The Great ‘The Most Economical Printers’ Hunt

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  • pixwix
    pixwix Posts: 122
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    mascherano wrote: »
    Those Samsung ML laser printers that were discussed on here a while back- £40 to buy, £5 to re-fill. Excellent print quality, excellent economy

    I've been running one of these for a while. And if monochrome printing is all you want, they're unbeatable. £45 for the Samsung printer (there are other brands but they all look suspiciously similar - HP, Brother, etc). And when it ran out of toner, a £7 bottle of toner from eBay is enough for 3 refills. I'm onto my 2nd refill and printing is still fine - quite a bit cheaper than £40 for a new cartridge (though to be fair a new cartridge holds twice as much toner as the one that comes with the printer).

    I've been warned the cartridges don't refill indefinitely (apparently the built-in drum deteriorates), but when that happens I'll just buy another printer.

    A neighbour who runs a small business recently took my advice and bought a similar model, and she's knocked out by the running costs compared to the cheap HP printer she consigned to a charity shop after only 3 months!
  • bartman
    bartman Posts: 324
    First Anniversary Combo Breaker First Post
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    You can buy PCI cards to add to your computer to provide a Parallel Port-

    here

    I don't know how good they are as I've never used one, but it might help somebody
  • Stuartli
    Stuartli Posts: 105 Forumite
    I have an Epson Photo R300 and buy the compatible cartridges (six different colours including black) at £3.98 for a pack of the six from: https://www.diskdepot.co.uk

    To make the most of the delivery charge, I always order five or six packs at a time.

    The cartridges I have are badged Sumvision, of MP3 and pen drive fame.

    They appear to be similar to the compatible cartridges sold under other names on e-Bay etc at higher prices.
  • DenBo_4
    DenBo_4 Posts: 536 Forumite
    Help needed please! I have seen a printer here http://www.bigpockets.co.uk/product.php?lang=&product_id=22650&menu=&submenu=&session=89ce348fb029ba1d20e3847c4aacd221
    Its a Lexmark Z735, very cheap with free delivery. Can anyone tell me if it would be cheap to run (as in new cartridges), dont want to get cheap printer if the cartridges are expensive.

    Thanks for your help (hope the link works as I haven't done this before)
  • Stuartli
    Stuartli Posts: 105 Forumite
    PS

    The price of the Epson compatibles has gone up very slightly:

    http://!!!!!!!.com/32h2fq
  • Sharky!
    Sharky! Posts: 23 Forumite
    I bought myself a laser printer and haven't looked back. Most of the stuff I print is either black and white anyway, or the lack of colour doesn't matter. Anything I do need in colour I can print on the colour laser printers at work anyway ;)
    If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
  • datimms
    datimms Posts: 82
    First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker
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    My experience:

    My last inkjet - Canon IP1600, cost maybe £35. Owned 18 months, waste of money. Re-filled at cartridge world, twice over that time, £17 for both.
    Not CW's fault, Ink ran out SO FAST, totally pointless and expensive printer considering I hardly ever used the thing, and the majority of pages were b&w!
    • Pros of inkjets - Good colour matching for photos, cheap refills.
    • Cons of inkjets - Slow, noisy, poor text quality unless you spend a bit. Poor page efficiency, manufacturers tricks (such as chips that stop the printer working unless its reset!), not good for occasional use.
    So since I rarely need colour, I bought a mono laser printer... and haven't looked back! Samsung ML2010 for £45 or so from ebuyer, it's fast, clear and efficient. The supplied toner apparently lasts about 1000 pages (full page 5% coverage), and can anecdotally be refilled up to 7 times (although 3-5 is probably more realistic). The real saving comes when you re-fill, I bought 3 refills for about £20 on ebay, enough for 6000 pages! I'll probably still have them in 10 years! The printer also has an ink-save feature which saves 40%. Samsung estimates the printer parts (eg drum and motors) will last 20,000 pages.
    Official samsung replacements are 2000 pages, and you can buy the identical ML1610 toner for less than the ML2010 toner. This costs £35 I think.

    Mono Laser
    • Pros - crazy-fast (especially for 1+ prints), crisp text, excellent page efficiency, good for "official" documents like CVs, good occasional use AND for bulk prints, long (Quoted) lifetime,
    • Cons - not colour, refills are a bit more than inkjets
    If I ever need photo prints, I'll send off for them or buy from Tesco, colour prints from local print shop or library for 20-50p/page.
  • robjo2
    robjo2 Posts: 44 Forumite
    I too have the Canon SmartBase MP700 printer - excellent.
    I get replacement inks from:
    http://www.nd-ink.co.uk/

    Each cartridge (black/colour) only £1 each!
  • datimms
    datimms Posts: 82
    First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    Forumite
    DenBo wrote: »
    Help needed please! I have seen a printer here http://www.bigpockets.co.uk/product.php?lang=&product_id=22650&menu=&submenu=&session=89ce348fb029ba1d20e3847c4aacd221
    Its a Lexmark Z735, very cheap with free delivery. Can anyone tell me if it would be cheap to run (as in new cartridges), dont want to get cheap printer if the cartridges are expensive.

    Thanks for your help (hope the link works as I haven't done this before)


    I've had several lexmarks over the years, and haven't been very impressed. I think they were one of the instigators of the whole "gilette razor" business model inkjet printer manufactures use these days, as such several other users have already mentioned that Lexmarks tend to be expensive over their lifetime.
    You can refill inkjets cheaply but the print heads deteriorate over several refills and you are faced with spending 35+ on new cartridges or getting a new printer.
    Take a look at some of the other posts, there are some links that show you the true costs of printers.
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