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RE: all in one printer for home


Skywagon

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Bill_Walker

They're practically disposable.  The companies sell them for nothing and make their money, I assume, on the ink cartridges.  

 

That said, if you spend more, you get more, and I've got an HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 that's been reliable for years, although admittedly under light use.  It gets used a lot more for scanning and faxing than it does for printing these days.  I like that it can scan directly to a folder on any device on the network (to my NAS, in my case).

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I think my current one is an HP.  I just went to costco and picked up what was on the shelf.  One mistake I made with an earlier unit was that I bought a Dell, and they had some F'd up marketing scheme with the ink.  You were supposed to order ink directly from Dell, and it was impossible to find cartridges at the local office supply stores.  That turned into a nightmare one night, when trying to print out my resume and submit it before the job closed.  I think I had to print it in blue, rather than black.  I didn't get the job.

 

So:  Check what ink it takes, stop at Staples, make sure they carry it.

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6 hours ago, elkroeger said:

  So:  Check what ink it takes, stop at Staples, make sure they carry it.

 

I'd take it one step further and check if the 24 hour stores (big box or grocery) near you carry it because inevitably it will be 1 AM when the cartridge dies.

 

A feature I'd check for would be the ability to continue printing in black and white if one of the color cartridges is empty. 

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We got out of the inkjet problems and bought a laser printer.   Never fails, when you go to print with an inkjet, the cartridge is empty or dried up or clogged or something,....so now, it's toner only.  We got ours for about $200 on a slickdeals deal.

 

My wife is a teecher so she prints alot of stuff and it's not failed in the threeish years we've had it.

 

 

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LittleBriar
48 minutes ago, Living the Dream said:

We got out of the inkjet problems and bought a laser printer.   Never fails, when you go to print with an inkjet, the cartridge is empty or dried up or clogged or something,....so now, it's toner only.  We got ours for about $200 on a slickdeals deal.

 

My wife is a teecher so she prints alot of stuff and it's not failed in the threeish years we've had it.

 

 

+1 on the laser printer. Brother is my preferred brand. If you don't need color, they have some models that are very inexpensive and will last a long time between toner changes. Especially if you find compatible generic cartridges. Check this one out for only $79.

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I gave up on HP. Our AIO was a fine piece of hardware, but they could/would not fix the networking software.  It would work once or twice and then require  a complete software removal, several manual registry deletions, and then re-installation. Wi-fi or ethernet made no difference. I spent a lot of time with support until they started ignoring me and others reporting the same problem.  Three family members had hardware problems with HP computers at about the same time, and received very poor support and service, so we do not even look at HP products anymore. 

 

Next we tried an Epson XP-830.  Compact, fairly fast, very nice double sided printing and scanning, gorgeous color photos. The initial cartridges emptied pretty quick, but I expected that.  Bought a new set of "XL" cartridges ($110, more than the printer). Printed only 22 envelopes, just address and return address in black/white mode, before the printer reported low ink.  Even with a dedicated text-only black cartridge, this thing uses the color cartridges to print black. Simply turning the printer on would drop the ink levels about 5%. Aftermarket cartridges and refills do not work, and Epson kept updating the firmware to make sure that they do not.  So, too expensive to use.

 

What has worked very well for us is the Canon Pixma MX922.  My wife runs a small retail business from home and does correspondence for a local charity, so this printer gets a daily workout.  It has been very reliable, the printing is good (also automatic duplexing), the software does what it should, and ink is cheap (~$14 or less for a full set of high capacity cartridges).  When shipping labels quit feeding in December, panic ensued and my wife bought another MX-922 (~$60 on sale) before telling me about the problem. I was able to clean wax from the label sheets off the feed rollers using rubbing alcohol, so now we have two, one for plain paper and the other just for labels.

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Been researching all-in-one printers myself as my laser sort of died and my all-in-one had been acting up.  Both models are likely out of perduction.

