Posted on 03/16/2019 10:58:47 PM PDT by fireman15
We spent more than 150 hours on in-depth testing to identify the top inkjet and laser printers you can buy. And our favorite overall printer is the Canon Pixma TS9120, which offers best-in-class print speeds and high-quality output for both text and graphics. For a printer that won't break the bank, Epson's WorkForce WF-2760 inkjet packs in features like an automatic document feeder and duplexing, while also turning in fast print and copy times.
What All-in-One Printers Cost All-in-one printers sell for as little as $60 (£45/AU$90) for inkjet models, and $150 (£170/AU$200) for laser printers, with high-end models ranging up to the hundreds of dollars, but offering better print quality, durability and features. And don’t forget ink and toner, which can range from 1 to 5 cents per page.
(Excerpt) Read more at tomsguide.com ...
I was reluctant to give it up because I purchased refillable cartridges when it was still new and have gone through literally gallons of ink for very little expense compared to buying OEM cartridges. So I have spent some time, effort and money maintaining this printer over the years.
Most newer printers have been designed to make not using OEM cartridges difficult if not impossible to use. So one of my primary concerns was whether my new printer could be modified to accept refillable cartridges. There is a commercial program called WicReset that for a fee will allow you to reset the Waste Ink counter that will shut your printer down after a certain amount of ink has been calculated to have filled the waste ink container.
You can clean this out yourself and replace sponges and components or reroute the waste ink into an external or replaceable container. This applies to people like me he go through a lot of ink. And even the newer printers with ink tanks instead of cartridges have this limitation. But even though you can do this work the printer will still stop working when the WIC counter after a certain amount of ink has been used. The manufacturers require prohibitively expensive work by authorized service centers to reset this for you. It is called planned obsolescence and getting around this is one of the reasons I have been able to keep my old printer going for as long as I did.
The program will also allow you to roll back the printers firmware to a version that works with refillable cartridges or purchase modified firmware that will allow you to refill any cartridge even those without any security chips at all. But the program only works on specific printers... so one of my personal specs was to get a printer that WicReset could modify.
I was very tempted by the Epson EcoTank printers which allow you to refill the tanks when you see they are getting low. But the cheapest All-in-One they had at Costco was $279 on sale for $110 off. It came with three bottles of black ink and two bottles each of the three color cartridges. But I would have had to pay another $60 to get the next higher model that has FAX which believe it or not is actually still something that I use. I really did not want to spend that much even for a printer with very reasonable operating expenses and years worth of ink included.
So I looked around at articles like this one and at other retailer including Amazon. I finally ended up purchasing another inexpensive Epson Workforce 2750 printer at Walmart for $59 along with a $5 extended warranty. It is the exact same printer as recommended in this article minus the color touch screen. I find buttons easier to use than a tiny 2.5" touch screen and the price is half as much. The printer has somewhat sketchy user reviews, but this will be my 3rd Epson Workforce so I have some experience with their eccentricities. Also every optional feature of the WicReset program was available for this printer.
I’ve resigned myself to just getting a new cheap printer every now & then - cheaper than getting ink refills (and hoping they work).
I am actually interested in feedback on an inexpensive lazer printer.
Small, cheap, and not a hassle to reload.
If anyone knows of good inexpensive lazer printers, would be interested in hearing from you. Maybe something available in Walmart, perhaps?
I have used many different brands of printers over the years. The most reliable and ink thrifty have been Brother brand all-in-one printers.
“Maybe something available in Walmart, perhaps?”
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Where I got my current printer. Can be kind of a pain sometimes, but it works good enough for now -
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Canon-PIXMA-MX490-Wireless-Office-All-in-One-Inkjet-Printer-Copier-Scanner-Fax-Machine/45830928
Not laser tho, sorry.
My wife and I print a lot, so frequent ink refills are a fact of life for us. Costco had a good looking HP All-In-One, for $89, but a set of extra cartridges was almost as much as the printer. Even the non-OEM cartridges on Amazon were prohibitively expensive. I checked on my phone while looking it over. They also had a nicer model Epson Workforce on sale for $99, but it too used very expensive cartridges. The printer that I go cost me just $30 for ten extra non-OEM cartridges from Amazon. A few months ago I got a bunch of cartridges for my little backup printer for just $1 a piece. I would have bought more, but they tend to go bad in about a year.
