Printers...anybody know a good cheap one? (1 Viewer)

[Brian Sharp]

Cheap HP Laser printer. Had one for 12 years and just on to my third cartridge which I got from Amazon Marketplace for £23.00 (about $37.00) Used to have an inkjet but it was always giving problems with the ink drying on the printer heads as it was used rather infrequently.

 

[Stan]

Don't have a model to recommend, but definitely go laser. I'd also recommend going with the higher end printers that can copy, fax, print and do two sided printing.The companies suck people in with cheap prices for inkjets, but then endless purchases of new print heads. They dry out, one color stops working, etc.

I'd stay away from HP.
I wish I had better info for you, but I've worked with HP equipment for 20+ years. Avoid them. It's almost like they design their equipment to fail then try and suck you into a maintenance contract.

Supported probably 100+ HP inkjets at my last job. It was literally like clockwork. They'd reach a certain point and fail. I got to know HP printers quite intimately, all the belts, gears, etc.
Sorry to rant on HP, but just my little bit of advice. Amazed you got 12 years out of yours, definitely not their normal behavior.

 

[schan1269]

I'm buying the Dell laser. Doesn't do much, don't need much more than wifi printing.What am I returning?DOFPEnded up buying the 7 movie X-Men pack when it was $32(might still be?).

 

[DaveF]

Don't have a model to recommend, but definitely go laser. I'd also recommend going with the higher end printers that can copy, fax, print and do two sided printing.The companies suck people in with cheap prices for inkjets, but then endless purchases of new print heads. They dry out, one color stops working, etc. I'd stay away from HP.I wish I had better info for you, but I've worked with HP equipment for 20+ years. Avoid them. It's almost like they design their equipment to fail then try and suck you into a maintenance contract. Supported probably 100+ HP inkjets at my last job. It was literally like clockwork. They'd reach a certain point and fail. I got to know HP printers quite intimately, all the belts, gears, etc.Sorry to rant on HP, but just my little bit of advice. Amazed you got 12 years out of yours, definitely not their normal behavior.

Hp laser printers were tanks, built to last. My wife's died of electronics failure after 13 yrs. mechanically, it was still fine.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Since Sam seems to have gotten his printer business figured out...I hope he doesn't mind me piling on.

How about a good, cheap photo printer (if that's not an oxymoron)? My daughter--with a new baby--wants one for Christmas.
It looks like the choices for budget models are Epson, HP and Canon. Anyone got any experience with one?

I'm sure she'd like WiFi and being able to print from her phone and SD memory cards. Other than that, I know I'd prefer to get her a model that uses separate color ink cartridges than a single tri-color cartridge.

Any suggestions?

 

[DaveF]

Since Sam seems to have gotten his printer business figured out...I hope he doesn't mind me piling on.

How about a good, cheap photo printer (if that's not an oxymoron)? My daughter--with a new baby--wants one for Christmas.
It looks like the choices for budget models are Epson, HP and Canon. Anyone got any experience with one?

I'm sure she'd like WiFi and being able to print from her phone and SD memory cards. Other than that, I know I'd prefer to get her a model that uses separate color ink cartridges than a single tri-color cartridge.

Any suggestions?

"Facebook"

I haven't looked into this for a few years, but last time I bought an all-in-one inkjet photoprinter, they all did a good job. I have the little brother to this one, five years removed. If I were impulse buying it would be a Pixma. Canon has done a good job with cheap printers over the years and I've been happy with my MG5220. I like an all-in-one, because the scanner is the most useful utility (in my experience). I use it weekly.
http://shop.usa.canon.com/shop/en/catalog/printers-all-in-ones/photo-all-in-one-inkjet-printers/pixma-mg6620-black-wireless

The challenge in photo printing is in the practicality of how much time you want to spend getting the cropping and color balance right on the print versus what's on screen.

What I have also found is that we tell ourselves we want to print lots of photos...but we don't. It's too much nuisance for too little benefit. This is only more true now that every Grandma and Grandad is on Facebook; and everyone has email and messages.

A few other ideas for the enthusiastic mom or grandma with loads of baby pictures to print

Upload photos and have them printed and shipped for you:
http://www.adoramapix.com/app/products/prints

Make a coffee-table photobook and give it out to the family:
http://www.blurb.com
http://www.adoramapix.com/app/products/books

Prints on glass for extra wow
http://www.fractureme.com

Print on aluminum for a special piece
http://www.gallerydirect.com/photo/upload

(we've used a number of these services for books and interesting prints)


And there's also buying a cheap digital photo frame, and refreshing the USB drive every six months for a new suite of photos.

Good luck!

