Best affordable printer?

the_mixer

I currently have a laptop with no printer and would like to invest in one.

What would be the best affordable one which enables:
A) Coloured printing
Scanning
C) Printing off decent quality pictures

HappyMJ

the_mixer wrote: »

I currently have a laptop with no printer and would like to invest in one.

What would be the best affordable one which enables:
A) Coloured printing
Scanning
C) Printing off decent quality pictures

My experience...unless you print a few (at least two) but not too many (maybe an average of 10) pages per day (printing at least twice a week) avoid inkjets as the jets dry up and take up ink to clean the heads costing money. I've just thrown a perfectly working Epson printer out as it was costing far too much in ink. Cleaning the heads would take up a third of an ink cartridge. Changing the ink would use quite a bit too. It just became silly in the end going through about 12 single colour ink cartridges (each costing £1 each) per month just to get about 100 pages/month printed.

Scanning is pretty good with any multi function printer you can find.

Decent quality pictures are best printed on an expensive printer. As I don't think the investment is worth it I pay 25 pence per photo and print my photo's at Boots. There are cheaper options.

I've just recently purchased a Dell laser printer. Yes it only prints black but at 1 penny per page for toner costs it's very economic. 10,000 pages for a£100 toner will last me a lifetime....well 100 months. About 8 years.

psychic_teabag

I agree with all the above. Colour laser printers do exist, but I have no experience with them.

I did try going down the home-ink-refilling track, but some manufacturers now design the cartridges to break a fuse when they run out, to prevent you refilling them.

If you have room for separate scanner and printer, there are often multifunction inkjets going on freecycle (because of the problem with them drying up). I have both given away and received broken inkjets for use as scanners.

(I got my laserprinter off freecycle too !)