Need suggestions on printers

[jphil108]

Off topic from most of the typical politics but my guess is everybody has similar problems given the nature of cheap electronics these days,I Currently have a canon pixxma mx922 that we bought because it had solid reviews and it had cheap ink replacements using Amazon Prime. It was an awesome printer and made it really simple to print from any device including iPhones and droids. Long story short, after we moved it off of the original WiFi network in our last house it has been AFU and hit or miss with connecting to our internet and now it won’t even print if we hook up to it with a damn cable. Consumer grade electronics make me madder than anything else in my life. Most of these printers are cheaper than the replacement ink for them.

looking for advice on replacing this with something crypt simple with a good lifecycle cost, will gladly pay a bit more up front if the ink costs are lower. I don’t need any photo printing capacity and it really only gets used 1-2x per week to print mostly black and white documents so it doesn’t need to be super fast either. At this point, I don’t even care if it’s wireless. Just needs to work.

I’m ok with refillables if you know ofmajor retailers that actually refill or swap the cartridges.

anyone on here with any recent good experiences with a specific printer type they like?

 

[Sean the Nailer]

Then what about a simply 'photocopier' that is "laserjet" (electric-heated-toner) as opposed to a wet-ink "inkjet" copier?

That's what we run here, and any photo's we want actually done, we get our local printer to do them. VERY cheap for them to do it, and it's of higher quality than what we could produce here at home. They HAVE the fancy stuff, and any extra job for them, just helps with the overhead. So they don't charge much at all.

 

[Ravenworks]

I bought a used HP LaserJet 5 in 1998
It's considered a commercial printer and last year I finally replaced the toner cartridge.
I pulled the print count off of the printer and it was almost 100,000 pages.
The older LasrrJet line are tanks and were designed around a lifecycle of 250,000 weekly.
Parts are sure cheapmif you would ever need to fix anything.
If you buy one from Ebay make sure it comes with a network card.

HP LaserJet 5 - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Redmanss]

Brother B&W laser jet. You’ll get hundreds of pages per cartridge, and if you don’t need color, don’t pay for it. I have one along with my Brother color laser jet, but my wife also prints reams and needs color a lot, but printing a book out the B&W gets the call.

I won’t touch an ink jet, even when they’re free.

 

[BytorJr]

I've had a lot of problems with Canon inkjets and the way they hook up to wi-fi and their blasted software. I have a Brother scanner and it's tops.

I regret tossing out the laser jet IIp I found in the dumpster and never fixed.

 

[Slab74]

All printers suck, no matter how much you spend. Apparently it is a paradox that will never be solved. I have a cheap inkjet at home and many top dollar machines at work. All of them are worthless.

 

[HiDesertELR]

We're at altitude, so I gave up on printers. I just bought a $50 Epson, seems good so far, even when used sporadically. At that price, it's way more disposable then the $300+ options.

 

[broncoaz]

My $80 Brother black and white laser is still going strong after over 10 years. I replace a $30 toner (generic refill) about every 2500-3000 pages. I recently inherited a Samsung color laser from a coworker who left the company. I like it, but if the company wasn paying for the toners I wouldn’t keep it as a full set is $240.

 

[Marinevet1]

I've got an Epson ET 4550. No cartridges, has ink tanks that are filled when needed. I have had it for a couple of years, and no problems yet. Copy, print, fax.

 

[Waorani]

I just tossed 2 Brother B/W laser printers left over from projects because no one wanted them. Still have 2 15yr old HP color laserjet 3600s that get used occasionally as well as HP CLJ 8550 and 9500 on the off chance I ever need to do a big color print job again. I'd give the 8550 and a bunch of toners to anyone that would pick it up. Good thing about older office grade HP Color LaserJets is what used to be a $1k set of toners can be had for dirt cheap now.

The cheap Brother laserjets are probably best bang for the buck for occasional printing. Assume they still come with "starter" toner cartridge so be prepared to buy a full cartridge soon. That's part of why they can sell them so cheap.

 

[Sgt47]

Another vote for the Brother black and white laser printer.

 

[kenny1773]

one more vote for the cheap brother lasterjets, for less than $100 you can't beat them if you only need B&W

Now those of us with kids need color printers, so I also have a Canon PIXMA TS6320 inkjet that works well for an inkjet. I have only had it since the end of 2019, but so far so good (better than my last 4 inkjets) These things don't last more than a few years, so I just plan on replacing them (clogged nozzles, feed issues, certain parts of the page stop printing correctly, etc) as needed.

 

[rjacobs]

Ive also got a Brother laser printer and so does my dad. Good results so far.

When I need to print color or pictures I just do it online to Walmart and they cost like 40c a piece... Thats like once every 3 years I need to print actual pictures... IM not owning a 300 dollar printer with 800 dollars worth of ink that will be dry by the time I use it again.

 

[jphil108]

Thanks guys! Looks like overwhelming support for a brother laser jet. Seems cheap, cheap to run, and sounds durable to work for our weekly uses. I’ll be glad to get away from this canon inkjet, thing has been a nightmare since we bought it.

 

[Asiparks]

Got an Epson ET3750 from Costco, it has massive ink tanks that you fill from ink bottles- it came with 2 sets- a year later and we're halfway through the first and we print a lot. 3rd party aftermarket ink is cheap too. Color and photos should you need the occasional one, come out well.

 

[FatBoy]

Brothers B&W laser jet from Best Buy with additional cartridge, $140 shipped.
K.I.S.S..

 

[kortik]

Brother laser printers are good, I have 3 of them in my office. Any inkjets are bad.

 

[P-Squared]

I have a cannon ET16500. Ink tanks instead of cartridges. This one is a wide format (sort of) of the ET 4550 that @Marinevet1 called out above.