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Printer Recommendations?

Genegenie

Drag Race Newbie
Epson are best if you print more than scan I have a DX6050 all-in-one had it about 8 years cost £80 ($120ish) so owes me nothing, DPi is 5760 x 1440, usual is 4800 x 1200 at this price point. Pattern cartridges (4) from supermarket cost approx £8 ($12ish) each (!), pukka Epson are about £14 ($22ish) each. Cheapo carts do 20-ish A4 photo quality prints on glossy paper, genuine Epson ones do about 24. At similar price Canon also rated good but HP printers apparently drink ink. Interestingly, the black cartridge rarely empties first, it's usually one of the colour ones. Hmmm...
 

snobrdrdan

former GTI owner
I keep a black and white Brother printer HL-L23800W (179.00) for 95% of my printing, scanning and uploading to google drive etc. Low cost, super reliable works wired or wireless from Mac, IOS, Windows etc. It does not fax but have not needed faxing but a couple of times in 6 years. In that case I just use the scan capability of the printer and an online fax service. Oh it will also do duplex printing (print both sides of paper). This particular model does not have a document feeder, no big deal for me.

Looks like this particular model is not readily available. Brother has

Brother MFC-L2710DC​

It has all same features as above, plus fax, plus document feeder and uses the same toner cartridge. 219.99 at Staples.


Color lasers are fine for documents that require color but at the consumer level are generally poor at printing photos.

Inkjets with good photo paper do the best job of printing photographs.

Because of the general issues with inkjet ink tech I have gone without a color printer for 5 years. I believe it has gotten only marginally better. I have a bunch of old photos I want to digitize and print in color. In the past I would run to a Fedex or copy store and use their printer which has proven to be way cheaper than buying and maintaing my own printer. Since I don't have a need to print color often it was reasonably convenient.

I am considering the purchase of a larger format inkjet and I really like the Epson line because they don't use cartridges. Those tiny cartridges add greatly to the expense of supplies. You can just buy in and fill the built-in tanks on the printer.
I wouldn't be printing pictures (for show) or anything like that, and I'm not looking for the BEST printer either.....just everyday stuff kind of thing.
I don't want to be limited to just black and white either though
 

GIACUser

Master Wallet Mechanic
I wouldn't be printing pictures (for show) or anything like that, and I'm not looking for the BEST printer either.....just everyday stuff kind of thing.
I don't want to be limited to just black and white either though
A color laser printer will provide for your needs as you have described them. The upside is the cartridges don't dry up. The downside of that technology is that the printer mechanism is more complicated and costs more. And compared to the Epson Eco Tank the printer costs per page car much higher. They use 4 cartridges at about 60 bucks each.

So I would and intend to purchase an Epson Eco Tank printer or myself when I get around to it. The Tank part that get rid of the cartridges causes the per page printing costs to go down and has mitigated much of the issue with the use of this water based ink (drying out and clogging). It looks the best and is cheapest with most of the downsides removed from the earlier inkjet issues.
 

cb1111

Newbie
A color laser printer will provide for your needs as you have described them. The upside is the cartridges don't dry up. The downside of that technology is that the printer mechanism is more complicated and costs more. And compared to the Epson Eco Tank the printer costs per page car much higher. They use 4 cartridges at about 60 bucks each.

So I would and intend to purchase an Epson Eco Tank printer or myself when I get around to it. The Tank part that get rid of the cartridges causes the per page printing costs to go down and has mitigated much of the issue with the use of this water based ink (drying out and clogging). It looks the best and is cheapest with most of the downsides removed from the earlier inkjet issues.
Yes, get the least expensive eco tank
 

The Fed

Old Guys Rule
I've always used third-party laser toner from E-Z Ink through Amazon. Works well enough and much cheaper than OEM, and they have excellent customer service. I only buy black toner for my Brother laser all-in-one. I like Brother. Mine is wireless. I just replaced a drum kit at about 12,000 pages.

I know E-Z Ink sells kits with all four toner cartridges (black, cyan, magenta, yellow), for color laser printers, but you would need to see if they have them for specific printers. A random search shows all four cartridges for about $75.

When I worked for Uncle, I had a pretty large color laser. Can't remember which brand probably HP. We were required to use OEM toners, and they were about $100 each about 15 years ago. Just keep the original ones if you ever need factory service.
 

GIACUser

Master Wallet Mechanic
Follow up.....I gave up on the laser printer idea and ordered the Canon Pixma (Megatank) G6020 the other day
Looks like a great choice to me. All the right features and reasonable price, also like the look of it. Canon products usually top notch. I love these wireless printers that allow you to print from you phone. Let us know how you like it after you have used it for a bit.
 

PerceivedShift

Autocross Champion
I bought a Brother HL-L2320D B&W laser printer from Staples a while ago for like $120, man...this thing has been a real work horse! Not the greatest print quality, but for printing documents it has been great...and crazy relaible. Refills are only $50 too, pretty happy with the purchase.
 

GIACUser

Master Wallet Mechanic
I bought a Brother HL-L2320D B&W laser printer from Staples a while ago for like $120, man...this thing has been a real work horse! Not the greatest print quality, but for printing documents it has been great...and crazy relaible. Refills are only $50 too, pretty happy with the purchase.
Agreed, for black and white its great. I have had mine for about 4 years and it is hard to beat for general stuff. Wireless, duplex printing, supports uploading of scanned docs to various web services and conversion to pdf
 

AM407

Autocross Champion
We’ve had a Brother B&W laser printer (HL-5350) for at least a decade now and it’s been great.

And we bought it to replace an earlier Brother laser printer that we owned for a good decade before that, also with no issues. Only reason we replaced it was because we bought a new computer and needed a printer with USB connection. The old printer still worked fine, just had the old-school pin cable connection only.
 
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