My computer guy recommended HP, but after going through one of them, a Brother, and a Cannon, my favorite one so far is Lexmark. He also said that the reason I went through so many printers was because I was using generic ink. I don' know for sure if that's true, but I've only used Lexmark ink with the Lexmark printer, and it hasn't given me any problems yet. Also, you can make your wireless secure with a password.
Your recommendation for an economical, wireless home printer?
by juni 24 Replies latest jw friends
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NOLAW
Lexmark is the most expensive of all in ink (cost/page). A big NO! Unless you refill your cartridges in a trusted shop-which I recommend it for all printers (quality is a bit worse than original and mainly the ink will not be of the exact hue. Of course you can manually override how much ink is used from each color/cartridge and thus greatly eliminate the problem). I have a Canon and noname ink costs less than 1/3 of original.
Go for the printer that uses the biggest dpi available in the market and do not waste money for speed since it is for home usage. A color laser is affordable these days and is preferrable for text only. Not good for graphics and quality art.
If you opt for inkjet (caution-water is your enemy!) consider the ones that can also print photos and CDs/DVDs. Take my word photos aren't the quality you get from the shop but printing directly on CDs/DVDs proves very useful. Of course inkjet is again much more expensive (cost/page) than laser.
I avoid all in one solutions. These scanners do not offer a good scan resolution.
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cuckoo in the nest
There's not a great deal of difference between the manufacturers these days, but the cost of consumables varies greatly. Kodak printers are supposedly cheap to run, although I can't vouch for them personally due to compatability issues. I run Linux on most of my systems, and have an Epson printer/scanner which uses cheap cartridges and works well on both it & Windows.
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juni
Thanks to all of you for sharing your experiences and making suggestions. It's been helpful.
Juni
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transhuman68
LOL, I can’t help you- I bought a beige Canon 3-in-1 way back in 2005, and a bottle of black ink from a computer market for $10, with a syringe; I just keep pumping that sucker full of crap, and it keeps printing- although sometimes I do have to kick start the printer if I haven’t used it for a while….
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Anony Mous
I wouldn't go inkjet if you try to do more than ~10 pages / month. A good laser printer will be a lot cheaper to operate in the long run and last a lot longer.
Inkjet:
HP - The most expensive cartridges in the world, great printer/photo quality, built well
Canon - Cheap cartridges, great printer/photo quality, built decently
Kodak - Cheap cartridges, cheap units but the quality isn't all that great and they break down easily
Epson - Cheap cartridges, cheap units but more for text than for photo. They are well built though.
Laser:
Brother - Expensive cartridges (drums and waste containers included in the cartridge) and very unreliable if you're going to do high volume printing (jams easily when it heats up). I haven't had one survive for more than 2 or 3 years. Great for personal use but after about 10,000 pages they die.
Oki - Expensive cartridges (large capacity though), expensive bodies. Very good service and very good reliability. Drums etc. separated from the cartridges so the cartridges are fairly cheap. They do have a somewhat odd way of doing things so it's easy to get them dirty when changing cartridges etc. But the image quality is super and energy usage is great. I have a unit that has printed over 20k pages in a year and it's still chugging along with only 5 cartridge changes and 1 drum change.
HP - Expensive cartridges, expensive bodies, very flexible options (as far as networking, wireless etc.) the large units are very reliable (I have a 20 yo HP LaserJet III still operational) The HP LaserJet 4xxx's are still used in a lot of businesses even though they are also about 10 years old. The small personal units are plastic pieces of shit but if you have 8 grand to spend, get one of those. I have units that have printed over 100k pages without any replacement parts besides the cartridges.
Xerox - Expensive cartridges, expensive bodies, very reliable and built to eat reams of paper each month. Especially if you get into their DocuCentre or WorkCentre lines (if you need that size) you will be amazed.
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talesin
It might be inconvenient to have a wire printer but do you want your neighbors using your printer too?
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djeggnog
@juni:
It would be used primarily for text printing at home. Also, what are your thoughts on the advantages of laser vs. inkjet?
You question is quite broad, and because I don't know if you live in the US or not, I am going to just assume that you do and inform you, first of all, that you could buy a good inkjet printer from a Frys Electronics store, if you happen to live near one, or, in the alternative, you could order a printer online from frys.com. Maybe there is a Best Buy near you, but I like the prices at Frys and the "insurance" they offer for the inkjet printers they sell.