 

I have an HP 7520 all-in-one inkjet that had been working fairly well.  What is nice is that it integrates photo capability into the all-in-one format with a second photopaper tray and a 5th grey scale ink cartridge. I had used the HP for scan/fax and photos and a Brother laser for the bulk of B/W text, but that caused some problems because if you let an inkjet sit for long periods the inkjet print head gets fouled with dry ink and cleaning cycles really blow through the ink, so if you only print infrequently consider laser printers and as stated above Brother makes some very nice all-in-ones.  If you care nothing for printing pictures laser are a good choice, but may not be the lowest cost per page option like they used to be

 

Some of the newer ink tank printers from Epsom ans Cannon actually can get cost per page less than that of a laser printer, but the printers cost more up front. so you have to be printing a fair bit to overtake the front end investment to get those low per page savings.  The nice thing is the OEM ink isn't very expensive and a lot less than laser cartridges so the savings start piling up as you use it. I imagine third party ink sources could really drop the per page cost to a few pennies.  There are several all-in-one models using the ink tank format. Photo printing with a  tank printer is maybe not quite as good as a photo printer but much better than a home based laser.

 

One aspect of my HP all-in-one I never liked is their strategy to force you to buy one new ink cartridges from them, and the new models are only making me like HP less.  Besides HP printers tendency to use use a lot of ink and high new cartridges cost, my HP also knows if you use genuine HP cartridges and even if they are refilled. I bought some cartridges on line that looked to be OEM but my printer called them out as not genuine and would endlessly send me a message that it didn't like the cartridges.  What is worse is many of the new HP printers send info back to the mother ship on ink levels and HP is pushing a scheme where you can get a reduced cost on cartridges sent to you but you may have to prepay to get that reduced cost (still verifying that).  Maybe this is fine if you are printing a lot, but I personally hate the prepay scheme concept.

 

I am leaning toward an all-in-one ink tank model from Canon should I replace the HP all-in-one.

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LittleBriar
4 hours ago, lkraus said:

 Printed only 22 envelopes, just address and return address in black/white mode, before the printer reported low ink.  Even with a dedicated text-only black cartridge, this thing uses the color cartridges to print black. Simply turning the printer on would drop the ink levels about 5%. Aftermarket cartridges and refills do not work, and Epson kept updating the firmware to make sure that they do not.  So, too expensive to use.

 

Manufacturers put special cartridges in the box that only have a bit of ink so the first use is very short. They are not in the printer business. They are in the ink business.

I can't emphasize the value of laser printers. Cost per print is usually significantly less than inkjet and they don't dry out because of infrequent use.

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15 minutes ago, LittleBriar said:

 

Manufacturers put special cartridges in the box that only have a bit of ink so the first use is very short.

 Yep, I knew that, so when the initial cartridges went dry quickly I was not surprised. But when the largest available cartridges report low ink after printing what was basically less than a single page of black text, there is a problem.  Epson support said that's just the way it is.  I tried two different brands of aftermarket refills, but the printer refused to recognize them, and they were returned.

 

I was given an old HP 4050 Laserjet which is adequate for my rare need for hard copy, but my wife needs color printing, scanning and occasionally fax capabilities. The Canon MX922  gets the job done with  refill ink that is cheap and long lasting.

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We have owned an HP pro 8720 for a few years.  We use if for copies, scanning, and a few photo prints.  It has capeablilty to do everything except dance.  If you want fast, this puppy is a dragster.  We print out between 30 and 50 copies per month and have the ink 'subscription' plan.  It's probably a rip off but we live 130 miles from the nearest ink store so we get cartridges from the company when we need them (they monitor ink levels) and we save a lot of gas.  Printer has worked flawlessly so far.

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thanks guys keep it coming....key is reliable...hit print and it works everytime even if been sitting for a month.  Red...the 8720 is no longer available and the Canon MX922  lkraus noted looks like a possibility.  Dream and Briar...what laser printer is it that you like?

