Question about 4/5 cartridge printers?

tomhenryford

I know nothing about printers and I am a little jinxed when it comes to them. I have gone through at least 5 of them in recent years and I hardly print anything.

I would prefer to buy one from Argos as they policy for faulty products is far superior to PC World who I had a very bad experience with and swore I would never buy anything off them again.

I'm looking for a printer that has a storage place for paper (not sure if it has a name) but not one with a vertical paper tray where the paper gets damp.

I have a max budget of about €80 but I saw an Epson one but I saw that it needs 4 cartridges (black, magenta, cyan and yellow). I know I can replace the black on it's own to print black but if all the colours run out do I need to replace them all to print any colour? or say if I just wanted to print blues would the black and cyan be enough?

I was thinking of just buying a laser printer but the replacement cartridges are really expensive.

I know nothing about generic cartridges either, I always end up buying the branded ones because I'm afraid the generic ones will wreck the printer. Anyone got any opinions on anything above it would be much appreciated.

JustShon

You have to have all the colours in order to print anything in colour, so if your yellow runs out and you want to print a blue page that's tough; gotta replace the yellow. Some printers will even insist you replace the black in order to print in colour.

Generic cartridges vary in quality from one brand to the next; look online for reviews / opinions of specific generic brands. I'd give an opinion but I work for a supplier of generic cartridges and my opinion wouldn't be exactly unbiased.

Regarding laser printers, the replacement toners might be more expensive per toner but they work out cheaper per page of print in most cases.

Do you absolutely have to have colour for what you're printing? How often do you print?

tomhenryford

Thanks for the reply. I actually bought a HP Envy 5534 in Argos in the end. It's a two cartridge printer. It came with two black and one colour in the box which was bonus. Branded HP in the black costs around €15 and the colour €21 so not too bad. Had a good few jobs to do so had to settle on one in the end.

It was working fine until it said update available on the small screen, did the update and now I keep getting this repeating message on my computer screen that ' scan to computer is no longer available, no connection' it appears and disappears really quickly. Can't figure it out.

I do need colour though for a couple of graphs and charts and diagrams so when I was buying one I didn't want to limit myself with a laser in the end.

JustShon wrote: »

You have to have all the colours in order to print anything in colour, so if your yellow runs out and you want to print a blue page that's tough; gotta replace the yellow. Some printers will even insist you replace the black in order to print in colour.

Generic cartridges vary in quality from one brand to the next; look online for reviews / opinions of specific generic brands. I'd give an opinion but I work for a supplier of generic cartridges and my opinion wouldn't be exactly unbiased.

Regarding laser printers, the replacement toners might be more expensive per toner but they work out cheaper per page of print in most cases.

Do you absolutely have to have colour for what you're printing? How often do you print?