I liked the Canon stuff, but longterm they don't seem to last. Have had two different ones fail. Now testing an Epson (ink comes in bottles (Ecotank), not cartridges). I agree about HP's software...terrible. Brother is about the only brand I have not yet tried.
All my printers eventually fail. One thing I like is the ability to print directly on to discs (CD, DVD, Blu-ray). I had an Epson that had a tray that would slide out for the disc. That printer eventually wore out. One of my Canon printers comes with an additional tray that you slide in when printing discs. I bought the second Canon so as to also have a scanner, but the software/interface for the scanner is not very intuitive.