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Anyone recommend a good printer?
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17-09-2014 9:38am#1
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paddylonglegs wrote: »can i hijack this thread also as i dont want to start a new one. My wish list is:
- wifi enabled
- colour/b&w
- copier/scanner
- a4 is fine
- can be used by both iOS and Windows (with the latest updates)
- Print from smartphones
- replaceable cheap cartridges
any thoughts?
thanks
about 20, but to narrow it down, you'll have to let us know your budget as I could recommend anything from 50 to 200 euro or more.
if you are just an 'occasional' printer that might only print once or twice a week (or even month), honestly, don't waste your money on a decent printer as it will likely take more years than you will have it to get your money back.
same goes for ink costs. if you're not using it much then spending more on a printer because it is cheaper to get ink for is a false economy.
which leaves you in a position where you should just get the cheapest printer that ticks all your boxes and isn't going to fall apart when you look at it (i.e. 'cheap' but not THAT cheap).
the cheapest I would go for an occasional user would be a HP Deskjet 2540 or an Epson 4500 Envy.
(IMHO, i'm sure someone will be along to disagree shortly), HP's tend to be cheaper to run at the expense of some quality when it comes to higher detail on specialised papers, but Epson's are a lot more thirsty on ink but will give better photo quality results.
Of course this is a generalisation and some epsons will be more frugal than some HP's and some HP's will give better quality in certain situations than epsons, but I find that most of the time it is a true statement.
i'm not sure if it is still the case, but a few years ago at least, HP ink cartridges had the print head built into the cartridge itself, so every time you changed the ink, you were changing the head, which meant more expensive cartridges but much less crusty print head problems, whereas epson's had the head as part of the printer.
this meant that epsons needed a lot of printer head cleaning which wasted ink and meant longer times between wanting to print something and actually printing as it seemed to want to clean them before every use (which got really annoying).
maybe its different no, but it always seemed to be the case with older models and despite having a couple of epsons in the past, i've gone more with HP now, even tough i despise them as they have (either directly or indirectly) cost me three different contracting jobs now over the course of the last 10 years or so.
personally, I have a HP 8600 Pro Plus as it's a good, fast (enough) all-round workhorse and frugal on the ink (not far behind laser printers for economy) with duplex printing and scanning, wifi, mobile and cloud compatibility and does literally everything i need it to. i've spent years buying MFP printers that were in the 'photo' printing category (my last one would even print directly onto CD's and DVD's), but it's not something i've done more than half a dozen times in the last decade and it's stupidly expensive, so again, a false economy.
it can be tempting to go for the bells and whistles because they sound nice to have the option of this, that or the other, but you really do pay through the nose for those extra features so you want to be sure you'll use them enough to warrant it.
(in the most likely rare) situation you might want physical prints of photos, will you really be printing off lots of them with your own proper expensive photo printer (and inks and paper) when it's much still cheaper to run in to boots and get your digital prints done there the next time you're out?
wow, that was a long post!
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about 20, but to narrow it down, you'll have to let us know your budget as I could recommend anything from 50 to 200 euro or more.
if you are just an 'occasional' printer that might only print once or twice a week (or even month), honestly, don't waste your money on a decent printer as it will likely take more years than you will have it to get your money back.
same goes for ink costs. if you're not using it much then spending more on a printer because it is cheaper to get ink for is a false economy.
which leaves you in a position where you should just get the cheapest printer that ticks all your boxes and isn't going to fall apart when you look at it (i.e. 'cheap' but not THAT cheap).
the cheapest I would go for an occasional user would be a HP Deskjet 2540 or an Epson 4500 Envy.
(IMHO, i'm sure someone will be along to disagree shortly), HP's tend to be cheaper to run at the expense of some quality when it comes to higher detail on specialised papers, but Epson's are a lot more thirsty on ink but will give better photo quality results.
Of course this is a generalisation and some epsons will be more frugal than some HP's and some HP's will give better quality in certain situations than epsons, but I find that most of the time it is a true statement.
i'm not sure if it is still the case, but a few years ago at least, HP ink cartridges had the print head built into the cartridge itself, so every time you changed the ink, you were changing the head, which meant more expensive cartridges but much less crusty print head problems, whereas epson's had the head as part of the printer.
this meant that epsons needed a lot of printer head cleaning which wasted ink and meant longer times between wanting to print something and actually printing as it seemed to want to clean them before every use (which got really annoying).
maybe its different no, but it always seemed to be the case with older models and despite having a couple of epsons in the past, i've gone more with HP now, even tough i despise them as they have (either directly or indirectly) cost me three different contracting jobs now over the course of the last 10 years or so.
personally, I have a HP 8600 Pro Plus as it's a good, fast (enough) all-round workhorse and frugal on the ink (not far behind laser printers for economy) with duplex printing and scanning, wifi, mobile and cloud compatibility and does literally everything i need it to. i've spent years buying MFP printers that were in the 'photo' printing category (my last one would even print directly onto CD's and DVD's), but it's not something i've done more than half a dozen times in the last decade and it's stupidly expensive, so again, a false economy.
it can be tempting to go for the bells and whistles because they sound nice to have the option of this, that or the other, but you really do pay through the nose for those extra features so you want to be sure you'll use them enough to warrant it.
