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Which printer do you trust?

cosmichobo

cosmichobo

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 4, 2006
991
612
G'day,

My Canon MP540 multi-function printer/scanner has finally come to the end after many years - simply because I can't buy ink for it any more. (Although also - a wireless printer would have been great recently trying to print kids school work from their iPads etc)

So I've been looking at the range of printers (printer & scanner) available here in Australia... trying to figure out what to go for.

I was thinking of going for a colour laser printer, as they are more economical in the long run, but then when I started looking at what I was willing to spend, most reviews said their colour abilities were crap compared to inkjets...

I then thought maybe an inkjet - but one of the newer ones that use inbuilt ink tanks instead of the cartridges - again, more economical... But, unless I spend a lot of money, these devices don't seem to offer a good experience...

I almost bought a standard catridge Epson inkjet today for $119, til I saw it had a fax built in. Who uses faxes these days? I don't even have a land-line...

Once upon a time you had about 2 choices...


1850_1.jpg
1602898669778.jpeg


I've been studying printers for a month and am still no closer to a choice! (Maybe I'm over thinking it...)

What do you use?

What wouldn't you use?

Cheers

cosmic
 
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You probably are overthinking it a bit. I realize that Australian prices are generally higher than here in the US, but I settled on a Canon TR8520 InkJet printer to replace an older Epson. US price varies around $129 to $149 depending on whether it's on sale.

Most of the printers I looked at included a scanner and a copier. Some like you say, included Fax. The initial price of an InkJet printer is not as important as the price of consumables which is why I chose the Canon.
 
I know! :)

As above - I really was thinking my next printer would be a colour laser... was willing to pay around $600-$800... but was expecting it to do colour well. When I read that inkjets simply do better colour as they "mix" the inks to get better range etc... I decided to go back to ink... but then read about the printers with built in tanks - so you just fill them instead of using the bloody wasteful and expensive cartridges... Yay... But the reviews have not been great for them... including a lot of comments about Canon's "tank" range having software issues that can prematurely kill the printer.

Actually, that's reminded me... I think I was going to go with one of the Epson ink-tank printers...
 
After having bad experiences with Epson ink jet printers, I would never buy them again. If I didn't print daily, the print head would clog and use a great amount of ink to clear it.

Canon seemed the only sensible brand because you can buy the print head separately. Brother was a close second brand for me.
 
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I'll buy any brand as long as someone offers third party cartridges/toners for it and that particular model plays well with third party cartridges/toners. My current multifunction (printer, copier, scanner with photo capabilities) is just an inexpensive Cannon photo inkjet and it works fine. It takes like 6 or 7 different cartridges, which I get on Amazon and they are like 1/25th the cost of Cannon brand cartridges.

Edit - even if Cannon does not sell ink for your machine, I am willing to bet you can find a third party manufacturer that does, and that it will be cheap. While quality varies, there are some very good quality third party cartridges.
 
I would never buy an inkjet printer again. The head clogging problem in a year or two is annoying and costly. Epson, Canon, cartridge or inkwell, same problems. But color laser is exponentially expensive. So personally, I would really review whether I actually need color prints or not.

I personally use Brother mono laser right now. Zero issues for at least 3 years and running, other than the toner capacity is rather small on the model that I have. HP laser seems also good as I have observed those in several small offices with good feedback. Xerox sometimes are priced attractively, but I was told not to get them. When I really need color prints, I just go to a local print shop and print it that way. For everything else, I would try to do things digitally. Thankfully almost everybody that I deal with know how to do attachments on WhatsApp.
 
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I think cheap is a good printer feature because it's not going to be with you for too long. Sure you'll get screwed over for ink but for the light or very light user that's OK, it's pay as you go, don't go much don't pay much.
One caution, make sure the printer you choose has AirPrint, some don't. My current Epson XP-245, a freebie from Amazon Vine, doesn't have the feature and sometimes I could really curse about it.
My best ink-saving tip: Don't waste ink printing photos, nobody wants to see them.
 
Another vote for Brother mono laser. I hated printers until I bought that. It’s now one of the most reliable devices I have and it AirPrints from all my devices. It works well with Windows too.
For anything color I send it to a print shop. It’s cheap and kills the quality of inkjet.
 
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G'day, what would I use.. An office job like a kodak.. With a dirty big ink jet cartridge.. 😅 My two cents..

I used to have a fujitsu lazer jet that came out of an office an it flew..

The only expensive bit was buying the refill.. An yeah it's black an white.

