I have an HP printer that I’m pretty well fed up with. I’d like to get something new, for my own sanity. My requirements are modest: I want a cheap color printer that doesn’t suck. I’d like it to be able to take any old white paper, not the special white paper that HP demands. I’d like the ink not to run out every five copies. I’d like it to be robust and reliable, and run off a bunch of copies without my having to hand-feed each sheet of paper in.
I’m mostly going to be printing Word documents, flyers, labels, envelopes, that kind of thing. Photos, maybe occasionally. Anybody bought a printer in recent times that they’re happy with?
Try looking for Canon or Epson printers. They usually have the print head in the machine, not the cartridge, so replacement ink tanks can be pretty cheap. If you’re looking to refill them, check out if they have chips in the tanks. My Canon didn’t have 'em, but I heard both manufacturers were adding them. I don’t know anything about the new Kodak models, but most reviews I’ve seen have been somewhat positive. They were designed for low ink costs, so you may want to check them out. I’d definitely stay away from the Lexmark printers. I’ve heard nothing but grief about them from friends and few positive comments during reviews or message board postings.
I’m just throwing this out: If you do a lot of black and white printing, consider a home laser. They seem more expensive to buy, but operating costs tend to be low on a per-page basis. Couple this with an inexpensive color inkjet for less expensive printing costs. Use the inkjet’s expensive ink only when color is needed. You may even be able to put up with your current HP. Just something to consider.
It sounds like your current printer is an inkjet one, so I’d recommend a color laser printer. You can get the HP 2605dn for $250. (And if you don’t want to get another HP printer, the Samsung CLP-300 is also $250.)
No inkjet on the market will give you quality prints with uncoated paper. Color lasers (we have a C6100) are cheaper to run, and can use cheap paper, but are many, many times more expensive to purchase.
I second that suggestion. Besides low costs, they tend to be quiet, the output is not smudged with moisture and wrinkled with heavy ink saturation.
I have an ancient HP laser (not color) and a modern inkjet color, which I use about equally. The laser’s cart costs $36 and lasts me a year. The inkjet’s carts (2) cost about the same, but last me about a month.
And inkjet ink dries up if you don’t use it for a while; laser toner doesn’t deteriorate over (short spans of) time.
My Canon (MP500) uses a lot more ink than my HP ever did, and it costs about $75 for all 5 tanks (they seem to all run out at about the same time) but it doesn’t act up as much as my HP did. I had a bad ink tank with my Canon and after I sent an email to Canon about it, they sent me a replacement tank, no questions asked (other than the serial number to my printer).
HP printers don’t demand special paper unless you’re preparing something special. Plain old photocopier paper works just fine in my HP Officejet. I use the special photographic paper when printing photographs, though.
The comment about operating costs is very important: do your sums. Be aware that printers can ship with low-capacity cartridges. For instance, with HP, the laser printers have two sorts of toner / developer cartridges, suffixed A and X. The X cartridges are the high capacity ones and cost more per cartridge and less per page, but the printers ship with the A cartridges.
I have to confess, I don’t know even whether my current printer is an inkjet or laser. Probably an inkjet. I never really thought much about the difference, but the advice you’re giving me seems sound, and I may well go that route.
I’ll add another vote for a Laser solution. For the longest time (6-7 years) I had an occasional use inkjet (requiring a new ink cartridge set…generally around christmas) and a BW laser printer. The laserprinter never let me down and was only replaced when I got a killer deal on a business class color laser printer.
In 7 years, I put 4000 pages through the first printer. The new color laserjet currently has 2250 full color pages of toner left, and 5700 pages of BW left and is rated at 35,000 pages a_month
I expect it’ll be the last printer I ever own…and it cost about $600 to get it and the toner. That’s roughly 0.07 a page.
Take, for example, the 2605dn mentioned above. If you bought it at NO discount, and a full set of replacement toner, you’d get about 4000 copies for $572 ($0.14 a sheet), with a second round of toner, the price drops to 0.09 a sheet…and it never ever dries out. If it takes you six years to go through that first batch of toner, you’ll not have any additional costs for six years.
That’s using HP branded toner…there’s some cost savings in refilling or going off brand…and this is all just assuming two toner changes, chances are, the printer would be going strong on its fifth toner change, assuming it’s in a clean environment.
Long story short: Inkjets only appear cheap on the initial purchase. The initial investment on a color laser makes a big difference over the long haul.
And in four sets of toner, you won’t have gone through one fuser. (The point of using a high capacity office device in a home office is that you most likely won’t be replacing all the replaceables before you’re sick of the thing and buy the next new hotness.)
Strictly speaking, my 3500 series printer’s got an Image Transfer kit to replace too.