Originally posted by: tranceport
HP for printing.. All the way.
Used to like HP for laser printers. While they are ok when in a corporate environment (when you're buying >$500+ printers) they are not so good in the home/home office type environment. When you go after printers priced in that range (sub $100 printers) they have dropped the ball for a while now. I have had excellent luck with Epson printers over the years. Typically, I would sell my old model in order to upgrade to a newer one (with higher resolution or another feature I wanted). Right now I have an Epson R200 printer that prints everything I could want (for color). It prints directly onto cd/dvd's as well as photographs that are out of this world (thanks to the 6 color printing).
For my black and white documents, I use a Samsung ML-2151N printer. It does full duplex printing (right out of the box) and has a high duty cycle. Plus, you can fit an entire ream of paper into the default tray (the one it ships with). Every other printer I looked at in the same price range couldn't handle over 250 sheets in the tray (input). I was originally looking at HP printers when I was going after a laser printer, but ultimately, the HP models just couldn't offer the same features for even close to the same money (HP was at least $100 more).
All that being said, I am NOT a fan of the multifunction devices. From everything I've seen, they very, very rarely do more than one thing well. Even then, it has issues doing it well on a regular basis. Plus, when one aspect fails, you have to either send it out for repair or junk the entire thing and replace it. With dedicated printers and scanners (can be paired to act as a copier) you can replace either part easily and without incident. I've kept the same scanner for going on 4 years now (it does THAT well) but I've gone through more than a few printers since then. I have one of the wire mesh shelving units that holds my printers, scanner and more. Makes it so that all of that takes up very little floor space (plus I can fit even more things on the shelves). I'd consider that a minor amount of organization to get the most out of the floor space available.
Bottom line, I don't advise anyone that asks to get the multifunction devices. If they have even a moderate amount of space available get individual devices. Maybe at some point in the future the multifunction devices will mature to the level where they can be trusted for the long term. That time is not yet here.
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