Which printer does Which recommend?

random__2

Can someone give me some idea which printers are good? It's really confusing and I don't want to waste my money. I'm thinking a multi-ink one with cheap refills, not costly combined colour cartridge. Or even laser seems affordable these days.

https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/printers-and-ink

Bigphil1474

I've had an HP 5520 Printer/Scanner/Copier (or might be a 5510) for a few years - pretty bog standard with a black cartridge and 3 colour ones, works over wifi. No problems with it. The wifi option is a must for me as it means I can print from the laptop/tablet and phone directly. I think our previous one was an HP as well. Epsom and HP are my usual go to printer brands. You might want to look at ink costs before choosing a printer, as the printers are usually relatively cheap, but the ink can be very expensive. 

forgotmyname

Bought a cheap HP and it was useless, kept complaining no ink even with brand new genuine cartridges. Seemed it had a 3 cartridge
memory so refitting a cartridge that previously gave a fault worked again.

Gave it away and bought an Epson inktank, more expensive than one that uses cartridges but cheap/easy to refill.

fiish

I have a HP Smart Tank Plus 550, one of the inktank models, and it seems all right. Printing nice and quick, decent quality, WiFi and AirPrint work well with our Macs and iOS devices.

Got a bit of a clogged printhead problem, but that's on me for not using it for several months running - this can happen to any printer, previous Epson and Canon printers suffered the same with infrequent usage, and replacing the printhead/cartridge (under £20 for this model) solves it.

cerebus

You haven't mentioned what you are using it for, if just documents then laser is the way to go.

You can get a new decent black/white laser for under 100 quid and you will rarely need to replace the toner depending on your usage (think mine will print something like 20000 pages at 5% coverage before I need to change the toner)

If you're happy second hand then ebay has plenty of lasers from ex office supplies which are cheap 

If you are looking for an ink jet then one which has refillable inks are best for running costs if a little more pricey to buy - however ink jets need using regularly to stop the heads drying out 

cerebus

Oh and if you're thinking that a member on here will use their paid subscription to Which so you can find out which one Which recommends without paying for it - think again 

interstellaflyer

cerebus said:

You haven't mentioned what you are using it for, if just documents then laser is the way to go.

You can get a new decent black/white laser for under 100 quid and you will rarely need to replace the toner depending on your usage (think mine will print something like 20000 pages at 5% coverage before I need to change the toner)

If you're happy second hand then ebay has plenty of lasers from ex office supplies which are cheap 

If you are looking for an ink jet then one which has refillable inks are best for running costs if a little more pricey to buy - however ink jets need using regularly to stop the heads drying out 

You're not going to get a mono laser printer that takes toners of 20000 page yield for £100, it 'll be more like 2000 pages, entry level machines from Brother and Samsung cost around £80  and the toners do around a 1000 pages

flaneurs_lobster

cerebus said:

Oh and if you're thinking that a member on here will use their paid subscription to Which so you can find out which one Which recommends without paying for it - think again 

Local libraries often have access to online Which? if you want to check out their recs. 

tacpot12

forgotmyname said:

Bought a cheap HP and it was useless, kept complaining no ink even with brand new genuine cartridges. Seemed it had a 3 cartridge
memory so refitting a cartridge that previously gave a fault worked again.

Gave it away and bought an Epson inktank, more expensive than one that uses cartridges but cheap/easy to refill.

I bought an Epson printer last year after many years of buying HP, and regretted it. The software is dire. It took three attempts to install it before the printer would work. Although I'm retired now, I was an IT professional when I was pworking, and installed literally hundreds of printers, and none were as hard as the Epson. 

libra10

I bought an Epson ET-8500 about a year ago, it cost around £500 - a Which recommendation.

It has refillable canisters, rather than cartridges, and is only used at home.

Using the Epson, I've printed reams of paper, and the ink levels on the canisters have hardly decreased.

Although the printer was expensive, I must have saved a lot of money through not having to keep buying multipacks of cartridges.

Recommended.

DullGreyGuy

random__2 said:

Can someone give me some idea which printers are good? It's really confusing and I don't want to waste my money. I'm thinking a multi-ink one with cheap refills, not costly combined colour cartridge. Or even laser seems affordable these days.

https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/printers-and-ink

It really depends what you are going to be printing and where your priorities are.  We have two printers at home, a very cheap Brother B&W laser that are used for letters, documents, boarding cards, vouchers, tickets etc. Dont look as pretty in B&W but work perfectly. 

Toner is supposed to be good for 1,000 pages and costs £20 to replace but we are still going strong on the initial cartridge and its replacement has sat unboxed for 2 years since ordering the toner when a "low toner" message started appearing.

We also have an Epson 6 colour ink for photo printing, gives great results but if you dont use it regularly it has to go through a cleaning cycle that absolutely eats up the ink and a pack of the 6 inks costs about £60 (you can change them individually but its much more expensive to buy them individually).

The new Epson 6 colour systems have actually changed the inks in that the light magenta and light cyan have been replaced with grey and red but haven't seen how they print.