recommendations for a printer

[lurker]

her Majesty and I have have managed without a printer for years as we have e-mailed our stuff to work and printed it off there (which I assume many do).
Anyway we now don't work !! So need a printer.

Something cheap. That will run on third party inks

We will probably use it quite rarely ..... say 10 sheets a month, I remember that this was a killer for ink jet as the heads dried up from none use.

 

[whatknot]

My suggestion would be go for a laser, I have had a Samsung mono laser for some years (just checked, I bought it in Feb 2011) which works every time, I do not print a vast amount but when I do I want the printer to work

I grew sick and tired of Ink Jets, having to waste half the contents of the ink cartridges cleaning the heads, which often required several goes to get the printer to work, plus many pages doing tests

The Samsung has worked every single time, it came with a half cartridge of toner, I bought a replacement toner cartridge off Amazon for about £15, it was another two years before I had to fit it, and its still going strong

Ink cartridges cost me a fortune for very little actual use

The mono laser cost me £50 in 2011, had I realised how good they were I would have gone for a colour laser, if this one ever packs up thats what I shall go for

I also have a small colour ink jet for the odd colour print I want but that always needs several head cleans before it will work properly

Whilst Ink Jet printers are very cheap to buy, they cost an arm and a leg to run, over the years I have had several, they all ended up at the tip

 

[lurker]

I think that's what I was hoping to hear

I had assumed lazer printers were pricey and thought the toner cartridges were about 80 quid each. I will get a mono as it is mainly letters we will want it for.

 

[marcros]

mine is a few years old now. like you, I usually print at work, so the original toner in mine has lasted a few years. inkjet dried up between uses.

this seems similar to mine, https://www.brother.co.uk/printers/mono ... ers/hl1112 I think I paid a similar amount. toner from brother appears to be £45, but I am sure you could buy cheaper elsewhere.

 

[Dibs-h]

I have an old HP 6L little laser printer. The toner's are cheap as chips. Last 2 I bought were genuine and paid 20 quid for the pair. Bought a colour duplex Brother printer (wifi & wired network) earlier this year for the family - kids are getting older and school stuff. Was around 180 and Brother were doing 100 quid cashback.

Toners are around 100 quid for a genuine set and 60 for clones.

You can get a mono HP LaserJet 2100 (refurb) for 50 quid from eBay. With genuine toners for about 15 quid from there too. If you don't need networking - a good buy.

 

[lurker]

I have ordered a mono samsung one from Amazon, 40 quid delivered. \/
Thanks for your advice

 

[Racers]

Good choice, ink jets waste most of their ink cleaning the heads and it's thousands of pounds a liter.

Pete

 

[Rich C]

I have a Samsung laser, it's been going for about 8 years now. Always prints even when left for a while. Refills are about £20 for a third party one and work fine.
I think you've made a good choice.

 

[Noel]

I have an old HP 6L little laser printer. The toner's are cheap as chips. Last 2 I bought were genuine and paid 20 quid for the pair. Bought a colour duplex Brother printer (wifi & wired network) earlier this year for the family - kids are getting older and school stuff. Was around 180 and Brother were doing 100 quid cashback.

Toners are around 100 quid for a genuine set and 60 for clones.

You can get a mono HP LaserJet 2100 (refurb) for 50 quid from eBay. With genuine toners for about 15 quid from there too. If you don't need networking - a good buy.

The 6Ls were great little printers. Had one for 6/7 years before the drum went (or similar). As it happens then saw the 50 quid Samsung in Curries and got it. Lasted about 3 years, suspect I over worked it but was good honest printer and good quality too. After it went was driving up the road on a rainy day and saw an HP 2300 lying amongst some old furniture by the side of the road. Threw it in the boot, dried it out for a few days in the airing cupboard and 3/4 years later it is still my office printer and going well (touching wood).

 

[deema]

Another advocate for Laser. Brother Lasers are highly regarded and usually on ‘offer’ to make a full colour one c£80 for the entry level one.
You can ‘trick’ the internal page counter with a couple of key strokes to make cartridges last circa 3 times longer.....each time it says it’s out of ink, just reset the internal counter. When that finally doesn’t work, you can simply buy some powder off an auction site and refill them. £20 can get you circa 10K pages.....enough for most people in a life!
Take a look on uTube for how to reset internal page counters on Brother and other Lasers.
For me, I think it was equivalent of circa 3 inkjet refills to make the Laser free.

