OT - Mac friendly multifunction printer

[nicholasg]

I couldn't find a good forum to post this in and I have obtained some excellent advice here, so forgive me that this post has nothing to do with Digital Photography ;-)

I have used a Canon multifunction printer (printer, scanner and fax - MX870) for years. Nice quality output but not very good Mac support. Their drivers have never supported faxing from a Mac and sometimes the device "disappears", forcing a power-cycle to make it "reappear". They also do not have a driver for High Sierra, so I need something new.

Another annoying thing is they re-design the ink cartridges when they come out with a new model.

My requirements are pretty simple: -

1) Reliable. I only print hundreds of pages a year, but it usually something important

2) Play nice with Mac

3) Does not have to be super cheap, but better if less than $500

4) No need for photography quality output

Anybody have a multi-function they can recommend?

Thanks,
Nicholas

 

[Ray2]

I recently purchased an HP 4650, print, scan, fax. I do not recommend it.

Prints from scans are very poor quality. Can't find a setting to correct this.
Registers on wifi but my Mac has yet to print on wifi. Tried several drivers, have yet to get wifi printing from a Mac to work. iOS devices print fine.
The document feeder is referred to frequently and settings exist for it on the printer LCD. Yet nowhere does HP inform one that it's an option. Once that tidbit is learned, try to find one.
HP site is useless, a waste of time unless one's looking for conflicting statements and file downloads.

 

[Cheese&Apple]

I use a Canon Pixma MG2920 that works great wirelessly for general print and scan needs (no photos) but I'm on Sierra not High Sierra.

I also don't fax but occasionally scan and email.

Works great for less than $75.00

~ Peter

 

[mofunk]

Same here Canon Pixma MG??? I don't do a lot of faxing but when I do I simply go to an Office Supply store like UPS, FedEx or Staples. Not sure if you are in the US or not. If can't get to the fax place, I will simply create a PDF file and email to wherever it needs to go.

 

[artfossil]

I couldn't find a good forum to post this in and I have obtained some excellent advice here, so forgive me that this post has nothing to do with Digital Photography ;-)

I have used a Canon multifunction printer (printer, scanner and fax - MX870) for years. Nice quality output but not very good Mac support. Their drivers have never supported faxing from a Mac and sometimes the device "disappears", forcing a power-cycle to make it "reappear". They also do not have a driver for High Sierra, so I need something new.

Another annoying thing is they re-design the ink cartridges when they come out with a new model.

My requirements are pretty simple: -

1) Reliable. I only print hundreds of pages a year, but it usually something important

2) Play nice with Mac

3) Does not have to be super cheap, but better if less than $500

4) No need for photography quality output

Anybody have a multi-function they can recommend?

Thanks,
Nicholas

HP Envy 5530. (There is a newer model.). Mine is 2.5 years old. A superb printer.

$150 from Amazon. Can use InkPrint pat as you use ink from HP. (Free trial).

Small footprint, fast, quiet. Doesn’t look out of place in a living room. Reliable AirPrint plus scan, copy, and prints wirelessly from my iMac with High Sierra.

 

[TheDrift-]

I couldn't find a good forum to post this in and I have obtained some excellent advice here, so forgive me that this post has nothing to do with Digital Photography ;-)

I have used a Canon multifunction printer (printer, scanner and fax - MX870) for years. Nice quality output but not very good Mac support. Their drivers have never supported faxing from a Mac and sometimes the device "disappears", forcing a power-cycle to make it "reappear". They also do not have a driver for High Sierra, so I need something new.

Another annoying thing is they re-design the ink cartridges when they come out with a new model.

My requirements are pretty simple: -

1) Reliable. I only print hundreds of pages a year, but it usually something important

2) Play nice with Mac

3) Does not have to be super cheap, but better if less than $500

4) No need for photography quality output

Anybody have a multi-function they can recommend?

Thanks,
Nicholas

I have a similar but slightly later model an mx920 or 925 i think (which is still pretty old!).

Never had any issues* or needed to power cycle (and I sometimes leave the printer on for weeks or months). Daughter prints from her Ipad for school and Mrs sometime from her iphone?

