Basic colour printer/copier

[b0redom]

Hi All,
Looking for a recommendation here. I’m after a compact, wireless printer/copier. Ideally it can print in duplex and colour and has a paper tray.

Budget isn’t really a concern. I don’t want to go nuts as I have an all singing all dancing brother colour laser that I use in my office. This is more for the occasional print the kids have for homework. I don’t want something that packs up after a couple of months though or where you have to sign up to instant ink etc.

Anyone have any recommendations?

[DanceswithUnix]

If it is for occasional use, I would suggest a cheap laser.

An inkjet will have clogged up and require a full clean every damned time you use it.

[Spreadie]

If it is for occasional use, I would suggest a cheap laser.

An inkjet will have clogged up and require a full clean every damned time you use it.

This. This, a thousand times.

I was sick to death with dried/clogged up ink carts and vowed never to buy one again.

I grabbed a used Samsung colour laser for £30, about 7 years ago - it even came with extra toners carts. When it finally died, I picked up a used Dell colour laser for £25, which is sitting three feet from me. That was almost four years ago. Neither were all-in-one models - but I grabbed a USB flatbed scanner for £10, which works just fine for the handful of times per year I need it.

[Saracen999]

This. This, a thousand times.

I was sick to death with dried/clogged up ink carts and vowed never to buy one again.

I grabbed a used Samsung colour laser for £30, about 7 years ago - it even came with extra toners carts. When it finally died, I picked up a used Dell colour laser for £25, which is sitting three feet from me. That was almost four years ago. Neither were all-in-one models - but I grabbed a USB flatbed scanner for £10, which works just fine for the handful of times per year I need it.

Depends what you want it for, though.

My main purpose always was photographic prints, and up to A2 at that. Granted, I haven't compared recent lasers, but when I last bought, there wasn't a laser on the market (*) that matched good inkjet photo printers for image quality.

For general purpose, homework, office etc, I agree lasers are the way to go. One reason, usually, is running cost, by which I mean cost-per-page. Just be caseful how you calculate that. Some lasers just change the cartridge, but others there are several user-changeable parts, with fixed lifetimes.


(*) Or rather, not at anything like the price point. I didn't spend much time with £5k+ machines.

[Spreadie]

Use cases vary, of course, but yours hardly fits in with the OP's; and duplex all but writes off affordable inkjets.

I haven't needed/wanted to print a high quality photograph in years - I always assumed I'd just drop in at a local copy shop if I really needed one.

[Saracen999]

Use cases vary, of course, but yours hardly fits in with the OP's; and duplex all but writes off affordable inkjets.

....

On the first point, agreed, whuch is why I specified my use case. Inkjets probably don't suit your use case. I'd guess, if you had so many problems with clogged/blocked cartridges, that your usage was intermittent. The one thing many inkjets don't like is not being used regularly. With the OP, a lot would depend on how he defines "occassional". If that means once every few weeks, I'd agree with your stance. If it means that one of his kids does a page here, page there, but that happens several times a week, then not so much.

I had very few problems with clogs, and even fewer that a few dummy prints or a cleaning cycle didn't shift. But then, as I was up to my ass in inkets (typical 4 to 6 or 7 at any one times) I had a routine. First job, monday morning, run my "test" page through each printer, unless it had been used a lot that previous week. It was the old "apple a day keeps the doctor away" principle .... except that it seemed to work. For me, at least.

Also, mostly, my printers were pigment inks, not dye-based. That may have been a factor. Finally, ink chemistry from the major ink manufacturers was different, as they were designed to meet different engineering problems. On the vast majority of printers, HP and Canon inks (and heads) had to withstand huge thermal stresses, whereas Epson's piezo technology was essentially cold ink.

But of course, this risks starting the old anecdotal "I'll never buy XYZ braand again because .... "

All told, different ink chemistries, different print methods, pigment / dye, different usage profiles, etc ..... it's a complicated mess.

