a week from me.

Both of us run W10 on Lenovo laptops (if that makes any difference).

TIA

[austastar]

Hi,
I went to my local Laser Toner Recharge shop and asked their advice for the needs I outlined to them.
They recommended one of the HP 3 in 1 models and I am very happy with it.
Cheers

[Arapiles]

General rule is:

Cheap to buy printer = expensive ink

More expensive printer = proportionally cheaper ink


My laser printer's cartridges are a couple of hundred dollars a set, but they do claim about 60,000 pages per cartridge.

[travelrover]

Chasing opinions and recommendations for a home printer. Currently have a couple of cheaper Canon printers but having driver issues. Main use is for Nan's scrapbooking stuff with a couple of customer invoices a week from me.

Both of us run W10 on Lenovo laptops (if that makes any difference).

TIA

I have Lenovo/Thinkpad with an HP Officejet 3 in 1 printer. Had no issues until the latest major Win 10 release which seamed to stuff up scanning over WiFi. Can still print no problems but no matter what I do I can not get the scanner to work over the WiFi. Just have to plug the cable in which is inconvenient but doable.
Shopping around you will often find replacement cartridges (and HP keep changing the software so you have to use OEM unless you have disabled the auto update function) on sale at Officeworks or Big W.

[disco gazza]

After years of having canon printers failing after I didnt have to print anything for a month or 2, I finally
went and bought an Epsom ET 4750. eco-tank.
Its brilliant.
You can see the level of ink you have ( havent tried to refill it yet lol)
Prints,scans and you also get timely updates for the soft/hardware.Plus the prints are good.
Its a bit pricey when you buy it, but the savings will be in the ink you dont have to keep buying at exhorbant prices and the thing not
working after sitting for a bit not doing anything.
Have a look at it when you go have a look at the different models and what they offer.

cheers
DG

[Red90]

I got an HP Laserjet Pro M479 a short while back and it is great. Fast, double side printing, and long toner life.

[incisor]

any of the brother colour inkjet multifunction units are fine for that sort of work and are cheap to run compared to many

the epson eco tanks are good as well... just bought one to replace my worn out brother.. bit pricier but worth it in the long run... you need to carefully check which model does what tho...

[350RRC]

any of the brother colour inkjet multifunction units are fine for that sort of work and are cheap to run compared to many

the epson eco tanks are good as well... just bought one to replace my worn out brother.. bit pricier but worth it in the long run... you need to carefully check which model does what tho...

Can vouch for the brothers. Have had a MFC 260 for years now (scan, fax, print) which has been faultless.

Only downside now is that the (non genuine) ink will dry up if it doesn't get used for colour printing often, but I don't need to do that these days.

Also have a small brother laser b&w printer that takes aftermarket toner and drums which is also faultless.

DL

[NavyDiver]

Chasing opinions and recommendations for a home printer. Currently have a couple of cheaper Canon printers but having driver issues. Main use is for Nan's scrapbooking stuff with a couple of customer invoices a week from me.

Both of us run W10 on Lenovo laptops (if that makes any difference).

TIA

If colour is not needed I think laser printers are the cheapest to run and no issues with ink stuffing up over time.

If you were local I'd give you one. A lot of places like my business change all as needed even if a few are still working fine. The toner cartridges seen expensive but last for many thousand pages. You can refill them as well a few time. Gum tree and similar or ask the practice manager of your Doc if they have a few they might like to give away[bigwhistle]

Brother HL 5040 or even HL 1440 are both out of date yet work horses+++

The newer ones are wireless. A new "Brother HL-L2350DW Compact Monochrome Laser Printer with automatic 2-sided printing and wireless connectivity, 30ppm, Wifi Direct, Wireless"Is just $159 from kogan[tonguewink] $50 or below or a older one with free being a good price.

Above is of no use if Colour is wanted[thumbsupbig]

[PhilipA]

I have an Epson XP235 which cost AFAIR $60 and has been great for several years. It is a wireless printer and will print from my network.

I use Ebay cartridges which work well with no problems other than a grumble from the printer every now and then threatening dire results.

They cost about $15 for a set of all colours.

My only regret was not paying another $10 to get Iprint which I thought I would never use, but lo and behold some months ago my wife said "Can I print my messages from my Iphone?"
It is also pretty slow , but colour rendition is good even with fake ink, even with photos.

All I need for non business purposes and it has printed thousands of pages when my wife was President of a Club, and I was also President of a club.
Regards PhilipA

[BradC]

If colour is not needed I think laser printers are the cheapest to run and no issues with ink stuffing up over time.