 

[Stan]

Since Sam seems to have gotten his printer business figured out...I hope he doesn't mind me piling on.

How about a good, cheap photo printer (if that's not an oxymoron)? My daughter--with a new baby--wants one for Christmas.
It looks like the choices for budget models are Epson, HP and Canon. Anyone got any experience with one?

I'm sure she'd like WiFi and being able to print from her phone and SD memory cards. Other than that, I know I'd prefer to get her a model that uses separate color ink cartridges than a single tri-color cartridge.

Any suggestions?

I'd just like to second your comment about getting separate color cartridges, not a single tri-color. Maybe to obvious, but if your yellow goes out, everything you print afterwards is screwed up unless, just like the companies want you to do, buy another tri-color cartridge. Stick with separate colors, you'll be much happier.

 

[schan1269]

Speaking of Pixma...There is one on Groupon that says photo. I looked for it on Amazon (Groupon doesn't provide product numbers, but they do use manufacturer pictures making it somewhat easy to check elsewhere) and the GP price was considerably less.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Speaking of Pixma...There is one on Groupon that says photo. I looked for it on Amazon (Groupon doesn't provide product numbers, but they do use manufacturer pictures making it somewhat easy to check elsewhere) and the GP price was considerably less.

I just looked it up (if it's the same deal...since Groupon does it's sales regionally) and it's the Canon MX-472 (it says so in the "Specifications" list.

Groupon $59. Amazon $64.

Unfortunately, it takes a single tri-color ink cartridge.

No go.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Dave:

There's a Canon MG5520 on Amazon right now (last year's model apparently) for just $55. It uses individual color inks. Everything looks good.

All four ink cartridges are $37.

This is the new frontrunner.

 

[DaveF]

I've got the 5220 (I think, bought about four years ago). I've printed a number of photos, some of which are still framed in our new place. It's done well, and seems to not clog (unlike all the clogging ink jets I had in the 90s). It's been a good all purpose unit. And I rely on the scanner weekly.

 

[Mike Frezon]

The trigger has been pulled...with some non-OEM ink (great reviews).

Thanks, fellas.

 

[Paul D G]

Consumer Reports did a story last year about ink jet printers. They said much ink gets wasted priming the heads if you don't use the printer frequently. They did tests by printing something like 300 pages in one go vs 10 pages every three days. They used less ink in the former.

I seemed to always be running out of ink and we print conservatively. My company was moving and were throwing out a ton of equipment so I liberated a laser jet. The cartridge was 1/3 full and it's over a year later and it's just running out (I've also started working from home more frequently and have to print a lot of work stuff). The laser carts are about $50. So $50 every three years (with heavy usage) vs $50 three times a year for light inkjet usage makes getting a laser a no brainer.

Mine isn't wifi, but it's networked, and as such, wifi via the router.

 

[schan1269]

Just bought a Pantum 2502 on NewEgg for $30 w/ free shipping.Comes with a 700 page starter cartridge, likely to be the only one ever needed.

 

[Stan]

Good luck to anybody with laser jets, me included. Things aren't as bad as they used to be. My hard drive died, on a one year old HP DV6, got a new drive and started over, but didn't have that special HP startup partition. Printer driver with Windows 7 was no longer available (odd since it worked when I bought them together).

Anyhow, huge hassle to get the printer running, I finally gave up and emailed documents to a friend and had her print them. Finally worked out the bugs with my printer. HP7350 wouldn't work, but you could fake it by going through about a zillion steps by making the laptop think it was an HP5550.The instructions you'll find do not work. I just finally played around enough that I finally got things to work.

Anyhow..... My printer was idle for over a year. When I finally got the laptop to talk to it, worked perfectly. I thought the cartridges would have dried up long ago, but amazed that everything was fine.

A minor hint to those who may not know, but a q-tip, dipped in rubbing alcohol does a great job at cleaning the "heads" of the printer cartridges that may be a little dehydrated from non-use.

 

[schan1269]

Updates...This cheapy Pantum...Works. And works well.Every feature, including the mobile printing app, is stupid proof.$30 well spent(not checked to see if it went up).

 

[ChristopherG]

just picked up a Canon Pixma MG7520 this week. The white one is on sale at BestBuy for 129.99. So far I am digging it. The wifi aspect has been fantastic and family loves the idea of printing pictures from iphones wirelessly. Will follow up once I've lived with this a bit longer.

 

[DaveF]

Not the cheapest, but I just bought the Epson WF-3620. This replaces my Canon Pixma MG5220

It's got everything I want (duplex, auto-feeder scanner, ethernet), and the really stupid things I can live with (out of ink and nothing works).


http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/jsp/Product.do?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&sku=C11CD19201