Which budget printer should I go for??Can someone recommend one wholeheartedly?

N9eav

I decided to shelve the HP1205. I will plug it in for scanning etc, but I just picked up a Canon S530D in Staples for £45. I presume as it was in the clearance section that it's about 2 years out of date, but It works fine for what I need and the inks are £2.99 each I can handle that!!!!

Jonni2bad

N9eav wrote:

£3 for both delivered? Sound too good to be true. I am considerign a new printer as My HPC1205 is too dear for cartridges. £28 for both color and black. A new Canon 1p 1500 can be bought for £37

Yes, it's true...!! £3 for both, delivered by royal mail. Took a few days to arrive but I was in no rush and for that price I have no complaints. I used to believe that Lidl compat's were good value!!

Compat's are made by Think and these particular ones can be used in the S and i ranges, as well as Pixma 110 / 130 / 1500 and 2000.

I've had the 1500 for a while now and I'm truly impresssed by the quality for that price. I have no experience of the 3000 so I can't compare. Canon have never let me down so I'm confident of getting a lot of use out of this printer for a long time to come.

N9eav

Canon seem to be the way to go. I just ordered the 4 cartridges as spares for this new one I just bought. £5.95 delivered. for 4 !!! They are larger volume too than the HP. Should be able to print now without worrying about the cost of a new cartridge. Should have done this years ago

asot

As people have said here, Canon make the cheapest "official" cartridges. In addition, whatever the make of your printer, you can try using "Ink Saver" a piece of software from https://www.strydent.com which allows you to reduce the amount of ink you use between 0-75%.

At 25% savings things still look perfect. At 40% savings it's still hard to tell the difference on day to day prints. When you go above 40% it starts to get noticeable though. You still keep the same DPI, and the quality is far better than the "draft" modes many printers come with.

londonman81

asot wrote:

As people have said here, Canon make the cheapest "official" cartridges. In addition, whatever the make of your printer, you can try using "Ink Saver" a piece of software from https://www.strydent.com which allows you to reduce the amount of ink you use between 0-75%.

At 25% savings things still look perfect. At 40% savings it's still hard to tell the difference on day to day prints. When you go above 40% it starts to get noticeable though. You still keep the same DPI, and the quality is far better than the "draft" modes many printers come with.

Good tip - but the program doesn't seem to be free - is it worth the cost?

asot

londonman81 wrote:

Good tip - but the program doesn't seem to be free - is it worth the cost?

Well this depends on how much you use your printer really. If your an occasional user it might not be worth it. It costs £17.97 from Amazon.co.uk. So to break even within a year you would have to spend approx £30 on cartridges/year if you used it with 40% savings on all print outs.

Both user and magazine reviews rate the product as excellent so I'll probably buy it for the long term savings and also the reduced impact on the environment through using less ink. (I'm currently on the trial). I'm using it on 40% savings and for normal documents I can't tell the difference from a standard print out. I am yet to try it on photos/heavy graphics though.

londonman81

asot wrote:

Well this depends on how much you use your printer really. If your an occasional user it might not be worth it. It costs £17.97 from Amazon.co.uk. So to break even within a year you would have to spend approx £30 on cartridges/year if you used it with 40% savings on all print outs.

Both user and magazine reviews rate the product as excellent so I'll probably buy it for the long term savings and also the reduced impact on the environment through using less ink. (I'm currently on the trial). I'm using it on 40% savings and for normal documents I can't tell the difference from a standard print out. I am yet to try it on photos/heavy graphics though.

Is the trial free? I can only see that full $34 product.

asot

londonman81 wrote:

Is the trial free? I can only see that full $34 product.

The 15-day trial download page is here:

http://www.inksaver.com/overview/demo.html

muddyfox470

I bought the Epson C66 printer from ebuyer (https://www.ebuyer.co.uk), really cheap just above £44, and it came with free delivery, it has indevidual colour cartridges so you only buy the cartridges you need, and the compatible cartridges (i always stump for print-rite ones) are only £2.75 a pop! (from https://www.tonezoneuk.com)

It is a great printer, and does everything i want it to, it is pretty well made, and much better quality than the canons that you can get.

I have found Epson printers to be flawless, an Epson 400 lasted for over 3 years! If you want very good print quality, great reliability and cheaper crartridges go for an epson (if not the c66).

Canon have very cheap cartridges but i find their build quality questionable. HP and Lexmark - don't bother with them, the subsequent cartridges are too expensive to justify buying the printer, official or compatible cartridges.

If you think that you will just be printing in black and white, well a laser printer may just be right for you, and in the long term it may work out a lot cheaper, just the toner costs about £50 but lasts a fair few pages :P

Lexmarks are the worse i find, they are always the printers that given away with PCs but the cartridges cost the earth and tbh they are nothing special.

I have always gone with epson, and always will, from my experience and my friends experience of HP and Canon i wouldnt touch them.

The Samsung laser is worth considering tho - if you require that sort of thing.

Ian