I'd go as far as to say if you don't need "photo quality" colour then get a laser.

Colour lasers can be had for cheap, and while the toner generally isn't, it never dries out. I have a number of lasers and the thing I love is I can not use one for a year, fire it up, print 2 pages and turn it off again.

Zero maintenance or hassle. My wife has a $99 HP inkjet I bought from Officeworks last year, and in 12 months I've spent more on ink than I've spent on toner over the last 10 years for the A4 lasers (the A3 laser toner is $2k/set but that's another story).

[NavyDiver]

I'd go as far as to say if you don't need "photo quality" colour then get a laser.

Colour lasers can be had for cheap, and while the toner generally isn't, it never dries out. I have a number of lasers and the thing I love is I can not use one for a year, fire it up, print 2 pages and turn it off again.

Zero maintenance or hassle. My wife has a $99 HP inkjet I bought from Officeworks last year, and in 12 months I've spent more on ink than I've spent on toner over the last 10 years for the A4 lasers (the A3 laser toner is $2k/set but that's another story).

Every one I know with a inkjet hands over $$$$$$$$$$$. Wife brought one. Its dusty down stairs in Micky mouse condition. I would not be so nasty to give it away [biggrin]

[BathurstTom]

I have a fuji xerox monochrome (black and White) 3 in 1 printer. After the original toner cartridge ran out, I have just used $16 ebay cheapies with no problems what so ever. - they do up to 12,000 pages It does continuous scan, multiside printing and is wireless which is just graet. I had Canon inkjets and an Epson for years, but got sick of the jets blocking up through lack of use. And it was cheap at $93, but it is now discontinued as Fuji and Xerox have parted ways.

[Ferret]

Maybe what not to buy.

Canon makes 'all-in-one' printers that refuse to scan when out of ink, lawsuit claims (https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/19/canon_lawsuit_ink/)

Gave away inkjet printers years ago. Bought a Brother colour laser in 2017 and never looked back. It come with 'starter' toner cartridges. So far I'm still on all the original 'starter' colour cartridges. Which maybe just means I don't print much colour but the point is it prints colour when I need it, first time, every time, even with long rests between colour prints.

[AK83]

..... Main use is for Nan's scrapbooking stuff with a couple of customer invoices a week from me.

.....

If Nan's scrapbooking stuff equates to photo quality, then inkjet.
If near photo quality is good enough, like BradC said an colour laserjet is the better option.

I've had Canons' before and many either cost too much to refill(using aftermarket refills) or just break. Never again(even tho they do print out great photo quality prints).

Many years ago now(maybe 2007-ish) I needed to print out a lot of legal paperwork when going through separation and stuff .. and that's when my final Canon died and went to the recyclers!

Got a networked HP colour laserjet(from Officeworks). Didn't think I needed a networked printer, but time showed just how handy they end up being for 'ya.

Mine is a HP CP1518ni(the 'n' usually denotes networking capability).
You probably think to yourself, you dunno nothing about networking and you will never need it .. but once you have it and use it, you'll understand why it's so handy and zero knowledge of networking is all you need to get it up and running.

W10 helps with all of this.
Once the kids grew up a bit more and wanted to print this and that for school, having the printer shared via my PC became more of an annoyance than the printer not working .. I preferred that it stopped working so I didn't have to fire up my PC and let the kids print some of their stuff back then.
But once the networked HP was got, I showed the kids how to find the printer, they saved it in their own computers as a printer device(obviously at dads .. not mums!) and they left me alone. They printed out stuff like crazy too!

The disadvantage of the laserjet is that the inks(toners) are expensive when you need to get a full set(usually 4 of) but you get so many thousands more printed pages than any inkjet ever will .. you just forget that after 10 years(and 8000 pages) you haven't replaced the toner cartridges, and forgot how to do it.

On my HP I haven't replaced the colour toners for a good 10 years now. The toner cartridges that initially come in the printer don't last as long .. maybe 1000-1500 pages or so. The manufacturer cartridges aren't worth the money. All 4 toners will cost 4 times what a printer cost .. so cheaper to get a new printer again.
I get refills online, and the full set + one extra black cost $120 or so delivered. Quality is on par(but I don't print photos). The colour prints are good enough for say a colour flyer or magazine page or something like that .. just not photo quality.

The Brother colour laserjets look like decent value for money.

[3toes]

A little late on this I know.

About 2 years ago purchased an Epson printer that used liquid inks. Paid a little more for it than a cheap printer but has worked out very economical. No longer think about printing as ink lasts for ever and relatively cheap to replace when runs low. Only replaced the black ink so far