I can't seem to find a good printer that works super well with both Mac and PC. Can you guys make some suggestions? We have one wifi network at home, I'm the lone family member that uses Mac most of the time, other people at home use PCs.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Need advice on a printer that works with both Windows and Mac
- Thread starter GoJames4
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Actually, I should think that most printers would work fine with both. What sort of printers have you looked at? Do you need color, or just monochrome? multi-function or just printing? If color, do you need photo quality? Lacking any other sort of input, my default recommendation is to go for a Brother laser, either color or monochrome.
Same camp. On the rare occasions that I need something printed in color or printed on larger formats, I just go down to Kinkos and pay them to print it for me on their color lasers. It's so much cheaper than buying boxes and boxes of ink that mostly get wasted in ink clogs. I've entirely flushed a complete set of inks down the drain trying to get the inkjet heads aligned and unclogged. $70 for nothing and it still wasn't perfect. Ouch.
I've since learned better ways of cleaning inkjet heads though, but it's just so much hassle and mess for something I might use a few times a year.
Whatever you get make sure it has large cartridges. Those tiny things cost a fortune. I have an Epson Workgroup printer that has 75ml carts. Replacement cartridges, which work well can be gotten on Amazon for $15-$30 for the whole set. I think they have even larger ones now.. the more ink they carry the cheaper the ink is.... by a wide margin.
We have a cheap canon pixma 6320 that works perfectly with all of our devices, including windows computers, wirelessly and via AirPrint.
Thanks for everyone's inputs. I had tried different models: brother, hp, epson, samsung. None worked well for me, I finally decided to just go with hp, because I was tired of trying new models! For the hp, I can print from the Mac without problems, I can not get Windows to find the printer. Maybe it's our network?!
Any printer made since 2005.
Seriously though, wifi printers suck, please connect your printer to an Ethernet switch on your network, you will love it!
Seriously though, wifi printers suck, please connect your printer to an Ethernet switch on your network, you will love it!
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
What would the difference be between my wifi Brother as it is and having to invest in more equipment and links in the chain?
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Wifi always has an opportunity to disconnect and signal loss. Ethernet is essentially Always-on. If wifi works for you, great! My neighbors all have wifi routers and my printer is 2.4ghz only even though I always use 5ghz on macs, ipads, iphones. The 2.4ghz is super unstable, slow, disconnects, due to congestion of the frequency from all the neighbors routers. From what I've experienced Ethernet is always more stable and reliable than wifi.
Interesting. I've never had an issue. However, my devices are wifi, so how would plugging my printer into Ethernet make much difference, as it's still using wifi to send/receive?