I have been refilling cartridges and switching inexpensive printers to continuous ink flow systems for decades now. If you buy bad ink it can be a nightmare. But if you don't feel like messing around with that the non-OEM cartridges which have good ratings on Amazon are generally a fraction of the price. Currently with this new printer I currently don't have time to mess around much with it which is why I spent the $30 for a couple extra sets of cartridges. These have chips designed to work with the latest firmware on the printer I purchased.
Cool - what make/model printer are you speaking of there?
Print small art on shrinky dink paper at low color saturation. Cut them out and bake in the oven. Apply clear sealant. When dry glue pins on the back and then sell them on Etsy.
One big selling point for me not buying my usual Epson but going with the HP was their Instant Ink plan. Since I retired, I don't print nearly as much as I used to. I was buying an Epson ink cartridge pack for about $65, only to have it cake in its plastic containers because I wasn't printing for long periods of time. So you'd use about half the Epson ink cartridges performing head cleaning to unclog the ink jets. A very expensive proposition.
The HP Instant Ink plan has me paying $2.99/month for printing up to 50 pages. This covers my needs as a retired teacher. I think the next level is $4.99 for printing 100 pages/month, which I don't need. And I think there's a third level for printing a lot of pages. The printer senses when the ink's almost empty and then I automatically get a new batch of ink shipped. It's a good plan.
I saw a lot of good reviews on that Brother. The little Epson I got actually has very similar performance specs but with lots of bad reviews from people who have had difficulties with them. But it cost 1/4 as much and I paid $5 for the extended warranty.
We are downsizing and I don’t even want to tell anyone about all the non-functioning printers that I have collected over the last 30 years that I have to drop off at the recyclers. I have trashed printers from all the major brands over the years. Epsons hold up if you know the proper way to treat them and use inks that will not clog them up with regular use.
How to make pins
https://youtu.be/g4BYMfb3hSM
Yes, I can second that. Brother laser printers are inexpensive, well built, and toner cost is cheap and it lasts a long time. Print quality is very good too.
Rather than worry about all the straws and foam cups in the ocean I wish the eco-nuts would worry about all the printers and cartridges that are deliberately designed to become worthless junk just to coerce you to buy new ones frequently.
we like our HP’s but will never buy them again
because
their cartridges are super expensive!!!! sky high
and
the machines are designed to reject, not print at all..
if it senses you put in a generic or refilled cartridge
the machine will just give an error message
AND IT DOES THIS FOR SOME GENUINE EXPENSIVE HP cartridges too
1. it is random on refusing to print from HP cartridges
and we got ours at major national office store
2. due to a lawsuit against them you CAN stumble your way through some obscure commands to tell the damned machines to accept generics
3. it will then SOMETIMES but not always accept generics
4. it will keep giving you warning messages that the generics are not guaranteed to work and could void your HP printer warranty
etc.
forget HP.
we get equal or even better print quality from our Canon copiers. but its slow as hell, so watch out for that!
and it has trouble connecting to computers wirelessly
I had the epiphany that I never print in color. Only B&W.
So I bought a monochrome laser printer. Less than a hundred bucks and I’m still going on the original ink cartridge after three years.
Oh yeah, and it’s tiny.
Epsons are definitely not for everyone precisely because of that reason. I purchased the very first Espson Stylus Printer available in 1994. It was an absolute miracle, and I purchased a scanner, digital camera and Photoshop to take full advantage of it. But I found out fairly quickly about this disadvantage of Micro Piezo inkjet technology, especially if you refilled your cartridges with unsuitable ink.
If you leave an Epson printer unplugged for a month or two you are going to waste some ink. It depends partially on the type of ink chosen, but you are using to waste some ink to get those heads clean again. If you leave most models plugged in and on they cycle a little ink through them just sitting to keep the heads from getting clogged.
But the printer that I wasted the most money on was an HP Photo printer that I spent hundreds of dollars on and used only OEM cartridges to try to get the best quality prints. That printer soured me on HP printers basically forever. Once I became proficient at picking out ink and refilling cartridges I haven't purchased an OEM Epson cartridge since that first Epson Stylus in 1994.
I prefer using cartridges that were designed specifically for refilling. They hold a lot more ink and are usually clear so you can see when it is about full, and they are not filled with sponges. When you are refilling a cartridge for a dollar instead of paying $15 to $20 for a new OEM the problem with excessive head cleaning doesn't seem quite as bad.
It is too bad that the reviews on printers generally do not contain much if any information on how various printer technologies favor certain usage patterns.
btrl
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