Not sure if the ink is the same?

*Never tried to fax from it tho....people still do that?

 

[Moakesy]

HP-6970 brought just over a year ago. Works fine and no issues. Think I paid £110 for it, but see it's about £70 now.

I'm also on their Instant Ink programme and had my second set of cartridges arrive last weekend. I pay £2/month for 50 pages/month....so £24/year on cartridges. Also, the new ones arrive before my old ones run out, so no more 'out of ink' rush to the shops when the kids need to print some homework urgently. Whole family can print from various Macs, work laptop (Windows), iPad's and iPhone's. Only thing I've not tried is an Android device.

Printer + Instant Ink means I've never been happier with my printer setup.

 

[tgara]

I've had several HP printers, both laser-jets and ink-jets, wired and wireless. All have worked flawlessly with my Macs, and most now support AirPrint if you print from your iPad or iPhone.

Not sure if this is true across the printer spectrum, but on the Macs, Apple updates the HP printer drivers through automatic software updates, so you never have to worry about it.

 

[dwig]

..

Another annoying thing is they re-design the ink cartridges when they come out with a new model.

...

This seems universal across all major brands.

I've been quite happy in recent years with the EPSON Workforce series MF printers (none are current models) that we use at the gallery where I work. We have 3, all networked, and they seem to work well with both Macs and Windows machines. I particularly like EPSON's scanning utility. We've used them with Macs running most OSs from 10.6 through 10.12 and Windows 8.1 & 10 without any issues related to the devices themselves.

Ages ago (pre-OSX), I rather detested EPSON printers as the drivers for Mac were horrid and they never updated the drivers for older models to allow them to work with newer OS releases. I fast became an "HP ONLY" user for use on my personal Mac and Windows home computers HP's driver support for older legacy printers is surprisingly good. My home printers (5) are still all HP models including 2 MF printer/scannere/fax devices. Between my wife and I we also have 3 scanners (2 flat bed and one high speed document scanner), all EPSON.

 

[cyb3rdud3]

Epson 7525 Work Force.

I’ve had it for three years and it’s fantastic. No paper James. Scanning is natively supported via wireless. Also supports AirPrint. No need for additional tools or drivers or apps. And the A3 printing and scanning capabilities are awesome.

 

[infantrytrophy]

Epson WF 3540, an older model in Epson's WorkForce series. This has functioned well for 2-3 years over a wi-fi network. I bought it originally after having issues with a Canon dedicated photo printer (expensive ink requiring a separate gray cartridge, in addition to the usual black and CMY cartridges) and a HP printer (many troubles using scanning function over wi-fi although the printing function worked OK on wi-fi). The Epson WorkForce has been flawless over wi-fi in my Mac-based network. You can install extra-large ink cartridges available at Costco. These cartridges last > 1 year with my use, so ink cost is minimal.

If your printing need is for an office-type printer for text documents, diagrams and occasional pictures, this is for you. Fax works OK, limited mainly by the quality of your phone line (VOIP lines are "iffy" for any fax machine). Scanning is fine for a flatbed-type scanner. Sheet-feed scanning works well, but for real high-volume scanning of different-sized documents (receipts, credit cards, business cards, etc) a dedicated Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner would be needed.

Many home-type printers and multifunction printer/scanner/fax machines are optimized for printing pictures. My advice is to avoid these - they tend to be slower and they use small, expensive ink cartridges. Office-type printers are much better for my type of use. If you want to print pictures, send them online to Costco - better quality, much less expensive, and available in 1 hour.

 

[kschendel]

If your printer sits unused for a week or two at a time, I'd avoid inkjet and look at lasers. You don't specify whether you need color; if so, I've had good luck with a Canon MF8280, which I think is discontinued but may be still be available. For monochrome, look at Brother; inexpensive, very reliable, and the one I have (MFC7360) works fine with the Mac. That's an old model but I have no reason to think that the newer ones aren't just as good. The HP multifunction lasers are also supposed to be good, although I've never used one. (We had an HP Laserjet 2100TN which worked for a decade before losing a motor bearing, but it's just a printer, not multifunction.)