I want a new printer £50 budget

Never ever buy Lexmark or Dell, stick to HP, Canon or Epson.

Check the price of cartridges on somewhere like https://www.choicestationery.com before you buy the new printer!

HP Photosmart C3180 All-in-One (print, copy, scan) - £39.94 delivered*. G

*Price correct on the day of posting

GoofyGAT wrote:

HP Photosmart C3180 All-in-One (print, copy, scan) - £39.94 delivered. G

I second this. I was also looking for a home general use printer but when I saw this I was bowled over. We've had it 4 months and it's great. Not had to replace the cartridges yet.

Why I like it:

It prints colour and BW documents really quick
It prints straight from memory cards and the photo quality prints is great
Photocopier is really handy for those times when you need to send forms off etc
Good quality scanner
Looks really stylish, not much bigger than a normal printer.

Would highly recommend this.

I forgot to say, 58.99 with free next day delivery, i think it is a bargain!

I looked into this a month ago, when helping a friend choose a printer.

I was tempted by the HP all in one, mentioned above, but decided against it on the grounds of the cartridges. They have a tiny capacity 5ml, only do 175 pages. Cartridges are never cheap, as they have the print head in them. Runnning costs end up at >10p/sheet. Advantage is printer likely to last longer as the print head is replaced every time you get a new cartridge.

Lexmark, I would avoid as they are out to make money on the cartridges. The printer only comes with 'starter' cartridges, so you have to buy a new set virtually straight away, again, they aren't cheap.

The option I went for, too early to judge long term results yet, was a Brother all in one DCP-115. £50 in Staples, worked out at about £40 with a discount voucher I had. The funniest moment was whilst paying for it, store manager shouted over from the door (waiting to lock up), do you want a set of cartridges to go with that, you know they only come with starter low capacity cartridges. I pointed out to him the side of the box, saying it comes with a set of full capacity cartridges and he was most surprised and went away again with no further selling attempts.

Cartridges are dirt cheap, paid £11 for 2 complete sets (8 cartridges off Ebay) capacity 400 pages ish. Works out at less than 2p per sheet.
I expect it will not last as long as the HP, but by this point you will have saved enough in cartridge cost to pay for a new one.

Brother also sell direct on Ebay, eg item 270087624949. But I have seen these printers at reasonable prices in Staples, Tesco etc.

I don't think anything else, in this price bracket, can compete with the Brother on running costs. Time will tell what it's life is like, but I bet it's better than any Lexmark you look at!