Which Printer Should I Buy?

I used to be a big fan of Epson but if you don't print with them periodically, the print heads had a bad habit of drying out. Cleaning the heads would waste huge amounts of ink. And sometimes it wouldn't recover. Our office still uses one for printing on white faced CD's but the rest are retired. At the office we have an HP LaserJet networked with a print server. At home I've ended up with 2 printers - both cost effective Brothers. One is a B&W laser for the usual text stuff. The other a multifunction inkjet for colour work.

I would also comment that photo printing at home is great. But if you have any volume to do its a LOT cheaper to take the files to your local shop.

You omit the cost of drums for laser printers. The drum on my Brother MF Contraption 7820 went bad. So I took the one from my Brother HL-2070N printer and shoved

it into the MF Contraption. It works fine. [The HL-2070N was my home printer; I set it aside when I got the MF Contraption. I also have on Okidata printer I had at my former office that's now hooked up to the computer I brought home from the office.]

The HL-2040 uses the same drum and toner cartridge as the MF Contraption that I have; the toner cartridge that comes with the printer is only good for 1,500 pages vs. 2,500 for the regular ones. So a drum at $89.95 less 5% and a starter toner cartridge at 60% of $26.95 less 5% would come to $100.81. But I got both a drum and a 60% toner cartridge for $66.59!

Another alternative for both inkjet and laser printer owners is recycling their cartridges. There are retail locations that will reuse ink cartridges and rebuild laser cartridges for less than even the compatible type. I use rebuilt cartridges in my home laser printer and am very pleased with both the quality and the price, around 40% below retail.

Good article. As you point out with the Lexmark, many of the cheaper inkjet printers are now "disposable"; it can literally be cheaper to buy a new printer, and throw away the old one, rather than buy new cartridges.

Some of the low-end (thinking here of the HP 2600 series of color lasers) "personal" laser printers are also nearly disposable; it can actually be cheaper to buy a whole new printer on sale, than it is to purchase four new toner cartridges. Just as Epson has become extremely proprietary about their inkjet cartridges, HP is becoming a bit stinky about some of their LaserJet toner cartridges; some now seem to have chips that require reset.

We have owned HP Color LaserJets for years, and have been quite pleased with the not only the price per page, but also the overall excellent print quality, and the durability of the equipment.

Last note: While inks have come a LONG way in being fade-resistant, and water-resistant, you still can't beat a color laser print for long-term color stability and safety. I recently discovered several inkjet prints that I thought I had archived carefully (away from sun, etc.) had faded to a point that they were nearly unrecognizable.

Hi Bob, The Officejet Pro L76800 is new and the series is the first I've seen that HP claims has the convienience of an Ink Jet and the quality and price per page of a laser.

I've been using it for a month now - and am deeply impressed - so (particularly for a home office business) it's well worth looking at as part of the mix when you're making a buying decision for a new printer (and copier, scanner & fax).

I agree about the clogged jets problem. The theory says that if you only print small quantities, then it is cheaper to get an inkjet. But in practice, printing in small quantities means that the print head solidifies and becomes unusable. OK, you could print test pages every few days, but then you use up all the ink on testing. This makes the few pages you do want to print very expensive.

If 300 dpi is sufficient -- which it is for text -- keep an eye out for a used Hewlett Packard LaserJet 4L. It's a real workhorse and recently PC Magazine (I think!) cited it as one of the top 10 best computer products. I found one on Craigslist for $30. It even came with a half-full cartridge, something that costs about $80 but lasts a long time. Note that when you buy an HP cartridge you can use it to send the old one back for recycling (get a postpaid mailing label free at HP.com if there isn't one in the box.)

The other alternative is going with a dot matrix printer. But has anyone priced one recently? Watch out for your pocket folks! $350 for a new Okidata 9-pin printer!

I just tossed my Epson Stylus C-80 because of the hardened jets. I think I will see about getting a laser and a inkjet but the ink jet will have the print head in the cartridge so it changes when the cartridge is replaced.

Great Article - Thank you! I have been considering getting a laser printer for many of the ideas discussed in this article. I am a watercolor artist and want to print cards and prints of my work. I was told that I can't get a laser printer, because it doesn't create archival prints and I would need to purchase a high-end ink jet printer. Does anyone know if laser prints are archival or if I could use a laser printer for my purpose?

How about Canon, why is not mentioned in this article ? It is one of the cheapest ink printers to own, because ink cartriges are one of the less costly and also if you want can be refilled easily.

I need to buy a piezo printer with the ability to refill the ink cartridge with special suspensions/solutions to print materials for electronic devices. I felt this would be a good place to ask for some help. I will end up hacking the printer.

I need some advice on which piezo ink cartridges are refillable and completely cleanable (no sponges like in the thermal inkjet heads). Also a printer with fewer print heads and simple technology would be best. The resolution does not have to be great and the drop size can be larger. What am I looking at getting?

I use Epson Color Stylus 440 and 600s. They take the same cheap, non approved cartridges and produse posters in colour 50 to 100 runs are possible with 4 printers. They run in 98se/XP/SuSe/Ubuntu with no trouble. I do have a HP Photo but its just too expensive to use for posters for local groups.

BTW a 550Mhz P-3 with 256 meg ram runs Suse or Ubuntu very well.

I need a colour printer that is economical to run as regards to ink. Preferably an all in one. I do voluntary work for the NSPCC and the cost of printing seems wasteful. Any suggestions please?

EDITOR'S NOTE: This should help: http://www.qualitylogic.com/Contents/Library/Test-Reports/Kodak-mfp-coipp-index.aspx

Dear Sir.
I am very much pleased to go through the comparison made by you for the purchase a printer. To select a printer for our personal use is really a matter of having aggod knowledege of all types of printers. I like the preference on ink jet over laser printer for a domestic us. You have discussed the refilling the ink cartridges in very logical way. Your articles on computer problems solution are very interesting. Thank you

Thanks for such a great article - I'm completely confused about what I need and so to find an article that gives me plain talk that makes sense, although doesn't solve my quest, makes it that much easier.

I'd like to see some discussion on inkjet printers that constantly clean themselves. My HP Officeject 6000 cleans when I turn it on and after every page I print. I am completely out of color ink and I only print one page, b&w text pages at a time. Can't turn off automatic cleaning. How can I find a printer that will allow control of this process?

I would simply like to know which non-color laser printer has the cheapest cartridge to replace. I would also like to know which ink jet printer has the cheapest cartridges to replace. Many people need to know this because they have children or teens using these for school and really do not care as much about office or business quality.

looking for a cheap printer that will print a single postcard

My HP Photosmart C6180 Printer ran out of Black Ink so I replaced Black Cartridge and it now prints white streaks while printing in Black Ink. I tried replacing the Black Cartridge(twice), doing a cleaning cycle & an Intermediate Cleaning cycle several times. And cleaning ALL the rollers. It will not do an Alignment because the Black Ink doesn't print a solid color & it has Streaks.
After browsing the internet, I know I am not alone in this Problem. Others are having same prob with newer model machines and only 1 or 2 yrs old. A technically advanced printer like these should not be disposable! ! !
PLEASE HELP.

Use to have an HP printer, copier, scanner. Purchased a Kodak and really like the quality of the prints and the price of the ink cartridges is about half the price of the cartridges for the HP.