Inexpensive Everday Printer

[jimbofoxman]

Was thinking of getting the Canon 970 cause of the rebate deal right now. But I am not sure.........as I have the HP 9180 for printing photos. I haven't been using the 9180 cause I need to replace the cartridges on it and doing all at once costs a ton and I can't really do it right now. My everyday printer took a dump and I need a printer that I can use for everyday use, albeit light use. Mostly B&W with some occasional documents with color in them.

The Canon 970 was interesting cause I have some old 35mm film I could scan and play with.

So can anyone recommend an inexpensive B&W with some occasional color printer?

 

[Lemon law]

You put your finger on it Jimbo, they hook you in with a cheap ink jet printer and gouge you bit by bit on the ink. Or you can try a not so cheap all in one and they still gouge you on the ink. There are few options away from playing that losing game.

1. Get a cheap black and white Laser. Low initial cost and low consumable costs. The downside--it will not do photos or color.

2. Get a low cost color laser. Not so low cost even for B&W but still cheaper than ink jet. Will do color for about the same consumable costs as good Canon inkjet but cheaper than most HP's. But still will not do photoprinting. 2500-4000 pages down the road, you have to replace all the drums and you can get a new printer for less.

3. Bite the bullet, get the canon 970, and learn how to refill. Which is harder now because nearly all the inkjets have chips to defeat. If you cost out the amount of usable ink for a Canon with the CLI-5&8 series of cartridges, it will run you about $2500/gal for black and $4000/gal for color. Which for the ink jet industry is dirt cheap, often it exceeds $10,000 a gallon when vended in cartridge form. ( the gallon unit is arbitrary ) Yet one can make and sell top quality ink for less than $100/ gallon. In other words, the profit margin on the ink is fantastic.

In my case, I bought $50.00 of ink two years ago for two non chipped Canons. And I am still printing without spending a dime more. I still have some ink left but I am going to have to replace it because its at the end of its shelf life. And Canon Cartridges are super easy to refill.

 

[Modelworks]

I did recommend epson but not after this:
http://www.inkjetart.com/ink/index.html

Q: where are the cheap compatible and bulk feed systems for the Epson printers located?

A: Short answer: we can't sell them anymore. Long Answer: "On October 19, 2007 the U.S. International Trade Commission ("ITC") issued a Final Determination that confirmed that all of the more than 750 accused cartridges for Epson inkjet printers infringe one or more of eleven Epson patents. The ITC issued a General Exclusion Order prohibiting all importers from importing infringing cartridges and Cease and Desist Orders that prohibit the named respondents from selling cartridges imported before the ITC Order. The ITC also ordered a bond of $13.60 per imported cartridge for imports during the 60 day Presidential Review period." quoted from http://itc.epson.com

You could put the ink in a little holder outside the printer and it would pull it straight from the bottles. Worked great.


Now I would agree, go with cannon, they are easy to refill.
I have a hp with hacked firmware, but thats not easy for everyone to do.

 

[nerp]

With quality black and white personal lasers selling for $75, (I love my LaserJet 1018), there's no reason to consider an inkjet for everyday printing IMHO. Inkjets were first introduced as an alternative to laser and a major improvement over dot matrix printing. They've become quite good for photo printing over the years but have always paled for pure text printing next to even the most entry level lasers. The only reason to not buy a laser for the bulk of your printing was cost. But, today, that issue is gone. A cheap personal laser from HP, Brother or Samsung will do the job with ease and you can save piles of money in the long term. With the savings, buy a higher quality inkjet photo printer than you planned on buying and appreciate that you have the best of both worlds.

Just my feeling.

 

[bigben2wardpitt]

ok, i am going off to college in august, and am looking for a decent printer as well, but it doesnt need to print photos, just color and black and white, and fairly fast. It also needs to be mac compatible. Waht would you suggest? companies to look at? which ones to stay away from? Laser or inkjet, or either?

thanks. buying printers these days is just getting ridiculous!

 

[Zepper]

You guys just missed out on the special at the Egg. Had the Canon iP4500 for $80. shipped (for newsletter subscribers).

.bh.

 

[bigben2wardpitt]

ok, i am going off to college in august, and am looking for a decent printer as well, but it doesnt need to print photos, just color and black and white, and fairly fast. It also needs to be mac compatible. Waht would you suggest? companies to look at? which ones to stay away from? Laser or inkjet, or either?

 

[Zepper]

Watch for another deal on the iP4500 as mentioned above. It is the current top of Canon's general purpose printer line even though they call it a "photo" printer. Almost anything that can print color at all can also do photos - that's just the way it is these days.

.bh.