Not color. Typically color cartilages cost more.. Because they do Fuji film and you can buy the special paper to print photos.

Now a dot matrix on the other hand, there's a cool thing because you can set a cron job that runs to CUPS on a UNIX PC that records all PC logins in black and white... They might hack the PC but they can't hack the paper roll. ☺

Because it's already run off the printer "who, when, where"

How cool is that?
 
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If you’ve no need of photo-quality prints, then a colour laser is fine.

You may find toner cartridges are more expensive than you think though, so factor that into any decision.

Of the current crop of inkjet, I’d go for one of the Epson Ecotank all-in-one range, like the Workforce 4700 or Expression 2710.
 
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Went from several Epson InkJet to a Canon Color Laser Printer and couldnt be happier. Of course time will tell if I continue to remain happy. Haha
 
For general black and white, I have a Samsung ML-2525. I can get two toner cartridges for $25 which last just about forever. We have an Epson Stylus Photo R1800. Beautiful photo prints, but it's about $100 for the tiny cartridges and you use about half cleaning the heads each time you use it if it's been sitting.

We were given an HP 3510 which has very expensive, small cartridges at about $30, so we're trying the Epson eco tank 3760SE. It's not up to the photo print quality of the R1800, or even getting prints at the local pharmacy, but still very good prints. Ink refills look to run at about $20.
 
Hi again,

Thanks for the continued responses.

This is the Epson MFP I keep coming back to:

www.expertreviews.co.uk

Epson EcoTank ET-2710 review: A basic but efficient multifunctional printer | Expert Reviews

It’s the cheapest refillable ink tank MFP we’ve tested, but, most importantly, it’s also a solid printer
www.expertreviews.co.uk www.expertreviews.co.uk

It's $399 here in AU. In comparison, Canon's bottom of the line MFP is $50.

It is however quite slow even compared to my 10yr old Canon MP550, and not great at color graphics apparently...

I truly loved my LaserWriter II NTX "back in the day"... It was a great printer, picked up 2nd hand at almost the end of its life - but good enough still that I got a few years out of it in light domestic use. These days however a mono laser wont suit our household, with 3 school aged kids, etc etc - color printing onsite is a must.

With regard to the idea of using 3rd party inks to allow my Canon MP550 to continue its life... I have used 3rd party cartridges (Calidad brand), but they disappeared from shelves over here alongside the Canon inks. Looking now, I see there probably are options out there for me along this route.

Taking things further however... the other alternative would be a Continuous Ink Supply adapter for my printer. Just had a look online and found a couple of options for around $110 - $150... That's not bad, if they work as advertised...

continuousinksupplysystem.com.au

Continuous ink supply system for Canon MP550

MIR-AUS online shopping - CISS for Canon MP550
continuousinksupplysystem.com.au continuousinksupplysystem.com.au

Another decision... :)

Cheers

cosmic
--
Addendum
I tell my wife my ingenius plan for the CIS system. "Then how do you do wireless printing for the kids from their iPads?" Ah. Yes. That was a major consideration other than the ink issue...
 
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I picked up a refurbished brother multifunction laster printer/copier a while ago (maybe 2012?) for like $70-80. Rock solid, no issues, cheap per-print. Drivers still up to date with OSX 10.5 Catalina, and they had a firmware update as recently as 2019. In fairness have only put maybe 500 prints through it, but still.

I'm not sure what the state of their printers is today or if they've added any sketchy DRM stuff, but my past experience with them has been great.
 
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nquinn said:
I picked up a refurbished brother multifunction laster printer/copier a while ago (maybe 2012?) for like $70-80. Rock solid, no issues, cheap per-print. Drivers still up to date with OSX 10.5 Catalina, and they had a firmware update as recently as 2019. In fairness have only put maybe 500 prints through it, but still.

I'm not sure what the state of their printers is today or if they've added any sketchy DRM stuff, but my past experience with them has been great.
Click to expand...

The DRM was out in because someone figured out how to third party restocked the Eason Black ink on the cheap and Eason and couple of others started putting in DRM chips in the ink cartridges to stop the cheap refill process!

The real problem once manufacturers started making super cheap inkjet cartridges super expensive to make back their Money!

That’s why the monochrome Laser printer took of in mid 90s for home users! One cartridge in Laser printer can last years!
 