Now I mention the inkjet here, because you said "at home," and laser printers provide better quality printing and are more dependable for business use. I have a color laser printer that I use for business (and the cartridges I buy from Staples for my color printer are expensive [Black: $94.49; Cyan/Yellow/Magenta: $79.99/135.99). The downside of inkjet printers is that they are typically very inexpensive printers that use lots of ink (but the cartridges I buy from Staples for my wireless printer are much cheaper (Cyan/Light Cyan/Yellow/Magenta/Light Magenta: $11.59 each/$79.49 (set); Black: $18.49). (In addition, using FingerPrint, I am able to print to both of my laser printer and my wireless printer from my iTouch, my iPhone and my iPad, but I don't know if you are at all interested in printing from one or more wireless devices.
The other downside, too, is inkjet printers do malfunction and may become completely unusable in less than a year so having a form of insurance on the one you buy is important. This makes buying a two- or three-year Frys' performance service contract ("insurance") an important consideration when purchasing a printer, since you get a brand new printer upon returning the malfunctioning one at no additional cost. Without it, you would have to buy another printer.
I recommend the Epson Artisan 837 All-in-One printer, which is a wireless fax/scanner/copier/photo/cd printer that sells for $299.99, and the Epson Artisan 810 printer, which is also a fax/scanner/copier/photo/cd printer that sells for $169.99. If you do not need a fax, then there is the Epson Artisan 730 printer, which is a wireless scanner/copier/photo printer that sells for around $100 at Best Buy.
@StopTheTears:
I'd be wary of wireless things. When the man came to install my internet, he tried to set me up with a wireless telling me I could move my computer anywhere. But I had seen an investigation on TV that others can hack it and use your internet. I insisted on a [wired] connection. It might be inconvenient to have a [wired] printer but do you want your neighbors using your printer too?
This last sentence of yours bought me to tears. However, perhaps if you had asked the man, the one that set up your internet connection at your home, about that tv investigation, he may have informed you that such wireless connections are secured using encryption keys, WEP being, well, ok when compared to offering free internet access to everyone within range of your wireless router with any encryption whatsoever, but WPA2 is a better encryption solution. While any experienced hacker could hack into your network using your wireless connection, how many of them are within range of your PC (or Mac)? And let's say they manage to bypass your network security: What would be the "payoff" for their hacking efforts? Hacker aren't really interested in hacking into just anyone's computer, so unless you have account numbers, passwords and maybe credit card numbers for hundreds or thousands of folks or you are maintaining classified documents on your computer, or a script for a movie blockbuster that shouldn't be made public, hackers should be the least of your worries. I suppose that al-Qaeda operatives -- terrorists -- could drive by your home in order to use the wireless signal from the wireless router of your neighbor and steal a little bandwidth to send a message to other operatives in the al-Qaeda network, but this, too, may be a bit farfetched.
You thought it would be unwise to allow this man to set up wireless connectivity, and maybe he didn't, but if your internet uses a modem like a 2-Wire modem, this device is also a wireless router, which means you may already have wireless connectivity that just isn't set up with an encryption key of any sort (except the default key), so you might want to check the kind of wired connection that was set up, because you're vulnerable if you happen to be using such a router. And if someone were to hack into your network and gain access to your wireless printer, would you willing hand over to such an unscrupulous individual the pages of the documents that they wirelessly printed on your wireless printers? Probably not so this shouldn't be a real concern.
@djeggnog
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talesin
@ djeggnog , I am now in tears as well. :D
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wannabefree
do you want your neighbors using your printer too
In most cases, wireless printers connect through a wireless router. If the router is set to require a passcode for wireless access, nobody will be using your wireless network devices (unless you have a savvy hacker nearby that is determined to get into your system).
I have been selling and servicing copiers/printers for years and Brother does low end laser better than anyone else in my opinion. (Their inkjet is crap ... at least it used to be, HP, Canon, or Epson are my choices for inkjet) I set my mom up with a nice brother MFC, she loves it. I use brother. I have taken care of an accounting office for years and they use mostly Brother, from January thru April they pretty much run non-stop, very reliable. Some of the high-end copier mfg are now relabeling brother equipment as their own for low-end (Ricoh and Konica Minolta).
High end laser, HP and Lexmark (but you aren't looking for high end from what I can tell). Dell, which doesn't actually manufacture any of their own printers, relabels Samsung on low end, (I have not had good success with Samsung low end and they are high cost per page) and Lexmark on the upper scale (and some Xerox and Epson in the color laser category).
HP makes a nice little wireless printer, toner cartridges are a little more than brother on cost per page, however they are toner and drum in one easy to replace cartridge where as Brother has a two cartridge system.