 

[you2]

Well with rebate the ip4500 is not that much cheaper than the mp970. I would think the mp970 has better photo quality because of the extra ink...

 

[Zepper]

You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference in photo print quality because the iP4500 is capable of three droplet sizes instead of just two. Besides, the OP isn't interested in photo printing.

.bh.

 

[bigben2wardpitt]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Watch for another deal on the iP4500 as mentioned above. It is the current top of Canon's general purpose printer line even though they call it a "photo" printer. Almost anything that can print color at all can also do photos - that's just the way it is these days.

.bh.

well usually photo printing means more cartridges (does it just have a black ink cartridge and a color cartridge?) and also slower print speeds for some of the more basic things, which i definitely do not want.

 

[punchkin]

The wife and I just bought this HP OfficeJet Pro. It has all the features we wanted and the price isn't that bad for what it does. I believe even if you go direct to HP for print cartridges the per-page cost for black is ~1.4 cents per page.

 

[Zepper]

I've got an HP OJ k5400 which is the print engine the 7700 is based on and HP is still the misfeed maniac of printers (at least the inkjet models - I'm not that familiar with their lasers). I can't recall any significant misfeeding (really none at all) with any of the Canons I've had - all you have to do is look at the 5400 wrong and it'll feed you a handful of paper - particularly on attempts at manual duplexing. But the per page cost can be kept low partially because they have the ink flow set to a low value. Go into the advanced settings and bump the flow up a notch for better photo output - set it back for general use.

big...,
Well, now any printer that can print a photo is called a photo printer. Canon has general purpose printers like the iP3500/4500 which have one or two black tanks and three color tanks (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) it also has true photo printers with 5 or more color tanks plus one or two black tanks. They can be spotted as they will usually have a photo viewer screen on them. With the gen. purp. models, you'll have to do your photo manipulation in your computer and then print. With the true photo printer models, you can do some editing right at the printer. The gen. purp. will print a photo direct to the PictBridge port, but it'll be just as it comes from the camera.

So if photo printing is your big thing, then you will want one of the true photo models for slightly better photo output, but the op just want color for spot text and graphics, so the 4500 or even the 3500 would be great for that.

.bh.

PS: Separate tanks for each ink should save costs over the long term. I found a set of refillable tanks on eBay to replace the HP88 tanks in my k5400. There is a gotcha that they don't mention in the listing for them - you have to install ALL of them at once as they won't work individually with the HP OEM tanks. Luckily it seems like my OEM set are getting low at the same time, so I won't be out so much - I was afraid I was going to be out of yellow and/or red well before the black and cyan, but it seems the "low ink LEDs" come on very early. At least one has been on for a month and it's still going - now all the low ink lights are on, but no blinking on any yet. .bh.

 

[punchkin]

Not really going to use this one for photo use, but thanks for the tip. I haven't had problems with feeding on other HP printers I've owned/used, but I will definitely run some tests when it arrives. I looked for this specific issue and didn't find any in user reports. The main gripe seems to be software problems, which already had me worried enough... I've had feed problems with two Epsons, which was one reason I switched from my last home printer.

 

[Zepper]

Well, I spoke too soon. My yellow ink started flashing today, so now I'm running totally on the clone refillable tanks. Printed a Getty test photo and just from first impression it looks the same. I'll have to eyeball them side by side, then I'll have to bump the ink flow up a notch and print again and check against the one I did when it was new. So far, so good.

.bh.

 

[bigben2wardpitt]

yea, and i am with punchkin, I don't need the printer to have any photo printing options... I'd rather not have that actually b/c its usually more money, means little specific settings and cartidges just for it, and usally slows overall printing down a lot (I am generalizing, but I really just don't need a photo printer). If a good printer has some photo printing features, sure i'll take it, but I don't need it. So with that in mind, other suggestions?

 

[imported_darin]

hi,
Question do most of the laser printers today support post script and have PCL of some type or are those features you have to pay more for or are they standard now.

I need to replace a older Hp LaserJet 4,5, and 6 printers that are broken need parts and it
has been a while since. I have looked at laser printers. Can't go Inkjet print to much for that have been using mothers printer at other house as I am without printer now need to get one badly been 6 mouths without printer. Ink cartridges are to small not enough pages per cartage. So need to go with laser.

Old printer cost to much to fix if I can still get parts. Labor $50 to $75 an Hour. Labor cost more then parts.

Features /options:

looking for large ink cartage 1000 pages, networking, two-sided printing, memory(expandable? )for graphics or postscript. PCL support, post script, print speeds 12+ ppm, high resolution 600,1200 etc, color would be nice but not required, a photo memory card slot might be nice but not required.

High monthly volume or duty cycle or meantime before failure.

