All-In-One / Multifunction Printers comparison

pinkyler

Hello.

My husband & me are looking for a multifunction printer - the ones that do printing,photocopying,scanning and faxing if possible, but mainly, the first 3 - Print/Photocopy/Scan.

We are tired of paying for fax and scanning and photocopying outside. So we thought it'd be good to have 1 at home that we can use. Not too expensive else we can't afford it, and not too cheap either the quality is questionable.

We have been looking for reviews in PC Pro and PC Advisor, and are still indecisive at the moment. ???

My dad recommended we get HP. We wanted to get HP as well, but the reviews we read so far seems to put down HP (only the ones around the price range of £60-£150).

I found out apparently Epson Stylus CX 3600 is quite good? And Brother MFC 3420C has some positive reviews as well.

Any ideas anyone? Any advice would be appreciated. :)Thanks.

-pinky

-TangleFoot-

HP's multifunction printers do indeed get bad press - particularly the old PSC-700 series (I tried to troubleshoot one for a friend of the family once - scanner kept failing).

At the moment though, Lexmark all-in-ones seem to be the least expensive - the X1180 is available at Currys' online shop for £39.99*. In the other major brands, Epson are reputed to produce the highest quality prints (but I have noticed that the ink smells a bit whilst it's drying); and I'm not entirely sure on this one, but Canon appear to generally have the least expensive ink cartridges.

If you're looking for an all-in-one laser printer though, I have absolutely no idea. Then again, you may want to think on this: left alone for a few years in a pile, laser-printed documents have a tendency to stick together. Lamination is pretty much the only way to keep them intact, and that would be an extra expense on top of the extortionate price of toner.

Hope this helps.

*Not anymore. Pity...

abr

i bought a epson cx6400 earlier in the year ;D ;D

seems to work very well and the cartridges are not too expensive.

you would do very well though if you could get one for less than £100

mandymack

before you buy one take a look at what the cost of replacement cartridges are.
I bought a Lexmark X73 and the cartridges for it are really expensive.
I find both https://www.ciao.co.uk and https://www.dooyoo.co.uk really helpful for reviews as they are the comments of people who have actually bought amd used the product.
Hope that helps

Malestrom

There are some basic reviews at Zdnet although I don't know how old they are, you can also select different printers and compare them side by side. Not great info, but it all helps.

Don't buy a Lexmark though, too expensive to run.

nmcdonald

I have a lexmark x85 3 in one ( printer scanner coppier) which I bought from aldi for about £60 last year never had a problem.
Heres the good news saw them in there last week for £49 although they may now be sold out. Best to check if you have to travel a distance to a aldi store .

blinky

Wouldn't touch a Lexmark printer with a 6 foot bargepole. Tend to have poor build quality (even by inkjet standards) and expensive to run.

I'm was surprised to see the HP ones get a bad press as their scanners and printers are pretty good.

Don't know what the Canon ones are like (if they do them) again, their separate printers and scanners are pretty good.

pultok

I bought one of these (Canon MP360) about a month ago... It's a refurb, but fantastic value and works perfectly. Has a one year warranty included too...

http://www.morgancomputer.co.uk/shop/detail.asp?ProductID=1580&CategoryID=12&SubCategoryID=129

pinkyler

Thank you so much for all these handy tips! (Thanks TangleFoot for taking the time to add more info to your posting).

We have decided to rule out Lexmark (sorry nmcdonald) as we found out more from other sites (thanks for the links mandymack) that Lexmark may be cheap to buy, but the cartridges are too costly.

HP printers alone is good, we both know this as we both grew up with HP printers at home. But after reading all the bad reviews about the all-in-1s HP, I've changed my mind, though my hubby's still wavering.

abr - We looked at Epson CX6400, ebay's selling it for under £100 including delivery! And we're quite impressed with the spec and the look & the reviews. Also Epson CX 3200 have quite a lot of positive reviews, but the scanning is only 600x1200 dpi so we'll probably go look for the ones that do 1200x2400 dpi ( like CX 6400).

The Canon MP360 looks quite good too pultok, we'll have to find out more about it. Thanks for the link!

Malestrom - we're gonna look at zdnet today see what we can come up with.

Laser printer, we are not interested at the moment. Not only it's way out of our budget, also we don't need it. Inkjet will do for now. But thanks for the info TangleFoot, it's very useful information you got there.

Anyways, we'll keep on looking. I'll post some more here if I found out more. Thanks everyone for all your time and help!

-pinky

walsgravematt

i have an HP officejet G55 at home - had this for 3-4 years now with no problems whatsoever and I think a great print out (even on draft, for letters etc) and the high quality photo's are awesome

Have an HP PSC 750 at work for about 1 year - again no problems - cheaper than the G55 but does a good job

Also have an HP PSC 1110 at work, and again this has been great (although just a little bit noisier than the other two)

As you can see, I buy HP, and I wouldnt want anything else - used computers for a good number of years now, and they have always been more consistent and better quality than other options for a slightly cheaper price

Cartridges again are a little more expensive, but I personally think they are worth that little bit extra

Hope that helps

WalsgraveMatt

pultok

The Canon MP360 looks quite good too pultok, we'll have to find out more about it. Thanks for the link!

No problem. There's one just come up for auction on Morgan's Auction site http://www.morgan-auction.co.uk/auction/lots.asp?LotID=36460 if you fancy getting it a bit cheaper... It has a great print quality, and the genuine Canon cartridges are cheap too...