 

[Sideways]

It seems I'm in the minority here, but I wanted a multifunction with A3 colour printing and a double sided auto feed scanner to help me keep the paperwork under control and to print drawings and diagrams. NOT photo prints. I got an Epson workgroup printer for just over £100 new and I shop very carefully for inks. There are high capacity 30ml XXl size cartridges available for these that help keep the price per page down. It has been both reliable and for an inkjet economical enough that I don't worry about it.

 

[HappyHacker]

I had a Samsung colour printer and apart from the fact that in the summer it would misfeed after every page printed, in the Winter it would normally do about 10 pages before misfeeding. So most of the time you had to stand there and feed one page at a time. It did this from new but I was too busy to take it back. Samsung suggested I strip it down and clean the rollers! If I had time to do that I would have had time to take it back. After the initial toner ran out I put it in the stable. If anyone wants it it is still there. I think the paper was dryer in the winter as the CH is on. The Samsung replacement toners were very expensive. I was not impressed by the Samsung networking software

I replaced it with a Brother B&W laser printer, I bought cheap from maplins in the closing down sale, which works fine.

I have had a number of Epsom printers the last but one, an A3 worked well for a few years when the heads weren't blocked but I spent ages cleaning heads and wasted a lot of ink. I replaced it with a large Epsom multi function colour thingy with autofeed scanner and multiple input trays. It worked reasonable well, if I accepted the funny random black extra and missing pixels , until recently when it kept on giving an error. From lots of web searching it appears it may be related to the spongy thing the heads park on being too wet! Possibly, its not replacable. Having tried various recommended solutions it does occasionally print for a bit but the heads are probably blocked now. I have kept it for the autofeed scanner. As Epsom have a printing nozzle which is part of the printer as opposed to the ink cartridge it is harder to clean and expensive to replace. If you want to see how to fix print head clogging on Epsom printers, I think it will work on them all, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf6kOEtgQqE

I now use a little HP colour inkjet which for the little colour printing I do works well but is a little slow and I use the Brother for B&W stuff. I did have an ink contract for the HP when I was doing more printing but now just use the compatibles which are still a bit expensive.

 

[Robbo3]

+1 for a laser printer.
Although I now have a Brother multi function laser printer I have had several old HP laser printers given to me, each of which were used for a couple of years then passed on to new owners.
Even those ancient parallel port printers could be adapted, with a cheap card, to ethernet capability so that the printer was available to any PC or laptop on the LAN (Local Area Network).
If you need to print photos, it's probably cheaper & easier to copy the files to a memory card or USB pen drive & take them to the chemists.

 

[lurker]

The printer (from Amazon) arrived next day, even though I opted for free delivery, all works fine.

Lesson learned is not to assume.
In this case I thought laser printers were well over £100 and cartridges £70 mark.

Thanks for everyone's advice.

This is what I bought if anyone is interested
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00 ... UTF8&psc=1

 

[boardgamer]

I have an Epson WF3520 inkjet, which I bought primarily for the duplex scanning facility. It's wonderful to be able to drop a heap of 20 double-sided sheets on the top and just scan them through - misfeeds are extremely rare. Ink is expensive, but I don't use a great deal, and I am very happy with the printer.

If I were in the market for a new one, I'd look at the Epson Ecotank machines, which look very economical on ink, but I would worry that I don't print often enough to keep everything in working order.

 

[Garno]

How much does the replacement toners cost for that one Lurker?

I have just noticed this one that also has wifi and mobile printing for an extra tenner.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pantum-P2200W- ... KQF1ZPTFNS

 

[Dibs-h]

I've used this website to work out what printers can have their toner cartridges refilled, and potentially use generic toners. No affiliation with them.

https://www.urefilltoner.co.uk/index.html

 

[lurker]

How much does the replacement toners cost for that one Lurker?

I have just noticed this one that also has wifi and mobile printing for an extra tenner.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pantum-P2200W- ... KQF1ZPTFNS

On Amazon there are third party toner cartridges.
I have just ordered one for 13 quid. Cheaper to order 2 or more but am hopeful the set up one provided plus this spare will last me a while.
Being a cynical old sod I am of the opinion that more technology means higher chance of fail so purposely avoided the slightly more expensive one...... And I had a cable lying around unused anyway.
Note: the one I bought has no usb cable in the box.