Good day
I'm looking to buy a new home printer, just a basic PSC (print/scan/copy) that will do A4 B&W/colour and print on photographic paper too.
printing volume is quite minimal, say 20-30 pages/month.
The thing that I find frustrating is the ink cartridge costs.
I've had HP printers in the past and will probably go with same brand, but do you have any advice on basic home printers and ink cartridges?
Our current printer is HP deskjet 2050 from South Africa, getting genuine HP cartridges for this in UK is difficult, we've tried non HP ink
cartridges, but it refuses to recognise them despite us doing all the fixes like leaving it unplugged for 15 mins and cleaning the terminals.
HP seem to have an instant ink thing where you pay a monthly fee and the printer somehow orders it's own ink when it gets low. WTF is that all
about?
Anyway, I'm open to suggestions.....
Personally I avoid any printers that will only accept their brand ink. I know why they do it, but that doesn't excuse them charging 7-8 times the
price of unbranded cartridges. It's especially relevant with low volume printing, as I print similar numbers of pages as you, and spend a good
portion of my time running cleaning cycles which uses up ink.
As for the whole PSC idea, I went for a basic flatbed scanner and a separate printer. The standalone scanner was cheaper, better quality, and it meant
I could do things that weren't paper, for example passport scans. Then I could save money on the printer as well. The scanner is USB powered and
about the size of a ream of A4 paper, so not really an inconvenience.
Go for a standalone scanner and a lazer printer
We did a few years ago and haven't looked back
Canon Pixma TR4550 PSC does fine for my family of 5 at home. £40 from Currys PC World with ink and it'll accept unbranded ink cartridges as
well. We probably print 30-40 sheets a month, easy to setup and it works wirelessly which is handy (1 PC an 3 laptops in the house). Not tried it,
but I believe you can print from mobiles and tablets to it as well. Scanning is perfectly OK for home use and it's nice and compact having it
all in one unit.
Ink2u is my online choice of supplier for ink cartridges, they do branded and unbranded at reasonable prices.
We have used Epson, Brother and HP inkjet printers over the years, finding the ink expensive and the heads prone to clogging if not used for a few weeks. These days we use a colour laser printer that will work perfectly no matter how long it has sat idle and is far cheaper per page in the long term (although toner cartridges do seem horrendously pricey until you look at how long they'll last you). For good quality prints of a few photos, we just nip to the supermarket and use the photo-printers there.
I got a RICOH one off facebook market place for £10. 2 years old and perfect working order, cartridges are about £30 for the 4 . you can get reusable ones that you can refill yourself £40 for a kit that does about 5-6 refills.
I've had an HP. Excellent photo quality but expensive ink.
Next came an Epson. Bought because it was cheapest for ink, but a year later it sucked two sheets of paper through at once and broke a tooth on the
drive roller.
I now have a Canon Pixma MP492. Had it several years now and easily the best of the three.
Paul G
quote:
Originally posted by 907
I've had an HP. Excellent photo quality but expensive ink.
Next came an Epson. Bought because it was cheapest for ink, but a year later it sucked two sheets of paper through at once and broke a tooth on the drive roller.
I now have a Canon Pixma MP492. Had it several years now and easily the best of the three.
Paul G
Thanks guys, some good points there, time to do some more research....
Hp with Instant ink - used it for 3 years and very happy- very cheap to run, reliable service
would never go back to buying either gen or non gen cartidges