Need A good personal laser from HP, Brother or Samsung ,canon ,Xerox ,Epson.

Any one here know any good models or product lines I should look at or stay away from?

I have had HP printers in the past but brand does not matter that much as long as can get parts or service easily but would like to say with major vendor.

If any one here can reply or give me some feed back as to what I sould be looking at don't relly know much about printers other then HP or who is there compotion?

Thanks,
Darin

 

[Zepper]

HPs generally come with PCL and have PS as an option. Some others come with both PCL and a PS clone. You can get PS on most some way or another, but few come with true PS standard except maybe those marketed more toward Mac users.

.bh.

 

[imported_darin]

Cool thanks for the info. HPs generally come with PCL and have PS as an option. Some others come with both PCL and a PS clone. Ps clone is fine as long as it works. Question
how important is PS for linux or unix use. Know some linux or unix apps are very PS heavy
like unix Latex and ghostview if memory is right. and unix file viewer program can't remember name but is is x11R file viewer *.jpg there is a program that lets you view many file types is very old what is name? (fv ?)


do you know anything about Brother HL-5280DW newer one with wi-fi
(*est. $355)

http://www.consumersearch.com/...-monochrome/index.html

Small-office laser printer with Wi-Fi.The Brother HL-5280DW has the same key specifications as the Brother HL-5250DN, but it adds wireless Wi-Fi networking and an LCD status display. Both printers are compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux computers. Options include additional paper trays and high-capacity toner cartridges, which help reduce running costs. This Brother laser printer has a duty cycle of 20,000 pages per month. (compare prices)

Info on older one without wi-fi

? Brother HL-5250DN
(*est. $240)

Best monochrome laser printer for small offices.Multiple reviews cite the Brother HL-5250DN as a best buy, with sprightly speeds, top-quality text output and built-in Ethernet networking. The HL-5250DN laser printer has 1200 x 1200 dpi resolution and prints more than 20 text pages per minute in tests. According to calculations by PC World, cost of ownership is a low 2.2¢ per page. The Brother also includes an automatic duplexer for double-sided printing and it ships with a full-capacity toner cartridge. Duty cycle is 20,000 pages per month. Owners are also happy with this printer, which gets high ratings on both Newegg.com and Amazon.com. (compare prices)




Looks good on paper and has good rating but not sure about service if needs repair do must places do Brother as well as they do hp or same places. (repair shops) all places do HP. brother same way??

What do you think hardware quality wise and print driver wise for Brother are they at same level ter 1 company like ASUS is as far as Quality of product manufactering goes? or support. Sorry wording a little funny.


Thanks,

darin

 

[jaqie]

IMO? forget inkjets for everyday, especially B&W jobs.
I just bought a new HP laserjet P1006, which has a per-page toner cost of $0.04
They go on sale at newegg for $50ish all the time.
Put two and two together and you see it's a winner.
It is designed for home users, so if you need a hardware printer this one isn't for you...then again I don't know any inexpensive inkjets that can do PCL, so it's not such a bad thing that this one is software based (like all home inkjets).

 

[Zepper]

AFAIK, Brother uses Samsung laser engines. I suppose they may do some firmware tweaking themselves because they seem to be more highly regarded than Samsung branded units. You can go to the brother site for complete info on their units.

Don't bother with Consumer Reports for anything more technically sophisticated than a toaster. The "Service & Support" surveys done by the major magazines like PC Mag or PC World are a better guide to buying.

Service on printers is an iffy thing outside of major metropolitan areas. Most don't actually fix yours and give it back to you anyway. You get a different one that has already been repaired in exchange and yours is triaged into the: to be repaired, to be partsed out, or the to be scrapped bins.

.bh.

 

[Sandan]

I just picked up a Brother 240c all in one for $99 bucks. It can be had cheaper on the net. So far I love it. It is a fax, scan, copy, printer. Regarding ink, I found a deal for $25 which includes 5 black cartridges, and 5 each of the colors....Fantastic. Deal was at Digitgo store on ebay. Love cheap ink.

 

[jimbofoxman]

My Brother 440CN Multifunction is dead now because of cheap ink. Thus the reason for needing a new printer.

 

[Sandan]

How did cheap ink kill your printer......

 

[jimbofoxman]

I replaced the original set of cartridges with a new set of generics and it worked for a while. Then I got messages about the ink levels being low. Pulled one out to replace it with a new generic and the old one felt almost as heavy as the new one. Put the new generic in and now it won't even recognize the new cartridges. I even went out and bought a new Brother Black Cartridge and same thing, still says it's empty. It's now been sitting here collecting dust for over a month until I can get a replacement printer.