(in the most likely rare) situation you might want physical prints of photos, will you really be printing off lots of them with your own proper expensive photo printer (and inks and paper) when it's much still cheaper to run in to boots and get your digital prints done there the next time you're out?
wow, that was a long post!
Yes that certainly was a long post albeit a very informative one,the epson one you linked above looks decent enough for our needs anyway so may have to head to Harveys, thanks for your input!0 -
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about 20, but to narrow it down, you'll have to let us know your budget as I could recommend anything from 50 to 200 euro or more.
if you are just an 'occasional' printer that might only print once or twice a week (or even month), honestly, don't waste your money on a decent printer as it will likely take more years than you will have it to get your money back.
same goes for ink costs. if you're not using it much then spending more on a printer because it is cheaper to get ink for is a false economy.
which leaves you in a position where you should just get the cheapest printer that ticks all your boxes and isn't going to fall apart when you look at it (i.e. 'cheap' but not THAT cheap).
the cheapest I would go for an occasional user would be a HP Deskjet 2540 or an Epson 4500 Envy.
(IMHO, i'm sure someone will be along to disagree shortly), HP's tend to be cheaper to run at the expense of some quality when it comes to higher detail on specialised papers, but Epson's are a lot more thirsty on ink but will give better photo quality results.
Of course this is a generalisation and some epsons will be more frugal than some HP's and some HP's will give better quality in certain situations than epsons, but I find that most of the time it is a true statement.
i'm not sure if it is still the case, but a few years ago at least, HP ink cartridges had the print head built into the cartridge itself, so every time you changed the ink, you were changing the head, which meant more expensive cartridges but much less crusty print head problems, whereas epson's had the head as part of the printer.
this meant that epsons needed a lot of printer head cleaning which wasted ink and meant longer times between wanting to print something and actually printing as it seemed to want to clean them before every use (which got really annoying).
maybe its different no, but it always seemed to be the case with older models and despite having a couple of epsons in the past, i've gone more with HP now, even tough i despise them as they have (either directly or indirectly) cost me three different contracting jobs now over the course of the last 10 years or so.
personally, I have a HP 8600 Pro Plus as it's a good, fast (enough) all-round workhorse and frugal on the ink (not far behind laser printers for economy) with duplex printing and scanning, wifi, mobile and cloud compatibility and does literally everything i need it to. i've spent years buying MFP printers that were in the 'photo' printing category (my last one would even print directly onto CD's and DVD's), but it's not something i've done more than half a dozen times in the last decade and it's stupidly expensive, so again, a false economy.
it can be tempting to go for the bells and whistles because they sound nice to have the option of this, that or the other, but you really do pay through the nose for those extra features so you want to be sure you'll use them enough to warrant it.
(in the most likely rare) situation you might want physical prints of photos, will you really be printing off lots of them with your own proper expensive photo printer (and inks and paper) when it's much still cheaper to run in to boots and get your digital prints done there the next time you're out?
wow, that was a long post!
Great reply! Thanks. To break it down a bit further-
-budget €100 - €120
- no need for photo printing (waste of time IMO)
-possibly college heavy, black and white PowerPoint etc
- refillable inks
- wireless enabled.
- online install (no cd drive in MacBook Air or smartphones)
Have been looking on pixmania this morning0 -
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I don't agree with that.Even though you've been told to avoid HP printers.... Seriously though, HP printers are very troublesome and the inks are expensive. Keep it simple and get a printer that you can get the refilled cartridges for.
one person has said to avoid them without going in to any detail as to why they think so, hardly an open and shut case.
HP ink cartridges cost more (due to built in print head), but they use less ink compared to most other printers and are usually larger in capacity, so you get more use out of them, especially the XL cartridges which are very good value if you buy them on amazon or directly from HP rather than paying over-inflated shop prices. if you just look at the cost per cartridge without considering how many pages you can print before it needs replacing you won't get an accurate picture of consumable costs.
For frugality of consumables, the newer mid to high end HP inkjets are getting close to laser levels and some are even beating them (the HP 8600 Pro Plus that I have being a perfect example of that).
As for reliability, I had an old HP 720c that (after a long hard life in my office) had been gathering dust in a corner for the last 7 or 8 years since I replaced it with an all-in-one printer/scanner. I recently gave it to my aunt as the one (same model) she has been using heavily for the last 10 years (after inheriting it from my dad who also used it heavily for his own business printing needs) in her soho book keeping work had finally given up the ghost and all she did was dust it off, plug it in where the old one was and swap out the ink cartridges and it's back in business again since a new cartridge means a new print head. 0 -
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