Recommendation for cheap printer and ink?

Lilly3012

I need to buy a new printer. Silly as it sounds, our printer has always been "my husbands printer", it works perfectly fine for him but never for me (probably a Windows 10 problem). Anyway I have decided to buy my own as I need to print stuff all the time.


Can anyone recommend a printer which is fairly reasonable in price but also where the cartridges don't cost an arm and a leg? I am very confused with the ones I have found so far - cheap printer but very expensive cartridges :-(

jeallen01

What sorts of things are you printing, and do you need colour printing?


These are significant questions because, UNLESS you need to do a lot colour printing, then a monochrome laser printer will work out significantly cheaper in the long term that most inkjet printers


For example we have a Samsung (this is our 4th Samsung) laser unit that cost just under £100 18 months ago (but is now about £10 cheaper) and that can do double sided A4 printing (cheaper versions don't double side) - but it works happily on £20 refilled toner cartridges which last about 2000-3000 pages, and so the cost per page is very low! You don't get problems like clogged jets (doesn't have any jets!) or slow printing (ours does 12+ pages a minute) and it's relatively quiet.


However, if you do need colour printing then you could get a colour laser, but the cheaper ones are reputedly not so good for colour as many inkjets, or maybe, if the colour printing is only occasional, then continue to use your husband's printer for that and supplement it for general printing by a mono-laser (that's effectively what we have - a Canon Pixma 895 MFP for colour printing and scanning + the Samsung M2825ND mono laser for general purpose printing)

interstellaflyer

It depends on how much printing you are going to do, sometimes the very cheap 2 cartridge, Black and Tri-color printers are ideal for very low use, yes the cartridges are more expensive for the yield they give but generally they can be refilled and it's not such a big deal if you get clogged printheads due to lack of use as all you need to do is replace the offending cartridge/s as with exception of Kodak and Advent (in more recent times) the printheads are part of the cartridge, machines that take individual ink tanks are a bit more tricky to deal with should the printheads clog as they are part of the printer, it shouldn't be a problem if you are using the printer once or twice a week though, if that's the case, so far we've found Canon printers taking 550/551 cartridges reliable on non original cartridges though the machines were discontinued earlier this year so you may be lucky to find one, the replacement machines take 570/571 cartridges and so far are proving reliable, Brother printers are also fairly good for economy however, they don't really do cheap, expect to pay £70 plus and they did suffer a firmware update a few months back, however any reputable compatible cartridge supplier will be using the latest version chip. At the moment I'd avoid Epson, their entry level machines taking the Strawberry range of cartridges bulit after January this year are rejecting aftermarket cartridges, however a new version chip is imminent.

jeallen01

Comment on interstellarflyer's post - add HP to the list of companies that currently cause problems with 3rd party cartridges or won't let you use them because they recently issued firmware updates which now prevent it, but there has been such an uproar from users that HP have now promised to roll-back those updates in the "near" future.

dipsomaniac

hp instant ink. you won't regret it. takes all of the hassle out of buying ink

jeallen01

dipsomanic - are you on commission from HP?

interstellaflyer

jeallen01 wrote: »

Comment on interstellarflyer's post - add HP to the list of companies that currently cause problems with 3rd party cartridges or won't let you use them because they recently issued firmware updates which now prevent it, but there has been such an uproar from users that HP have now promised to roll-back those updates in the "near" future.

I deliberately left out HP because the update only affected specific machines in the Office Jet range taking 950/951 and 934/935 cartridges and as these printers are not at the cheaper end of the market I didn't think they'd be relevant, we've experienced no problems with any of the HP inkjet printers currently available. At the moment it is hard to guarantee any printer from any manufacturer will not be problematic, one can only advise on the current.

TonyMMM

First thing would be to confirm that the existing printer can't be made to work with your system ...what model is it ?

You may just need an updated driver.

DigForVictory

+1 for please check the driver software. Go onto the printer maker's website & download whatever it recommends for your machine.

Only if it won't cooperate should you start to eye a new printer, & although there was a distinct snarl when I got a laser printer (just B&W), It Does 99% of The Job we ask. The photos I just have to take to Asda, & the amount I save on printer ink is more than worth it!

dipsomaniac

jeallen01 wrote: »

dipsomanic - are you on commission from HP?

nope. just think it is a good service and worth sharing

Gillor

According to Which? magazine the following are the three best all-in-one colour printers under £100:

HP Officejet 5740 at around £90
HP Envy 5644 at around £70
Cannon Pixma MX535 at around £70

All have wireless printing and low print costs.