It's done. Finally. o_O

www.officeworks.com.au

Brother Wireless Mono Laser Printer HL-L2305W

Shop Brother Wireless Mono Laser Printer HL-L2305W with our Price Beat Guarantee. Buy with Zip Pay. Enjoy free Click and Collect. Save with Officeworks.
www.officeworks.com.au www.officeworks.com.au

AND

www.officeworks.com.au

Canon PIXMA HOME Wireless Inkjet MFC Printer TS5060

Shop Canon PIXMA HOME Wireless Inkjet MFC Printer TS5060 with our Price Beat Guarantee. Buy with Afterpay or Zip. Enjoy free Click and Collect. Save with Officeworks.
www.officeworks.com.au www.officeworks.com.au

I couldn't decide on just one (!) - so I bought a Brother mono laser for b&w printing ($118), and a compact Canon multi-function inkjet for photos / colour documents ($79).

By splitting the printing between the two devices, I am hoping that I'll get the economy of the laser, but still have colour printing when we need it.

Both have wifi printing, so the devices wont have to sit on my desk any more like the old one did.

The laser was the 2nd cheapest on Officeworks' website, but had good reviews. With approx 1,000 pages per toner ($70), and 10,000 pages per drum ($120) - I expect before the drum needs replacing, we'll probably be ready to upgrade anyway.

As for the inkjet, it was the cheapest multifunction Canon I could find with multi-colour cartridges and wifi printing. I know Canon isn't necessarily a great brand - but Apple's association with the brand 30 years ago still makes me have faith...

And the final bonus... as we can no longer put e-waste out for curbside rubbish collection, I was able to take my old Canon to Officeworks, as they take old computers/printers/etc etc to recycle them. (Just a shame they then didn't have either printer in store, but they are going to deliver to my door this week.)

(As a side note... when buying printers, pay close attention to the model numbers! After not finding them in Officeworks, I went into Big W, and found very very similar looking printers to the 2 above. I nearly bought both - but then noticed the Canon was a 1-cartridge colour, not the multi colour. I did buy however the Brother 2300 mono laser, thinking it was the same... then discovered half way home - it doesn't do wifi! Had to go back with tail between legs and get a refund - then buy from Officeworks website.)

Thanks to everyone above for your comments. I appreciate the conversation.

Cheers

cosmic
 
Looked briefly at Amazon for a printer because my HP is eating cartridges like candy bars! See there are three-in-one laser printers. Anyone have any info on how good their scanners would be? And if they are just a b&w printer, could it be there are some that would color scan?
 
@cosmichobo: My only feedback is that I find the scanner on my multifunction Brother to be quite useful. You'll still have a great laser, but it's nicer to have a scanner at times as well.
 
cosmichobo said:
G'day,

My Canon MP540 multi-function printer/scanner has finally come to the end after many years - simply because I can't buy ink for it any more. (Although also - a wireless printer would have been great recently trying to print kids school work from their iPads etc)

So I've been looking at the range of printers (printer & scanner) available here in Australia... trying to figure out what to go for.

I was thinking of going for a colour laser printer, as they are more economical in the long run, but then when I started looking at what I was willing to spend, most reviews said their colour abilities were crap compared to inkjets...

I then thought maybe an inkjet - but one of the newer ones that use inbuilt ink tanks instead of the cartridges - again, more economical... But, unless I spend a lot of money, these devices don't seem to offer a good experience...

I almost bought a standard catridge Epson inkjet today for $119, til I saw it had a fax built in. Who uses faxes these days? I don't even have a land-line...

Once upon a time you had about 2 choices...


1850_1.jpg
View attachment 967718

I've been studying printers for a month and am still no closer to a choice! (Maybe I'm over thinking it...)

What do you use?

What wouldn't you use?

Cheers

cosmic
Click to expand...
At home, we use a Canon G300 precisely because of the cheap ink tank replenishment. At the office we use an HP office jet pro 8000, it's way easier to use from iPads an iPhones. Both print wirelessly, but the cannon is trickier.
 
Nice choice! I have a Canon flatbed scanner, a Brother monochrome laser printer with wifi, and an old Canon Pixma photo inkjet printer. Useful to have a laser printer to churn out papers at a fraction of the cost of the inkjet ink, great to have the color inkjet photo printer for low volume color, and the scanner can be used to capture images that can be outputted to either the laser or inkjet. Since the scanner is used infrequently, it is stored away with the paper and pulled out and plugged in when needed.

The brother does airprint well from iphones and ipads and via wifi with other devices! Unfortunately unlike the ip4000 it replaced, the canon doesn't do wifi (clearly a 1st world problem).
 
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