The Quest For A Printer Continues

[calliopes_pen]

For when I eventually replace the printer that I had to toss out, I have a question for those on my reading/friends list. I’ve only had inkjets from HP up until now (I don’t know the names right now) and that last one never really worked right, while the first lasted about 15 years before it died.

Would anyone recommend any particular Epson or Brother printer models? I only recently heard of them for the first time during my research, so I don't know much about those brands. Or is HP still a good one to stick with for inkjet printers, despite that last one? I considered the HP Envy 7640, but was turned away by bad reviews I was reading for that particular model.

What I'm looking for is a reliable color inkjet printer, even if it's primarily documents I would be printing.

Is laser better/cheaper in the long run?

Comments

[raine]

Not necessarily. Regardless of what brand, check out how much the ink replacements cost you. Most printers are cheap enough now that the real money is being made on ink replacements. You can find good non-OEM print cartridges but you have to be careful about what you get and who you get it from, because not all are created equal and some manufacturers actually do a DRM-type freeze on non-OEM cartridges.

I like my Canon Pixma: https://www.amazon.com/Canon-MG6820-Wireless-Printer-Scanner/dp/B013C0ZCCU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505243529&sr=8-1&keywords=canon+pixma+mg6820+printer
The OEM cartridges aren't cheap but the non-OEM replacements on Amazon work.

[strange_complex]

I have an Epson XP-645, which I bought about a year ago and which I'm very happy with. It can print, copy and scan, and is quite small for a printer able to do all three of those, which was a big bonus for me. The experiences I've had with HP printers before that have made me vow never to buy one of theirs again!

[justshai]

I have no complaints about my HP Envy 4500, but I'm really easy to please. I pay a monthly fee of $4 and always have ink. The subscription is not required, I just find it easier.

[graycardinal]

My first inkjet printer was the *original* HP DeskJet (for which one bought extra typefaces/fonts that came in the form of a cartridge that looked rather like an 8-track tape but had a circuit board in it). I have since cycled through all the major brands -- Canon, , HP again, Canon again, Brother, and currently Epson.

The technology is stable and not too complex, and all of them work well enough in general. Indeed, the notable factor in the replacement of my last *two* printers (an HP and a Brother) was not that the printer itself was wearing out -- it was that I was starting to have a hard time finding ink cartridges in stock for the printer model I owned.

What this means is that given a choice between two similar printers -- whether between two brands, or two similar models in one brand -- *always* pick the newer model, so as to minimize your issues with ink-cartridge support.

My current printer is an Epson Workforce WF-3620 (copies, scans, faxes, etc.); my favorite thing about it is that it came with a fairly robust scanning-software utility. I have not tested OCR features as yet, but it's been nice to have a solid utility that I didn't have to buy separately. There is probably a newer generation of this one out by now, though....

I also like having the duplexing feature (prints on both sides of the page; for dense color, there are options in the print driver to pause between printing front and back so that the ink has a chance to dry.

[Mmm. That makes me think of something -- if you're committed to staying with Win7, you may need to check carefully in the specs for newer models to ensure that Win7 software drivers are supplied *and supported*. That may put you in something of a catch-22; before too long, you may have trouble finding Win7 suppport for new printers...but you will also have trouble finding ink cartridges for older ones.]

[moetushie]

My Brother printer forces me to buy *only* Brother ink cartilages -- which is a pain in the butt, or would be if my sister didn't buy cheaper knockoffs on Amazon. But still, I really resent that the printer is set up to reject perfectly fine ink cartilages because of the brand.

[laurajv]

We switched to a laser printer a few years ago and haven't regretted it. The toner is much more expensive, but it also lasts a LOT longer, esp for our use pattern -- we used to lose a lot of inkjet ink to "haven't printed in a while and the works are gummed up".

I also appreciate the fact that it's 85x faster to print stuff, bc to me my time is often more valuable than money, strictly (I'm a partly-disabled grad student who is also a full-time at-home parent. The difference between "these 20 pages take 2 minutes to print" and "these 20 pages take 15 minutes to print" is ENORMOUS for me.)

[frenchroast]

We bought a laser printer 2 1/2 years ago and have yet to had to replace any toner/etc. It's amazing. I can't recommend laser high enough, especially as someone who'd only had inkjet before. It's completely worth any additional cost, because w/ inkjet you're going to end up spending that money on ink cartridges anyway. My husband ordered ours, so I can't check what model it is right now, but I'll try to remember when I get home. We bought one for my in-laws for Christmas.

[graycardinal]

For any sort of high volume printing, laser is definitely less expensive to operate -- but *color* laser at the home-user level is relatively new and there's not a lot of choice there; I don't know if I'd call it stable technology yet, and I also don't have a sense about how easy it would be to find/order/replace color laser toner.