Author Topic: Home printer recommendations  (Read 3149 times)

Beardy

  • Shedist
Home printer recommendations
« on: 19 October, 2018, 11:56:36 am »
Can the collective suggest a quality home printer for occasional use that won’t cost a fortune in cartridges and definitely not one that tells me that the cartridge is out of date when it’s probably nearly full.  A multifunction device is not needed, though colour would be good. Ideally I’d like a photo quality print, but I suspect that would cost a fortune.
For every complex problem in the world, there is a simple and easily understood solution that’s wrong.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Home printer recommendations
« Reply #1 on: 19 October, 2018, 12:15:56 pm »
My general advice for occasional use is to avoid inkjets and look at lasers.  Those are quite happy to sit around unused for months and then churn out a thousand pages without any of that clogged nozzle rubbish.

It then becomes a tradeoff of that reliability for quality of colour output.  Colour lasers are expensive and fall short of photo quality.

Consider the practicality of a mono laser printer and using someone else's printer for occasional colour.  This may be a reasonable compromise if you have access to such via a workplace or educational establishment, or happen to live a short walk from a printing shop.

Re: Home printer recommendations
« Reply #2 on: 19 October, 2018, 12:17:00 pm »
I stick to mono laser at home. IME all ink printes are silly expensive to run for domestic purposes. Have a look at Brother DCP 7055w, or its successor, inexpensive to buy and non OEM toner cartridges are available at very low cost. Replacement drum every 35000 pages or so. Highly recommend buying a model with built in scanner and copier.
Get a bicycle. You will never regret it, if you live- Mark Twain

Re: Home printer recommendations
« Reply #3 on: 19 October, 2018, 12:20:31 pm »
Brother laser printers are ok - based on my experience of one  :).  Mine is a multifunction colour laser, but they do single function ones too of course. It does tell me the cartridges are empty sometimes - but then I google the Youtube video that tells me how to reset the page count (which is how it decides it's empty) and I carry on until they really run out.  It's wireless too, works a treat. Great for printing stuff from the phone or tablet.

ETA: I use the genuine cartridges, but my usage rate is so low that means a set every couple of years, so I'm happy to buy OEM.
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

woollypigs

  • Mr Peli
    • woollypigs
Re: Home printer recommendations
« Reply #4 on: 19 October, 2018, 12:28:51 pm »
None, cause you will need to print less than you think. The faff with dry ink, out of ink and jam takes more time and money than popping down to the local photo print shop and paying them for the odd print.

Only reason I still got one is that it got a scanner on board. Even though mobile apps are getting quite good at the "scanning" odd bits when I need a scan now and again. Mainly used to to scan old photos or bits of payer that needs to be "pressed flat".

The last time I printed, I wasted about 20min of my time. Which included the full range of - why aren't you connected cause you darn well were the last time I printed, Oh jam again (2-3 sheets in the scrap paper pile), bother ink is now running low so half the page is faded and the odd bit of swearing why bleep are you now doing a clean cycle cause all I want is just one page printed 20min ago !!!

Kim said it once - printers only understand violence (yes there was something about postscript in that quote, but before I got to that I have smashed the printer with a heavy thing)
Current mood: AARRRGGGGHHHHH !!! #bollockstobrexit

ian

Re: Home printer recommendations
« Reply #5 on: 19 October, 2018, 12:30:32 pm »
Lasers. Cheap these days and just work without having to worry about empty cartridges and cleaning print heads. etc. etc. Even when the toner runs out, a shake of the cartridge will give you a few more pages. I've been doing that for about a year now.

If you need occasional colour, especially for photos, it's more economical to go have them printed (there's no shortage of online places if you don't have a shop nearby).

Gattopardo

  • Lord of the sith
  • Overseaing the building of the death star
Re: Home printer recommendations
« Reply #6 on: 19 October, 2018, 12:49:05 pm »

Wombat

  • Is it supposed to hurt this much?
Re: Home printer recommendations
« Reply #7 on: 19 October, 2018, 02:13:21 pm »
Sadly I need to print a few, but not a lot, of decent colour photos, as well as colour documents including spreadsheets with a degree of colour coding (to take to meetings and wave angrily at people).  I don't actually print very much in overall quantity, as I try to avoid printing anything if possible, and carry it by other means, but I do often need to print bits of drawings to take to the workshop and scrawl all over, or glue to a workpiece as a cutting guide.  Whilst Kim's advice to find someone nearby was definitely well meant, she obviously doesn't know where I live (why should she?).  I live with one neighbour not very close next door, who are IT-phobic, and the rest of the neighbours have trouble operating IT equipment with their cloven hooves, 'cos they is sheep.  I do therefore need to be independent (nearest town is 11 miles away, and there's no print shop - for that I think its Shrewsbury, about 30 miles and another country away).  I do also have an A1 format roll feed printer (HP111) but that is no use for the odd A4 document or for photos, as its crap at them.

I much prefer lasers, but as others have said, they are not good for photos.  In a way what I need is a professional photo printer at a lower price point, and my Canon was a good try at that.  I do print something at least every couple of days, so dried heads don't seem to be an issue (the big HP objected violently to being in store for 6 months or more during the Great House Move Debacle, and needed a new head and extremely through flushing/poking of its ink feed tubes).

