Printer choice - laser or ink jet?

[TPMB12]

We're looking to replace our home office hp inkjet printer.  It uses up cartridges quickly and had an issue working ba few times.

The idea of getting a laser printer came up. Are they a good option for home use? I'm guessing they are efficient with the toner. I'm guessing q lot higher initial outlay.

My question is what's best for moderate home office / family use? Any recommendations? Looking at laser b&w, laser colour and laser inkjet.  Possibly the last two more but most prints can be b&w although colour is better as the documents will be in colour frequently.

I've seen £200 laser printers, would they be any good? What up front outlay would get a decent inkjet and a decent laser? I really don't know much about what makes a good printer.

[Bluebottle]

We got a HP laserjet a few years ago after getting bored continually replacing ink cartridges in the deskjet. We are very light users and the ink seemed miraculously to evaporate. Can't say we have had much issue with the laserjet, although whatever you choose, it is worth factoring in the cost of replacement toners, which are not cheap. Still think we are cheaper in the long run with the laserjet.

[Kim]

An inkjet printer will give you 6 weeks of stunning photos, followed by a couple of years of banded text before becoming a lump of overpriced e-waste.  By which time those stunning photos will have faded.

A laser will give you years of perfectly acceptable documents and mediocre images.  The killer feature for home use is that unlike an inkjet, they still work after months of doing nothing.

Either way, beware devious tactics by the manufacturer (consumables with expiry dates, cloud computing, that sort of thing).  Apparently Brother are recommended on the basis they haven't enshittified as much as the other big manufacturers.


(FWIW, I have a Laserjet 4050^[1], bought second hand-for £<100 in about 2004.  It's on its third toner cartridge.  Unfortunately, it's now reached the point where the plastic parts have become brittle.  We had to scrap the duplexer^[2] recently, but it's only a matter of time before some more critical component snaps.)


_{[1] With an Ethernet module, so you can connect it to modern computers without drama.
[2] Least reliable part of the 4000 series, and an infrequent source of paper jams.}

[perpetual dan]

I’ve recently ordered a printer with refillable ink tanks. But it’s not arrived yet and my main interest is photos, so I can’t offer much in the way of recommendation!

[TPMB12]

Canon do those ink tank printers where you buy bottled ink too refill them with.  They claim 90% cheaper. We've got hp printer such had black cartridge and a tricolour cartridge.  This is annoying because you have to replace when one of the three colours gets used up. Very wasteful. Mostly it's got one colour that's 75% full when we have to throw it out.  That's why we're looking at a laser printer.

[Paul H]

If you buy a laser printer, make sure you're aware of the quantity of toner you're getting with it.  It's common practice for them to come with sample cartridges, it runs out before you've finished working out what the buttons do. If you go for colour, a pack of cartridges (If individuals) might cost nearly as much as the printer.
I know nothing about colour printing.  I've had a Brother 2250 B&W laser for about 5 years, cost around £120. As above needed a cartridge shortly after buying, I'm glad I only had to buy B&W, that proper cartridge is doing well.  I'm not a heavy user, about halfway through a second ream of paper.  It's been faultless and unlike the ink printer it replaced, it doesn't mind being left idle for weeks.

[rafletcher]

Brother printers work by counting sheets printed to “run out”. There’s a hidden menu to allow you to reset the count. I’m on my second in 15 years. Light home usage.

[grams]

https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-laser-wi-fi-its-fine

I have a colour Brother I found in the street and have never replaced the toner.

[Syd]

I have an old HP laserjet with which I use compatible toner cartridges. I’ve bought toner twice for it since 2012 and it’s still going strong.

For balance I also have an Epson inkjet that used 9 ink cartridges. To replace them with OEM cartridges is eye wateringly expensive but I bought a refillable system from fotospeed. Their inks are pigment based  and neither dry out as quickly as OEM inks nor do they fade anywhere near as fast. I have 11 years old prints that still look as good as the day they were printed.

The laser in the workhorse at home with the inkjet being used for photos or where colour is necessary.

[Diver300]

I've had Epson ET-2720 ink tank printer for about 4 years. Like with most home printers, our use of it is sporadic.

After years of spending loads of money and effort on printers with cartridges that ran out quickly or refused to work after long periods of not being used, the new printer has just worked. I think that I have cleaned the heads once using the routine. It's needed one new black ink bottle which wasn't much money at all, and there is still loads of all the colour inks. The ink levels are visible in the tanks, so it's not relying on software for that.

I did have an issue with Windows not seeing the scanner that is part of the printer but I suspect that was a problem caused by one Windows update and fixed by a later one.

[tonycollinet]

I've had Epson ET-2720 ink tank printer for about 4 years. Like with most home printers, our use of it is sporadic.

After years of spending loads of money and effort on printers with cartridges that ran out quickly or refused to work after long periods of not being used, the new printer has just worked. I think that I have cleaned the heads once using the routine. It's needed one new black ink bottle which wasn't much money at all, and there is still loads of all the colour inks. The ink levels are visible in the tanks, so it's not relying on software for that.

I did have an issue with Windows not seeing the scanner that is part of the printer but I suspect that was a problem caused by one Windows update and fixed by a later one.

