Need a new printer/scanner. Suggestions?

[Mike(NEOhio)]

H-P 6510 took a dump, couldn't fix it like I did last time.

 

[ss55]

I've had good luck with Brother laser printer/scanners. I've also had very poor luck with Epson inkjet printers, the ink dries out too soon for me.

 

[Davidj]

Just picked up a Brother here too. Have one over where I teach, and so far, so good after 18 years. It sees the same use as a home printer.

 

[rrlund]

We bought a Cannon at Wal Mart several years ago for $40. It's stood the test of time. No problem getting cartridges.

 

[dr sportster]

H-P

 

[wp6529]

Add my vote for Brother, they have been good here. HP is ok as well.

 

[J.Wondergem]

Check out best printers at Cnet.com.

 

[WNYBill]

+1 for the cheapest Canon at Walmart.

 

[Dean]

I hav had a HP MFP M277 dw color laser multi-function unit for 5 or 6 years now.

No problems and still on my introductory toner cartridges.

 

[Roger in Iowa]

X3 Canon at Walmart. Ink is expensive. MX490, prints and scans. No FAX. Does pictures well on picture paper.

HP and Brother did not work well for me!

 

[Goose]

I have an HP 5660 that's done well for me.

It does everything, prints, copies, scans, does photos, etc. Not the cheapest one out there, but it's been durable.

 

[Goose]

I should have added, it's noticeably faster if you run it 'corded' instead of wireless. It has options for both.

 

[Janicholson]

XEROX color laser Multi function printer. The major advantage is ability to shut it off and leave it for months with normal startup, and no dried up anything. Though the toners are expensive, they last far longer and the resolution is best of type. Jim

 

[guido]

Mike(NEOhio)

Short answer Xerox. I used this one at work in the 60'.

Was able to make 10.000 copies a month. There is one in the Smithsonian institute.

The all in one are pricey. Mine is a black and white, and does an excellent job on graphics and color too!

Guido.

 

[chvet73]

I taught CAD drafting for 28 years of my teaching career. Did a lot of printing. Xerox was the best but very pricey. Had a bunch of HP from printers to big plotters. Very good machines. Have a 10 year old HP at home that is great. But the only printer that I had issues with in those 28 years was a Brother. Total piece of junk.

 

[Mike(NEOhio)]

Just want a desktop model.

 

[Mike(NEOhio)]

Thanks all. Probably going to stick with HP as I just put a new ink cartridge in it. Old one has been good up till now, don't really use it much.

 

[guido]

Mike,

Like I said short answer.Here is mine,

Guido.

 

[Geo-TH,In]

Lazer brother laser printer scanner

 

[MarkB_MI]

I'm assuming you want another ink jet. Laser printers are fine, but if you want color you want color.

My first recommendation is to only get a printer that has separate ink cartridges for each color. The more expensive the printer, the cheaper it is to print. So figure on spending a couple hundred bucks.

For years I only used Epson printers. Then my Epson printer that was working just fine told me it was reaching its end of life. In other words, after you print so many pages you have to buy a new printer. That soured me on Epson and I now use an HP OfficeJet Pro 6978. It's a bit large, but it does everything I need it to do: Print/copy/fax, duplex from the sheet feeder, ethernet/wifi/usb.

 

[Liquid_wrench]

HP laser jet for me, much better than ink jet no worries about dried ink ever.

 

[steve_in_mo]

I had trouble with the wireless cards in the smaller home office type printers.
After a couple years, I couldn't get them to stay connected.
I run them on ethernet cable now, and they keep working longer.

 

[Phil Tibbetts]

HP Envy 5530 we have had for 4 or 5 years at least. Instant ink program. You pay so much a month according to how much you print. They supply you with all the ink which is included in the monthly cost. Right now we are paying 11.99 a month for 300 pages. My wife prints lots of pictures so we use a lot of color ink. I doesn't matter how much ink you use. the pages are the only thing counted. We figure we are saving over $300 a year with this program. You furnish your own paper butthey do now have a plan that includes paper. Worth checking out.

 

[wp6529]

The Xerox printers are great, but pricey and perhaps a bit much for home use.

We have an HP color laser that gets a lot of use, particularly for printing home school materials for the kids.

I have a Brother B&W laser MFC in the office that gets tons of use for regular stuff and also a lot of scanning.

An Epson photo ink jet (individual 6 color) prints great photos on appropriate paper but doesn't get a lot of use so we end up wasting some ink on cleaning cycle before any good prints. The Epson also has a scanner and gets a fair amount of use for that as well.

All of these are on hardwired connections, not WiFi. Wifi is really only used for phones and a couple mobile laptops, anything that can be hardwired is and that provides much better performance.

 

[riverbend]

Depends what you want. HP was so frustrating it is the only printer that I actually threw. Very gratifying to see it explode on the concrete.

Brother laser printer has been a reliable workhorse and the toner cartridges can be refilled for cheap.

 

[Dober_paw]

Have an Epson 645 for at least 5+ yrs. print, copy, scan & fax - color, 2 sided print/copy - WiFi. No issues. Uses about $100 of ink cartridges per yr.
If I was replacing I'd seriously look at the refillable ink machines rather than cartridge.
However - the most important issue to me is that the paper tray is protected "inside" the m/c - those w/ the new paper tray exposed to and collecting dust & dirt mean that (unless it is in constant use) the top sheet will carry that dirt into the works.

