When I got my computer a year or so ago, my techie friend said, “Doesn’t really matter which printer you get, they’re all crap.” So I got a Canon S330, which, true to form, is a total piece of crap. I have to hand-feed every sheet of paper in, coaxing it the whole time like trying to get Karen Carpenter to eat pancakes.
Every printer I have ever had was a piece of crap. The giant expensive state-of-the-art printers we have at work (Xeroxes and Canons) are giant expensive state-of-the-art pieces of crap, which spend more time being repaired than working.
Are there any not-too-expensive desktop printers I can buy to go with my laptop Toshiba? I mean, that aren’t total pieces of crap? You know, when you hit “print,” the paper actually goes through the printer and comes out the other end with stuff on it?
I’ve never had a problem with Epson line of printers, the paper always goes through. But I think the ink management on these things are horrible. You have to constantly clean the damn thing every other 2 pages to get all the colors to print. They’re all shit.
Feeding disorders is usually a sign of dusty feed rollers. You could try using a cotton swab, or lint-free cloth, dipped in rubbing alcohol, to wipe the rollers. This usually works best if you remove the paper and send a print job to the printer as that will get the rollers moving so you can clean the entire surface.
Aside from that bit of advice, good luck. It seems that color inkjet printers have become a commodity item…to be used and disposed of every two-years or so.
My Lexmark Z52 does just fine, as did the Tektronix Phaser 740 we has at work, as did the HP Laserjet 3, 4, and 6 printers I’ve dealt with.
Epson was the pits. We had one at work and I had one at home that both sucked - slurping down the ink and clogging all the time.
As for feeding problems, the only time I’ve had trouble was when I used some off brand coated paper for high resolution. The coating left dust on the rollers, and the printer wouldn’t feed even one sheet properly before fucking up.
I have a Lexmark X73 and it’s only given me one problem, which was software related, and fixed itself after a time. They aren’t terribly expensive either, Eve, and customer service helped me out when I needed them!
I’ve got two printers - an HP Laserjet 4, which intermittently doesn’t fuse the ink properly to the paper so that it rubs off when you touch it, and an Epson Stylus 640 for color work, which ALWAYS dries out the nozzles between uses, requiring me to run several sheets of paper and nozzle cleaning cycles before giving me decent output. That really sucks.
There have been some good printers, though. The HP Laserjet II was a tremendous success, and turned out to be so reliable that it actually hurt HP’s bottom line in subsequent years, because no one needed to replace their printers with new HP models.
There are still plenty LJII’s out there, working flawlessly after being in service for more than 15 years. I had one that I used for years, and I don’t recall so much as a paper jam. It just worked. Every time.
Never had a problem with my HP DeskJet 882c. I think we’ve had two jams in four years with fairly regular use. Not daily but certainly more than a couple times a week. I’ve even run fabric backed with iron on paper through mine.
Canon S600 here. I haven’t had any problems with it, although when I want to print envelopes, I have remove the paper, readjust the tray to the envelope size, etc. etc. The next printer I get will have a manual feed slot on it.
We also have had the HP L4 for nearly 10 years now and have had no trouble with it. In fact my husband bought it to print his thesis back then and it had done so (to the tune of about 5 packs of paper) and since then has helped me run a small home business for a couple years (brochures, business cards, catalogs, newsletters, iron-ons, etc) and even after all that, I’ve only needed to change the toner cartridge once. Bargain.
We’ve had a HP DeskJet 832C for ages and ages as well. (4 years maybe? Five?) I don’t use it nearly as often but I’ve never had problems with it. Just used it to make the covers for my Xmas CDs as well as the little “mass card” type thingies I sent out when my cat had to be put to sleep. I’ve also only had to change the ink cartridges in it only once, and that was after an extended period of inactivity which I supposed caused them to dry up.
In my experience I’d say to stick with the HPs, but I know that is not everyone’s experience as I constantly see them (and newer versions of the ones we have!) at the thrift store. I suppose there’s the possibility that they work fine, but needed something faster/bigger or what have you, but most likely not.
We have a Canon i9100 which we’ve been happy with. Our HP k60x served (and continues to serve) well, and my HP 660C would probably print very nicely if I were to dig it out and plug it in.
I’ve heard bad things about Epson and Lexmark. Lexmark is especially bad, from what I’ve heard. Really really bad. Don’t do it.
On the institutional/corporate side, I really recommend HP. I’ve had all sorts of problems with Xerox printers/copystations and can’t recommend them at all. Xerox slashed R&D funding to next to nothing about two years ago and has been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for quite some time now. The only decent products they sell are the ones they bought from Textronix a few years back. On the other hand, we have an HP 4si that has over a million pages on it, and it rumbles along pretty well for being as old as it is.
I like my i9100 by canon. It does not have an eating disorder, it prints fast and well and even reliably prints envelopes. This is the first non HP printer I have been pleased with. I got it because the large format HPs were much more expensive and I like that the print head can be replaced seperately from the individual 6 ink cartridges. HP printers you replace the head and the cartridge at the same time. IIRC Epson, you simply don’t replace the print heads so if you need a new one you get a new printer. I had problems with other lower end canon printer’s paper feed. The HP 4500 color laserjet we had at work was reliable and held up under heavy use with no problems. The people upstairs who also had access to the expensive xerox color printers seemed to prefer the HP for reliability.
Just hours after reading and replying to this thread a colleague rings me from his home (I am at work) and tells me that another colleague gave him a printer, which is not working. When he tells it to print it sends a blank sheet of paper through every time. Strange, as this colleague rarely rings work for a non-work related reason. Strange because the OP asks about printers where the paper comes through with stuff on it and my colleague’s printer sends paper through without stuff on it.
The HP 2210 model - fax, copier, and scanner. It prints beautiful pictures (from screen or prints laid on the glass). It will take a very thick piece of glossy print paper and pull it through with no problem. The display buttons are idiot-proof, and the fax works fine (answering machine must be turned off.)
At $300, it wasn’t cheap, but I’ve been very happy with the performance.