I'll also suggest considering the ecotanks - especially if you want to print photos. My7700 (with the photo black tank) came with two full sets of bottles, and after more than 2 years, (again sporadic use) I'm only half way through the first set. I did have to clean the heads a few times after a 6 month storage while we moved the house around - but I didn't have to resort to the nuclear "clean all the ink out of the tubes" function. I've never had a clog apart from that one but I do now print a test page at least once a month if I've not otherwise used it.

[ScumOfTheRoad]

Definitely a laser printer. I have an Epson inkjet printer/scanner. Scanner works great but the printing side stuffed up. Banded printing with black. Bought a cheapo black cartridge which was a waste of 17 quid. Plus the time spent to endlessly print off test pages.

I needed to print Mrs Scum's Christmas Round Robin so bought a Brother black and white laser in Argos.
Works great and I expect it to lst for years, like my last Brother laser.
Brother are pushing a monthly subscription service - I wont be taking them up on that. Good shake of the toner cartridge if it starts to run out and I will try to find the hidden menu item to reset page count.

I dont do much colour printing at all. I would look at how much colour pages I would want and consider a web based service or a local print shop to print off photos.

[chrisbainbridge]

We have always had hp for home and office. Home one (vicar) probably does several hundred pages per week  and the office ones vary. One does about hundred per week over 3 days. The others do much smaller amounts.
I recently replaced them as the plastic was brittle bu they are only the third printers in 30 years. They are all now scanner/printers so we have got rid of the scanner as well.
I always get the officer ones as they are black and 3 colour cartridges.
We did try refilled cartridges but they were not worth the money.

[L CC]

Free printing is one of the perks of working in an office, for the amount I print.

[Bluebottle]

Either way, beware devious tactics by the manufacturer (consumables with expiry dates, cloud computing, that sort of thing).  Apparently Brother are recommended on the basis they haven't enshittified as much as the other big manufacturers.

Pretty much the first part sums things up. I have long since assumed that the business model of printer manufacturers is focused on the supply a steady stream of plastic, pigment and occasionally liquid (in that order) at regular intervals, rather than actually supplying printers.

[Diver300]

Either way, beware devious tactics by the manufacturer (consumables with expiry dates, cloud computing, that sort of thing).  Apparently Brother are recommended on the basis they haven't enshittified as much as the other big manufacturers.

Pretty much the first part sums things up. I have long since assumed that the business model of printer manufacturers is focused on the supply a steady stream of plastic, pigment and occasionally liquid (in that order) at regular intervals, rather than actually supplying printers.

Our inkjet printer with tanks for the ink was reassuringly expensive. I could actually imagine that it cost what we paid for it. Very similar inkjet printers with cartridges were available for a fraction of the price and I don't believe they could sell them at a profit. I assume that the business model was to make up the difference on cartridges, so I was quite happy to pay the full price in the knowledge hope that the ink prices (and hassles) would be less in the future.

4 years later I now consider it a worthwhile investment.

[Adam]

We've got a Zerox multi-device B&W laser printer which does virtually all the printing including double-sided, plus an HP inkjet for the rare occasions when we need colour.  That only has official HP cartridges installed as so-called compatibles cause so many issues.

It's far more cost effective to use a laser.

[Jaded]

The last colour laser I bought, a set of 4 toner refills was about 20% more than the printer price.

[Jurek]

Free printing is one of the perks of working in an office, for the amount I print.

This.

I also have access to (ahem!) large inkjet printers.
I can print you something 5m x 50m (that's the length of the roll).
If you want any bigger I can do it, but it'll have a join in it.

[quixoticgeek]

Just to second what Kim said.

I have a Brother HL1270N printer that is still working after over 22 years. Has had one new cartridge in that time.

If you are printing enough to make going to the local pring/copy shop a pain in the arse, then a laser printer is the way to go, and if you can't justify the cost of a laser printer, then you'll find that going to a print/copy shop is going to be the most cost effective way. The use cases where an inkjet printer is justified are tiny. Avoid if at all possible.

J

[Cudzoziemiec]

https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-laser-wi-fi-its-fine

I have a colour Brother I found in the street and have never replaced the toner.

How did you get that before Blodwyn Pig picked it up?

[ian]

If you want high quality colour in persistent inks, it's better to pay someone, or only display your pictures in a dark cave. Possibly the inks have improved, anything I printed on an inkjet now looks like the earliest experiments in daguerreotype. They're like watching your past fade, much like in Back to the Future, though with less oedipal risk.


For general document printing with the emphasis on text and simple diagrams, laser printers are the way to go, the initial investment is a little more. I'm still on the HP my previous but one employer provided. I use knock-off replacement cartridges with no issues.

[De Sisti]

https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-laser-wi-fi-its-fine

Can't buy them anywhere.

[grams]

It’s not a recommendation for a particular model, it’s a suggest to stick “brother laser printer” into your favourite search engine and buy the first thing you see.

[Ham]

I've used these guys and been happy with them https://www.printerland.co.uk/, I like their comparative per copy cost. When I was buying, I went for Xerox as they had a lower per page cost, and I've been very happy with it.  I'd had a Brother previously, the exit paper path was a dust trap (but it was straighter than the Xerox). Bring back my old Panasonic KXP4455, I say.