Looking for a new printer...Airprint/Wireless to work with Mountain Lion?

[Imola Ghost]

I have a HP printer that I've had for about 6 years. It works great although I'd to investigate looking into buying a new one that I can print from our iPhones, iPads and iMac thru Wirelessly or AirPrint.

I don't print photos or quality prints but I do want it to be reliable like the one I have now. I have helped friends with setting up their new printers (Lexmark, HP 6500A Plus, HP 8500 Plus, etc) however I've found that at least the HP 6500 and the Lexmark printer was HORRIBLE at wirelessly printing. For some reason they would both just stop printing wirelessly. The HP 8500 is just way to big of a printer for my taste plus I don't need all of the features.

I'd like to try and find a small footprint printer, wireless/airprint (that works), decent looking to have on the desktop. Hopefully prints more pages per ink cartridge than the HP 4280c that we have now and cheaper cartridges. And hopefully that it doesn't cost an arm & a leg.

Suggestions?

 

[torana355]

Epson Artisan 730 Inkjet Multifunction.

 

[Imola Ghost]

Is ePrint, iPrint and AirPrint all the same, just different names?

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The Epson looks nice how about the HP Envy, which seems comparable?

 

[DanielCoffey]

Could you use an AirPort Express instead of buying a new printer?

I use a Brother HL-2270DW duplex wifi b/w laser printer myself but only for printing from my Mac Pro across the wifi network.

 

[pdubbbs]

Could you use an AirPort Express instead of buying a new printer?

I use a Brother HL-2270DW duplex wifi b/w laser printer myself but only for printing from my Mac Pro across the wifi network.

I have a Brother HL-2270DW as well, and it works great wirelessly! It's not even plugged into my Time Capsule nor a computer, purely wireless.

 

[robgendreau]

I'm not a fan of HP; I've had more success with Brother and Canon and Epson. You should check to see who has updated drivers and/or software for Mountain Lion; some manufacturers are better at updating to the current Mac releases than others. You don't want to buy something that will be orphaned soon.

And I dunno about eprint and iprint (I couldn't even understand the English on iPrint's page). But check out Printopia; it's a solid product with good support that allows you to print from an iOS device to ANY printer attached via ethernet, USB or wifi to a Mac. That way you aren't limited to airprint printers.

 

[Imola Ghost]

I'll check out Printopia.

Does an apple airport express allow me to print wirelessly, even though I don't have an Ethernet port on the back of the current printer?

 

[robgendreau]

An Airport Express has a USB port so that you can attach a USB printer. Then, depending on how your local network is set up, you can print to it wirelessly. But it will NOT allow you to print to it wirelessly from an iOS device unless you purchase Printopia or a product like it.

If you are satisfied with your current printer, and all you need is a way to print to it from an iPhone or iPad, then get Printopia. No hardware to change and it's pretty cheap.

If you need a new printer cuz you're chewing up consumables, then look into a laser printer. If you can connect it to a Mac via USB or ethernet it will be cheaper than the wifi versions, and you can print to it from an iPhone with Printopia.

 

[ToddJ]

when i updated my mac with the latest drivers from HP..my mac started saying it was finding an "AirPrint" printer (even though the printer is around 3 years old.) I thought maybe it added some sort of driver that would 'broadcast' my printer as Airprint enabled and then it would let me print from my iPad and iphone. However, it didn't. Is there a way to do it without installing 3rd party software?