As for duplex writing off almost all affordable inkjets, again, it depends on the definition of affordable. Have you seen the Pageprinter inkjets? Essentially, a printer head a full page width, with both duplex scanning and printing. They're fast too .... as in like 40ppm, and not at unusably poor draft quality. Cost? The one I'm looking at, about £450. But when you factor in usage volume and the lower cost/page of high capacity cartridges .... for me, it's very affordable. Cheap up-front can often end up expensive long-term, if you print sufficient. The changeover point depends on usage.

And on the subject of affordability, that's why I mentioned user-replaceabke parts. A laser might look cheap .... until you find out that on top of carttidges, you also need to replace "this" at 3000 pages, "that" at 15000 pages, and "the other" at 100k pages.

While home users probably wont hit 100k pages, they may well hit one or both of the other two.

And then, beware of "starter" cartridges, that may only do a few hundred pages. A cheap laser isn't so cheap if, after a few weeks, or 3ven a few months, you need four new cartridges at anything from £50 to £150 each.

My advice? Estimate your weekly printed page count, x52, x how many years to expect the printer to last, and factor in both new cartridges and user-replaceable parts. It can make both cost-per-page look very different, and upfront cost look almost irrelevant.

...

I haven't needed/wanted to print a high quality photograph in years - I always assumed I'd just drop in at a local copy shop if I really needed one.

What does your local copy shop charge for A4, A3 and 3ven A2 prints? Also, I have careful colour calibration to both screen and multiple printers, and can tweak to colour match.

So yup, usage profiles.

[DanceswithUnix]

and duplex all but writes off affordable inkjets.

Not the case these days.

About 2 weeks ago I bought a new all in one Canon inkjet for my son to do his college work on. £28 from Sainsburys with "starter ink" cartridges, has scanner and duplex printing. But he is doing a btec in business studies, so has to bang out a couple of reports per week making inkjet a good match.

OTOH I know someone who printed something out around once every 3 months and found that generally meant buying a new inkjet every 3 months. Until he bought a cheap laser.

If you are printing occasional photos, then there are lots of places you upload an image and they will send you the print for reasonable money. That gets you out of the calibration cost if you are serious about picture quality as well, and also gets you options like printing on canvas which my inkjet certainly won't do.

Edit: Son's multifunction printer is an MG3650S which currently is £30 at Argos.

[b0redom]

Thanks for the feedback. it's likely to be a few pages per week, so assuming that MG3650S isn't completely awful, that probably fits the bill.

As I mentioned I've got an all singing, all dancing, colour Brother MFC laser in my office, so I don't need anything super high end.

Thanks all.....

[DanceswithUnix]

Thanks for the feedback. it's likely to be a few pages per week, so assuming that MG3650S isn't completely awful, that probably fits the bill.

I'm sure my son would have complained by now if it wasn't working for him.

I notice you said it needs to have a paper tray. It is front feed so it can go up against a wall, but doesn't have a hidden tray for storing paper. That seems the current Canon way, the MG 5750 which looks rather higher end (50% more money, £45 at PC World ) has multi ink tanks and an LCD panel for the UI but a similar paper feed layout.

[Saracen999]

....

If you are printing occasional photos, then there are lots of places you upload an image and they will send you the print for reasonable money. That gets you out of the calibration cost if you are serious about picture quality as well, and also gets you options like printing on canvas which my inkjet certainly won't do.

....

Well, usage case again. If you're printing occassional photos, then accurate colour calibration probably isn't going to be on your criteria list at all, whereas if you use a colour calibration (hardware) system that cost more than a dozen of those Canon printers, then you're serious about photo quality. And I certainly can print on canvas, and a number of other unusual media too, often requiring a straight-through paper path rather thsn top-fed. For instance, heavy duty card, or CD/DVD. The latter, especially, don't do well bending around rollers.

My point was more that an obvious solution to clogging is to print that occassional test print. I use an Adobe Photoshop sample but anything that uses all cartridges will do it. I have an Epson "office" printer (i.e. four-colour non-photo) and I've been using it for .... ummm, 15-years maybe ..... and it hasn't clogged yet. That said, it'll probably explode into 1000 pieces next time I use it, because I just said that. Between you and me (don't tell the printer) it's why I'm looking at those inkjet page-printers.

