Occasional use printers

LuckyTree

Hi, can anyone advise me on a very occasional use printer? 

It will mostly be used for occasional kids homework etc. mostly black and white printing but sometimes needs to be colour. Might not print every month. Some months might print a lot. 

Had a previous inkjet tank printer. Nozzle got blocked probably because of lack of use. All printers seem to break after barely any use!

Laser printers might be better for my use but colour ones are super expensive. 

Thanks. 

flaneurs_lobster

Use your local library? Typical costs are 10p for b/w and £1 for colour per A4 sheet.

Are schools not encouraging electronic submission of work? 

My 8 year old HP Inkjet soldiers on, cost me £60, and £2.50/mth ink subscription. Very light use with occasional 100 page bursts.

Just lucky I guess, it's never needed any attention bar the odd test page. 

Neil_Jones

LuckyTree said:

Hi, can anyone advise me on a very occasional use printer? 

It will mostly be used for occasional kids homework etc. mostly black and white printing but sometimes needs to be colour. Might not print every month. Some months might print a lot. 

Had a previous inkjet tank printer. Nozzle got blocked probably because of lack of use. All printers seem to break after barely any use!

Laser printers might be better for my use but colour ones are super expensive. 

Thanks. 

Printers do not "all seem to break after barely any use", I have a 15 year old printer that I "barely use" and it still works.  Albeit is an inkjet and I haven't printed anything on it for months so it probably does have a problem I'm not aware of...  But that's the risk I take.

If 99% of printing is black and white and you really want a printer, get a mono laser.

If you ever find you need to do print in colour, then pop to the library, at somewhere around £1-£2 per side it'll be cheaper in the long run but you're at the risk of a) computer availability, b) printer availability and c) their opening hours.  Wouldn't be able to print at 3 in the morning

ButterCheese

We use a £60 printer, and we don't sign up for any of the ink supply subscriptions that they offer.  If you're worried about the jets getting clogged up, set a reminder on your phone every week or two to print a test page.?

35har1old

LuckyTree said:

Hi, can anyone advise me on a very occasional use printer? 

It will mostly be used for occasional kids homework etc. mostly black and white printing but sometimes needs to be colour. Might not print every month. Some months might print a lot. 

Had a previous inkjet tank printer. Nozzle got blocked probably because of lack of use. All printers seem to break after barely any use!

Laser printers might be better for my use but colour ones are super expensive. 

Thanks. 

Buy the cheapest Canon Pixma MG3640S at Argos £39.99 the ink cartridges supplied currently cost just £3 less than the printer.
Using ink cartridges means you get a new print head every time you change a cartridge.
Have never tried a compatible cartridge 

wongataa

Buy a laser printer.  They are much happier sitting around not being used.  if you foresee very little colour use get a black and white one and when you have the very rare colour printing need find a printing service to use.

daveyjp

When covid struck we bought a HP150nw colour laser printer.  Still available for about £200.  Barely used now, but it works every time and is still on the original toners.

Doshwaster

For occasional use I would get a mono laser as inkjets tend to dry up with infrequent use. The cartridge in mine has been in there for about 3 years.

Plenty of models around £100 from HP or Brother.

DullGreyGuy

daveyjp said:

When covid struck we bought a HP150nw colour laser printer.  Still available for about £200.  Barely used now, but it works every time and is still on the original toners.

We have a Brother mono printer and it went 6 years before it started warning of low toner, followed online advice to take it out and give it a careful shake and it lasted another 18 months before the print started to degrade. I'd assumed it was going to end much earlier so already had bought a "high capacity" replacement for almost nothing... think it may outlast me. 

Agree with others, either you need an inkjet that you print frequently with even if it's just a test page to keep the ink flowing or buy a laser which will happily sit there months between prints. 

LuckyTree

Thanks everyone for the advice. 

Undervalued

35har1old said:

LuckyTree said:

Hi, can anyone advise me on a very occasional use printer? 

It will mostly be used for occasional kids homework etc. mostly black and white printing but sometimes needs to be colour. Might not print every month. Some months might print a lot. 

Had a previous inkjet tank printer. Nozzle got blocked probably because of lack of use. All printers seem to break after barely any use!

Laser printers might be better for my use but colour ones are super expensive. 

Thanks. 

Buy the cheapest Canon Pixma MG3640S at Argos £39.99 the ink cartridges supplied currently cost just £3 less than the printer.
Using ink cartridges means you get a new print head every time you change a cartridge.
Have never tried a compatible cartridge 

With some inkjet printers that is true but not all. Others have fixed print heads that are not part of the ink cartridge.

Also, generally the cartridges supplied with the cheaper inkjets are so called "starter cartridges" which contain far less ink that the retail ones.