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What's the best Airport printer for a college student?

W

wanyuenmei

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 24, 2013
31
0
Hi everyone,

I'm looking into buying an Airport printer for college. I'd mainly use it to print and scan documents. Any suggestions that are cost conscious and doesn't use a ton of ink?
 
I'd honestly suggest not having a printer at college. It's so much easier to just use the printer in the dorm or a computer lab.

Plus, you might have a problem getting a printer connected to an enterprise wireless network. If you're set in having one, I'd suggest a USB basic Brother laser printer. Much more efficient on toner if you can stand not printing color.
 
blevins321 said:
I'd honestly suggest not having a printer at college. It's so much easier to just use the printer in the dorm or a computer lab.

Plus, you might have a problem getting a printer connected to an enterprise wireless network. If you're set in having one, I'd suggest a USB basic Brother laser printer. Much more efficient on toner if you can stand not printing color.
Click to expand...

Well I've heard that at my college, when assignments are due, there are always problems with printers and it might be safer to have my own. Plus, I'm planning on having my own router because the only possible internet connection I can have in my room is through an Ethernet jack. Do you think the Epson printers from the Apple website are alright?
 
Pardon my ignorance... but what's the difference between laser and non-laser?
 
May I ask if you have a tablet or PC you carry around with you at college? And do you prefer digital versions of documents or physical paper?

I am also a college student, and prefer to carry arround my ipad than a whole bunch of notebooks and binders. What I looked for in my printer was an autofeed scanner, so i just place a stack of papers there, let them scan, load them to my ipad, and reduce the amount of stuff Im carrying around.

I have the HP OfficejetPro 8600 and I love it. Had it for over a year, printed quite a number of stuff. And still havent replaced the ink that came in the printer.
 
I'm planning on getting a 13" rMBP or MBA for college. And personally I prefer having my documents digitalised.

Oh wow. That sounds amazing and so much easier. Is it a really big printer though? I'm sure you know how much space a dorm room has...
 
wanyuenmei said:
I'm planning on getting a 13" rMBP or MBA for college. And personally I prefer having my documents digitalised.

Oh wow. That sounds amazing and so much easier. Is it a really big printer though? I'm sure you know how much space a dorm room has...
Click to expand...

Its... fairly larger than it has to be :p but its not ridiculously huge. Here are the dimmensions: 12.4" x 16.3" x 19.4"
 
Yea, I realized the autofeed scanner was fairly important after looking into printers abit more :p but definitely!
 
wanyuenmei said:
Hi everyone,

I'm looking into buying an Airport printer for college. I'd mainly use it to print and scan documents. Any suggestions that are cost conscious and doesn't use a ton of ink?
Click to expand...

I'd strongly recommend you get your own printer and don't rely on the university or dorm to provide printing for you. When it comes to hand-in time you're just asking for trouble - it's definitely better to have your own and only fall back on university printers as a back up.

I'm in the third year of a social science degree and I've been using a Canon MG5450. It's great for documents and photo printing alike, and works well with Airprint.
 
JD92 said:
I'm in the third year of a social science degree and I've been using a Canon MG5450. It's great for documents and photo printing alike, and works well with Airprint.
Click to expand...

What about scanning? Does it have an autofeed scanner?
 
wanyuenmei said:
Plus, I'm planning on having my own router because the only possible internet connection I can have in my room is through an Ethernet jack.
Click to expand...

I don't know if you've visited campus and thoroughly inspected how computers and other devices join the network, but many institutions prohibit the use of routers (some places require that you register your computer's MAC address through a web browser, some make you install a special client, while others simply look at usage). Depending on your IT department's policies, it could be perfectly fine, or they could shut down the connection in your room. Some see personal routers as competing with the campus WiFi network and being a security risk, and often encourage the use of an ethernet hub/switch if you're not using the campus network.

Once you get there, I'd investigate the situation, talk to some upperclass students who live on campus, and then decide how you want to set things up. As it truly does vary from institution to institution, it could save you some money to get the lay of the land first and always have a USB-capable printer to fall back on.
 
Freshman College Student Here!

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=911271&is=REG&Q=&A=details

Okay so I just recently bought this printer and it is awesome! You can basically do everything on it, including my favorites: double sided printing, scanning, and direct printing (this means that the printer sends out a wifi signal to your apple device and you can print using that direct connection)

Plus, it has magenta, yellow, cyan, black, and photo black so you don't have to buy a generic color cartridge, saving you money

Best of luck!
 
It depends, but a built-in scanner and copier will be a good thing to have.
If you need to print text and color graphics, the Epson Workforce WF-3520. If you have the WiFi issue sorted out, it also does AirPrint.
917DT76T3hL._SL1500_.jpg


If all you need is text, charts and graphs and can skip the AirPrint, the Brother HL-2280DW costs the same and may end with a lower cost of ownership, but only prints black and white (the scanner does color).
61cN07Ir0CL._SL1300_.jpg


Both do duplex-printing.
 
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