# All-in-one printers **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 26, 2013, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-in-one-printers/648445 "2013-01-26T17:28:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-in-one-printers/648445/21 "2013-01-28T23:09:43Z")
> [@deltasigma](#): > > Also, be aware that the printer makers have gotten wise to the refilling thing and now have chips in their cartridges so that the carts actually have to be either reprogrammed or re-chipped. Yeah - the third-party refillable carts typically have a resettable chip in them now with a little button to press, or a pair of terminals that you short together with something metal. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2013, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-in-one-printers/648445/22 "2013-01-29T06:03:46Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > The really compact or entry-level colour lasers were not any cheaper, per page, than inkjets last time I looked, despite common wisdom saying laser printers are cheaper. I thought only b/w lasers were supposed to be cheaper. Also - are colour lasers any good at printing photos? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2013, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-in-one-printers/648445/23 "2013-01-29T08:23:22Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > I thought only b/w lasers were supposed to be cheaper. Also - are colour lasers any good at printing photos? In my experience, not very. Colour lasers are great for graphics with areas of solid uniform colour, but not so good when it comes to gradients and blending. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2013, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-in-one-printers/648445/24 "2013-01-29T09:24:21Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > In my experience, not very. Colour lasers are great for graphics with areas of solid uniform colour, but not so good when it comes to gradients and blending. That’s what I thought, so they’re not really an alternative, even if they’re cheaper. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2013, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-in-one-printers/648445/25 "2013-01-29T16:59:49Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > That’s what I thought, so they’re not really an alternative, even if they’re cheaper. Of course they’re an alternative: both lasers and inkjets have their own limitations which prospective purchasers must weigh up. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-in-one-printers/648445/26 "2013-01-30T20:51:01Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > This. They could probably give the printers away, and still make a healthy profit on the ink. My printer uses 9 colors, and one day last month, I ran out of 6 in the same day. I’d never buy a printer that uses multi-colored ink in one cartridge, because when you run out of one color, you have to replace all the others that aren’t depleted. This. For what it’s worth, we had an HP inkjet all-in-one for a while and it chewed through the ink incredibly fast. We easily spent 3-4 times the purchase price of the thing (which was 130 or so dollars) on ink during the year or two we owned it. Far better to spend 25 for a single cartridge than 60 for a triple cartridge. Unasked-for commentary follows: For what it’s worth, I no longer recommend HP, after our experience. We have an old HP inkjet printer (not any kind of combo) that dates to 2001 or earlier and is still running fine. The all-in-one was a problem from day one. The wireless feature worked sporadically at best (it would refuse to wake up, even when we tried setting static IP). Sometimes it would refuse to be found even when we rebooted it. The desktop software was a nightmare - it wouldn’t scan, and all efforts to get the software working failed utterly (there are a few VERY long threads at HP’s forums dealing with how to try to resolve that). The fax feature simply quit working. After 2 years of misery, we finally bought a laser printer. Considered getting a color laser all-in-one but for the extra money, and the fact that much of what we print color isn’t required, and the much-cheaper toner for a laser, we opted to keep the trusty old 2001-era HP inkjet, and bought a Brother all-in-one. For 400 dollars - and one new toner cartridge so far at 90ish bucks - it’s served us far better. It has its quirks: took a while to get it to scan from the machine, vs. initiating the scan from the computer, and sometimes it just decides it doesn’t want to talk to the wireless so we have to unplug / replug the router. But in general it’s been a much better choice. And 400 was more than you might need, printer-wise (I wanted something that could scan duplex, and handle both letter and legal size). An HP-brand would probably have done fine, but I haven’t forgiven them yet :). ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-in-one-printers/648445/27 "2013-01-31T07:47:22Z")
In my experience, HP spends the most effort making it hard to use 3rd party inks. Some Canon cartridges are just containers of ink, I’ve never seen a Canon cartridge that needed to be reset, but all HP’s cartridges do. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-in-one-printers/648445/28 "2013-01-31T17:49:38Z")
Heh. In general I HATE printers. I don’t print that much, and when I do, I hate wondering whether the fool printer is going to work, given that it’s been idle for, say, a couple months. I probably ought to just not have one of the damned things, and take anything I want to be printed to FedEx, but that’s just enough inconvenience that I have a printer. Given this pattern of abuse, I found Epson inkjets especially bad: 1. When you turn them on, they have to do this ridiculous dance before they’re ready. 2. They are ALWAYS clogged from non-use, forcing you to fiddle around and waste ink to get the two page hardcopy that you want for some reason, before shutting it off again. Currently I actually have a cheap HP all-in-one (J3680), and it has behaved much better with this pattern of use. As a bonus, it has a scanner which I’ve used occasionally, and, a fax, which I don’t. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-in-one-printers/648445.md?page=1)