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7 hours ago, Skywagon said:

thanks guys keep it coming....key is reliable...hit print and it works everytime even if been sitting for a month.  Red...the 8720 is no longer available and the Canon MX922  lkraus noted looks like a possibility.  Dream and Briar...what laser printer is it that you like?

Boy, that is the holy grail, isn't it?  Hit print, and have it work all the time, every time.  I've never seen a printer do that - at home, or at work....  I usually end up cursing Bill Gates, and have visions of his teeth embedded in my shoe.  ;-)

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LittleBriar
16 hours ago, Skywagon said:

thanks guys keep it coming....key is reliable...hit print and it works everytime even if been sitting for a month.  Red...the 8720 is no longer available and the Canon MX922  lkraus noted looks like a possibility.  Dream and Briar...what laser printer is it that you like?

I have the Brother MFC-9330cdw. It's a monster and over $500 but it does everything. Full color, automatic 2 sided printing, autofeed for copies, etc. I can get generic toner for it cheap. It's been trouble free and gets fairly high use.  Probably much more than you need. I suggest you first think about your needs. Color or B/W, Volume, speed, copy capability, etc. Then search Amazon for Brother brand and check out the ratings. I usually disregard the 1's & 5's in the ratings.

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21 hours ago, Skywagon said:

Canon MX922  lkraus noted looks like a possibility.

I was considering this unit too . While replacement cartridges are similarly priced to my HP7520 so cost per page is middle to high around 5 cpp, that didn't give me pause.  While print/photo quality and versatility are very good, the issue for me is if any single color cartridge runs out of ink it won't print and the printer becomes a paperweight until all colors are available again.  The HPs will still print and just flag you which colors are out.  It has happened to me frequently enough that black is plentiful but one of the colors has been exhausted and I am still able to print some plain text.

 

I am looking at Canon's Megatank  Pixma G4210, which does not appear to have the all colors or nothing issue, but still haven't fully verified that this is free of that weird idiosyncrasy.

Edited by Paul De
Added my current pick
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I would go with a Brother again as well.  I have an MFC-7840W purchased in 2009 that I still use on a daily basis.  CAT-5 cable connection to home router but also supports wireless and USB connection.  Purely black-and-white laser but of course scans colour.  The page count on the machine is at 10,600 and I have gone through 6 toner cartridges over the years .  Must be a lot of those series in service because Costco still sells the toner cartridges (at $50 Cdn), so my per-page printing cost is well under 10 cents a page (4 cents toner cost). 

 

If colour printing is a necessity than colour laser is the most reliable and produces bright, high contrast graphics pages but poor quality photo reproduction.  All-in-one inkjets are generally less reliable than lasers but produce better pictures.  I don't need colour printing (don't do posters or presentations and send any photos I want printed to an online printer) so I will just stick with black-and-white.  Currently Consumer Reports rates the Brother HL & MFC and Canon imageCLASS all-in-ones highest for black-and-white,   Brother MFC and HP LaserJet Pro models highest for colour laser.  

 

Mike Cassidy

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I recently bought an Epson ET-2750, one of their "Ecotank" printers that uses liquid ink refills rather than cartridges. I got tired of buying expensive ink cartridges. This one looks like it's going to give us about a year's worth of prints on $60 worth of ink (we print about 30 pages per week on average). As far as it being ready to print on a moment's notice, we have discovered that we need to print something about once every 3 days, or else run the printhead cleaning function. Without that, the first couple of pages have some missing lines.

 

And this particular model doesn't have an auto sheet feeder, but it does photo quality printing.

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Couple of things - Inkjets are good for printing photos.  However, you can go online and print photos cropped etc professionally printed at places like Walgreens or Walmart.  Inkjet printers require ink - a lot of ink.  We ended up purchasing $100 worth of ink every year and we print pics at Walgreens.  It is almost cheaper to purchase a new printer every time your inkjet needs ink.  So I just found a great deal on a Xerox 6515 DNI laser jet.  It says 3000 copies before replacing the ink.  That translates into a few years for us.  It does all the print, scan, fax, etc. and was $245 from a company in Ohio. 

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