 

[Stephen Newell]

If you are good with computers I have a HP 8035e printer/scanner which works good. It didn't come with software with all the drivers and such and I've got it working as a printer and copier but it doesn't recognize the computer when trying to scan. Been waiting for months for my son to come by where he can fix the issue.

 

[jimg.allentown]

I have had a lot of printers over the years. Currently, I have two color laser printers. One is a Brother and the other is an HP. Both have been very reliable and trouble free. There are a few things to know about printers before you buy...

Ink jet printers are cheap to buy and expensive to operate. Among their strong points is the high resolution and near photographic ability to print out pictures. Among their weak points is that the cost per page is much higher than any other method of printing. Ink cartridges will dry out and clog the print head if left too long without being used.

Among ink jets, Epson is too prone to clogging the print head, and it cannot easily (or cheaply) be replaced. HP and Cannon have easily replaceable print heads. With HP, the print head comes with a new cartridge. With Cannon, it is sometimes a seperate piece, but not going to take an engineering degree to replace it. So much for ink jets.

Lasers. For quite a few years, I repaired HP laser printers as a sideline. They are very rugged and durable. They are also (or at least were) rebadged Cannon printers. For resolution and reliability, you can't beat an HP - at least the ones I have had. The drawback of lasers is the high initial cost. The printers cost more than ink jets. The toners cost a lot more than ink cartridges. BUT! The toners will typically print 2000 pages while a typical ink jet cartridge is shot after a couple hundred. When you do the arithmetic, it turns out to be much less expensive PER PAGE to print with a laser.

Some cautions...
Most laser printers that you buy today come with what is called ''starter'' toners. They have limited numbers of pages that they will print before they need to be replaced. Brother accomplishes this by omitting a little gear on the side of the toner cartridge. Absence of this gear limits the number of pages the toner will print. BUT, Brother toners are actually full sized toners with that little piece omitted. If you buy a third party refill kit, it will also come with those little gears and instructions on how to install them.
I'm not sure yet how HP limits use of the toners, since I have not encountered that problem yet on my color HP. One thing I will say is that the resolution keeps getting better on the color lasers. They are now rivalling ink jets.

My 2 cents worth.

 

[guido]

(quoted from post at 08:41:09 12/03/22) I'm assuming you want another ink jet. Laser printers are fine, but if you want color you want color.

My first recommendation is to only get a printer that has separate ink cartridges for each color. The more expensive the printer, the cheaper it is to print. So figure on spending a couple hundred bucks.

For years I only used Epson printers. Then my Epson printer that was working just fine told me it was reaching its end of life. In other words, after you print so many pages you have to buy a new printer. That soured me on Epson and I now use an HP OfficeJet Pro 6978. It's a bit large, but it does everything I need it to do: Print/copy/fax, duplex from the sheet feeder, ethernet/wifi/usb.

Epson, like anyother printer, have a life expentancy for the imaging drum. After so many copies, it will be unable to to be fully magnetized to reproduce an image. They are rated in how many pages they will print. Some can print 10's of thousands.

SO, nothing to to with poor quality form an end of life message,
regardless of make. And, other times , they just stop working for the same reason, no message,



Guido.

 

[Johnhof]

I have had an HP Envy for couple years now. Im a very sporadic low volume user and the instant ink program is a rip off for me. would be much better just buying the cartridge whenever. Printer was cheap to buy and works just fine, do like the wireless feature so can print from phone or any enabled device. Currently they are threatening me my subscription is expired and printer won't work. Fine when they kill it I buy a cartridge or just throw it out.

 

[Tramway Guy]

I used to be all in with HP, but when I started my business, HP did not have a 11x17 capable scanner that didnt require stitching two 8-1/2 x 11 scans together.

So I bought a Brother MFC-J6910DW that will not only scan 11x17 but will print 11x17 double sided. 12 years later and still going strong. Yes, its inkjet, but not too bad consumption-wise.

With any inkjet, you need to use it at least once a week to keep the cartridges from drying out! If you cant, get a laser printer.

 

[RogerinIowa]

Saw on internet today, EPSON is quitting printers in 2023.

 

[MarkB_MI]

> Epson, like anyother printer, have a life expentancy for the imaging drum. After so many copies, it will be unable to to be fully magnetized to reproduce an image. They are rated in how many pages they will print. Some can print 10's of thousands.

This was an inkjet printer, Guido, so no imaging drum. I think it said the print head was reaching its life expectancy. At any rate, even if you could replace the part (and I'm pretty sure you can't), it would cost more than a new printer. And it had not run through that many copies, and the print quality was fine. A few hundred copies, not a few thousand. I was able to load a patch on the printer that allowed it to print a few more copies, but after that it was a boat anchor. So Epson lost a customer. Their choice, and mine.

 

[MarkB_MI]

> With HP, the print head comes with a new cartridge.

That's true with the cheapest HP inkjets. With the better HP printers, the print head is not part of the cartridge; similar to Epson.