I must confess to grumpiness at printers just suddenly dying.  No getting a bit worn or cranky, just stopping in their prime, when I think they've years left in them yet.  Its predecessor lasted 6 years, and I think this one has only managed 4 or maybe 5, but it too was in store for around 5 months.  I hate to say it, but I think another bloody inkjet is the only reasonable answer.  My document printing volume doesn't justify a separate mono laser, and space is tight (the bloody great HP behind me doesn't help there!).  Budget may reach £100, as long as it promises to last a reasonable time.  We shall see...
Wombat

Wombat

  • Is it supposed to hurt this much?
Re: Home printer recommendations
« Reply #8 on: 19 October, 2018, 02:21:19 pm »
I replied to the wrong thread!  D'oh, or something like that....  Wondered why so many folk had responded to a bit of a non-question...
Wombat

frankly frankie

  • I kid you not
    • Fuchsiaphile
Re: Home printer recommendations
« Reply #9 on: 21 October, 2018, 12:10:09 pm »
We've been very happy for 3 years or so with our HP Laserjet 200 color (sic) networkable.  It's the 4th colour laser we've had (used for magazine proofing) and by far the best so far (previous in order, HP, Lexmark, Samsung).  Comparitively quiet and unfussy in operation.  The first time I printed to it remotely from the laptop it worked instantly without requiring any setup or driver installation (Win 8/10), I was most impressed.  Low toner nags are a bit silly but don't seem to actually stop it from working.
when you're dead you're done, so let the good times roll

tonycollinet

  • No Longer a western province of Númenor
Re: Home printer recommendations
« Reply #10 on: 22 October, 2018, 10:18:00 pm »
HP Officejets.

The exceptions to the rule of crap inkjets. Never seem to have troublesome clogs. Even had one in the loft for a year and a half (hot in summer, cold in winter) after an offspring graduated. When we got it down - it just worked.

If you get the ones that take the high capacity cartridges, running costs are also cheaper than laser - with the advantage that you are buying fewer "pages" at a time, so investment in unused consumables is lower as well.

Re: Home printer recommendations
« Reply #11 on: 23 October, 2018, 08:44:03 am »
Sadly I need to print a few, but not a lot, of decent colour photos,

If that's truly a requirement, then the Epson Photo series wins hands down. Six inks, individually replaceable and capable of truly awesome quality and long life colour. My R360 is now 11 years old, used very infrequently and, with the occasional cleaning cycle prints as good as new. From what I can see, the current equivalent is "EXPRESSION PHOTO HD XP-15000" which is over your budget, but maybe try to pick up an R-Series secondhand. https://www.epson.co.uk/products/printers/inkjet-printers/for-home/expression-photo-xp-8500 which at £80 looks ideal.

If you don't want the best quality photos, then as you were. Any colour printer produces pleasant images.

tonycollinet

  • No Longer a western province of Númenor
Re: Home printer recommendations
« Reply #12 on: 25 October, 2018, 01:02:56 am »
I’ve had 5 (yes 5, most quite expensive) epson printers every single one has become non functional through clogging. Never again. Triumph of hope over experience

Re: Home printer recommendations
« Reply #13 on: 25 October, 2018, 07:34:28 am »
I would support HP deskjets. I run a small office with 3 of these plus another one at home and they are faultless. The previous ones were exchanged after about 10 years as the staff wanted twin tray versions and expansion meant we needed an extra printer

The only downside is the curved paper path which is difficult with card.

Re: Home printer recommendations
« Reply #14 on: 25 October, 2018, 07:34:51 am »
I’ve had 5 (yes 5, most quite expensive) epson printers every single one has become non functional through clogging. Never again. Triumph of hope over experience

This is, to be fair, a unique (?) Epson issue, as most manufacturers include a cheap disposable print head with each and every cartridge, whereas the Epson use a better quality print head attached to the printer. Epson have long been focussed on the ability to deliver a quality image of outstanding longevity. While I suspect that my knowledge of other systems may be out of date (eg, I believe that most manufacturers have moved to pigment inks from dye, giving longer life) if what you want is a decent colour print then Epson is still the go-to brand. If what you want is a generic printer with an occasional colour image, or charts with added colour for emphasis, then others would be better choices.

Re: Home printer recommendations
« Reply #15 on: 25 October, 2018, 08:39:35 am »
+1 for Epson inkjet printers for photos. Yee they do clog up if not used but that's due to the brilliant printer heads being part of the printer not throwaway ones i the cartridge as all ready stated below. Its a trade off you have to make.
I had one for ten years and and ended up giving it to a friends son who was keen on photography as we don't print enough enough photos anymore to justify it hanging about.

My recommendations are as follows:

Photo printing: Epson Inkjet
General purpose printing: HP Inkjet
High volume general purpose printing: Laser printer of some kind.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

Re: Home printer recommendations
« Reply #16 on: 25 October, 2018, 08:58:42 am »
I would also go for a laser. I stupidly gave my Brother laser away to the city farm when we went to Google cloud printing. I should have just bought a little network adapter.
Now have a Canon Pixma multifunction printer/scanner which is a Google cloud printer. The big faff with this is not very good scanniong software, I find it a pain to use. But the scanning is automatic - ie it recognises a photo and crops the image etc.

One other tip - do NOT buy paper from a pound shop. I was pleased as punch to  A4 printer paper for a pound. On running it through the printer the paper is so lightweight the print quality is awful. Avoid.