[Saracen999]

Thanks for the feedback. it's likely to be a few pages per week, so assuming that MG3650S isn't completely awful, that probably fits the bill.

As I mentioned I've got an all singing, all dancing, colour Brother MFC laser in my office, so I don't need anything super high end.

Thanks all.....

Given that, you shouldn't need the "once a week" trick .... but it'd be advisable to do that before going and after getting back from holiday. My experience has been that inkjets don't clog if used regularly. That said, someone will probably pop up who did have that happen.

One advantage of the £30 printer is it isn't a disaster if it breaks after a few months.

[b0redom]

One advantage of the £30 printer is it isn't a disaster if it breaks after a few months.

This is true, but I'd prefer to buy once and buy reasonable than contribute to tonnes of electronic landfill junk.

[DanceswithUnix]

For instance, heavy duty card, or CD/DVD. The latter, especially, don't do well bending around rollers.

Indeed, I can't remember how old our inkjet is but print to DVD was one of the must have features along with good photo quality and wired ethernet. I have a Canon model with 7 ink tanks, so with a photo black as well as bulk pigment black and a grey ink tank the results are really good.

but...

With 7 tanks it feels like there is a constant empty tank warning. A full set of full sized tanks is something like £70 if I get proper Canon XL ink cartridges, about the cost of the original printer.

I can get a 6x4 photo printed at Boots for 11p, so for the £100 cost of a really good inkjet printer I can get 900 photos printed.

[Spreadie]

Not the case these days.

About 2 weeks ago I bought a new all in one Canon inkjet for my son to do his college work on. £28 from Sainsburys with "starter ink" cartridges, has scanner and duplex printing.

Just shows how long it's been since I've looked at inkjets.

OTOH I know someone who printed something out around once every 3 months and found that generally meant buying a new inkjet every 3 months. Until he bought a cheap laser.

That's exactly why I moved to laser printers.

The infuriating thing was a lot of Epson machines wouldn't even let you use the scanner if the printer was out of ink.

[Saracen999]

Indeed, I can't remember how old our inkjet is but print to DVD was one of the must have features along with good photo quality and wired ethernet. I have a Canon model with 7 ink tanks, so with a photo black as well as bulk pigment black and a grey ink tank the results are really good.

but...

With 7 tanks it feels like there is a constant empty tank warning. A full set of full sized tanks is something like £70 if I get proper Canon XL ink cartridges, about the cost of the original printer.

I can get a 6x4 photo printed at Boots for 11p, so for the £100 cost of a really good inkjet printer I can get 900 photos printed.

Which is why people printing volumes of photos, or very large ones, use either a continuous ink system, or buy high-end printers with high capacity cartridges. Some manufacturers eveb sell machines with ther own version of a CIS built-in.

My main usage is photo printing, which clearly is not a large part of the market .... though large enough to have spawned a LOT of dedicated photo printers.

But, IMO, few dedicated photo printers make good office machines. Which is why I have both .... though they're all getting a bit ancient.

£100 for a "really good" inkjet. We certainly have different ideas of really good, espevially in the photo printer section. My A4 machine was several times that, and you don't want to know what the A2 machine was. Oh, and then there's the A4 dye-sublimation printer, too. :;

[DanceswithUnix]

My A4 machine was several times that, and you don't want to know what the A2 machine was.

Oh I shudder to think what the RRP was for our printer, but last year's model always works just fine at a substantial discount

A4 dye sub eh, nice! We have one of the little 6x4 portable ones that prints postcards. Output quality is excellent, but not used it in years.

I knew someone who used continuous ink on an A3 Epson printer to do photo competition entries. Every time he bought new ink bottles & paper he had to do a test print and get it all calibrated at significant cost. It was him saying he was going to give it up and just send stuff off to be printed that got me into the whole deal of "just outsource it" for photos.