UKC

Hello all,

Asking on here because I'm sure there are opinions on this (as with everything else). My HP Officejet printer has just done the 'clean printheads' 'oh no you can't clean them because I'm now DEAD' thing that the last two did (one lasted two years, one lasted a year, this one's lasted three years), so I need to buy a new printer/scanner for home. It gets quite heavy use because my husband and I both work from home and I tend to print out a lot of academic papers. Any recommendations for one that isn't massively expensive, will print in colour, and whose cartridges aren't extortionate (I know this latter is where printer manufacturers make their money, but HP's can be a little eyewatering).

Thanks in advance. 

If it is getting used a lot, have you considered a laser printer instead of an inkjet?  They are a little more expensive, but in my experience they are more robust with heavy use so they pay for themselves after a while.  No particular recommendations though, sorry - I just use the one at work now!

Hello

I've got a canon MG 5650 that works perfectly well, and I get my inks from Prink who are mahoosively cheaper, and easily good enough quality.  I also have a black toner printer for mass copies of B&W document, as it's a lot cheaper and faster to run it that way.

Just looking and they seem quite a bit bigger, physically. The scanner is also something that gets used quite a lot, so inkjet with scanner seems logical. I'm trying to remember to use the university printers for my printing, especially as we've been given a chunk of print credits, but invariably the thing I want printed out to be able to scribble over is something I find when at home...

I agree with Gribble. I use a Samsung laser printer for all black and white text printing and cut costs by using compatible cartridges. The Prink website looks good and and compatibles are fine for colour, unless you are printing high quality colour photographs. Also I have had considerable success with using refillable cartridges with my Canon printer.

Unfortunately we don't really have space for two printers, otherwise this would make sense. I think I might need to have a proper think about this rather than lurching for the speediest solution.

Same here. A new laser printer, was less than the cost of the official HP inkjet cartridges.

I don't really need to print much in colour and when I do I go to the library with a USB stick. 

If you get a stand alone flat bed scanner, you can also use it as a pin hole camera. (If you were so minded.) Or perhaps just take a photo of the doc, and do away with the need for a scanner.

We do need colour printing on a regular basis, alas.

I don't even use compatible cartridges.  I buy bottles of ink and a few cheap syringes and keep topping the cartridges up.  The printer shows an error but you can just ignore it. I've been doing this on a regular basis for 4 or 5 years so even if it has now screwed the printer up, it has paid for itself several times over.

Al

I was going to recommend our Samsung colour laser printer that has worked great for our family for years and is vastly cheaper and less trouble than an ink jet.  When I tried to Google it, I found a similar model with a scanner on top 

Samsung C480FW Colour Laser Multifunction Printer - White https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B010NE2HKI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_569PAbVAYQ2MB

I'll never go back to ink jet again.

Yes, this was the kind of thing I had in mind too.

have you tried cleaning the print head cleaning mechanism?  I managed to get another couple of years use out of our old Canon pixma IP8500 by doing this.

Have you considered HP's instant ink plan?

http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Offer.aspx?p=c-instantinkpickaplan

We bought a printer for something like £40 and you never have to worry about how much printing you do with plans starting from £2 for 50 pages per month - that regardless of whether you print a page with a single full-stop, or a full colour photo.

It works brilliant for me as I print-off maps as well as half-decent quality photos

Laser + Scannable app for phone? (takes a photo an converts to pdf) very useful.

LD

Two suggestions:

a. buy non-HP cartridges like the OfficeWorld ones on Amazon, they are much cheaper and the print quality isn't that much worse unless you are concerned about colour accuracy.  Black is fine.

b. buy a nice monitor or an newish iPad and read off the screen.  These days I hardly ever print stuff because I prefer to read off the screen.   Admittedly part of the reason is I can pretend I don't need glasses by sticking the font size up.

I wonder if you can get refurbished ones?

https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/printers-and-ink?source_code=911CQJ&gcl...

More generally, you might find this helpful...

Searching a well known auction site for refurbished Canon merchandise may prove fruitful for you, pretty decent prices for what you're after, which may offset the cartridge price in the long term. I was surprised at the prices.