My dad needs a printer for his computer and I have no idea what to tell him to get!
His needs are very basic – he will only be printing out the odd web page and email. No photo quality needed. No scanner needed.
A simple printer which won’t burn a hole in his pocket every time he has to replace the inkjet cartridges.
I rang Cartridge World to ask them which printer has the cheapest replacement cartridges and they said the Canon ip300 sounded like it would fit the bill.
Anyone else want to make a recommendation?
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
I can’t recommend the HP Laserjet 1022 enough … it’s a little over a hundred euro – the cartridge costs about 70 quid, but you get about 4000 pages – it’s a lot of printing before you need to change it and the quality / speed is much better than the cheaper inkjets.
The Laserjet 1022 is a black and white printer only so if he needs colour the Canon is a better option. Refills for this are about €40 from CW.
Unfortunately unless your Cartridge World store has a Canon in stock you probably won’t find one as they are gone end of line and no longer widely available. The Brother DCP115 will do a similar job as the Canon and Cart refills cost about €7 from CW. You should be able to get one for about the same price.
Stay away from Dell and Lexmark as these are the most expensive to run despite being very cheap to buy.
I would recommend getting a Brother 2070N laser printer. It can be had for under $100 US, and works fantastic. I’ve had one for over a year now and have yet to go through my first toner. Additionally, it has both USB and Ethernet ports – making it a true network printer.
I use the ip4300 and its a nice allrounder. If he starts printing web pages, he might like to start printing photos & so on. It wont burn a hole in your pocket either.
My old canon use to drink ink (albeit its cheaper). I found Lexmark printers good.
My canon-printer works trouble-free with a very good quality.
In the world of academic retail, we wind up selling far more all-in-ones because they’re usually only $10 more than the low-end inkjets. Consequently, I haven’t sold many low-end inkjets lately. Back in the day before we considered seriously stocking the all-in-ones, I used to sell a decent amount of low-end HP inkjets for less than $50 and no one complained. The cartridges were around $15, but that’s academic retail, so I’d wager that they were $20 outside. Of course, that was a little bit less than a year ago, and I haven’t been following the inkjet industry as closely since then.
The Canon iP300 looks nice, but it’s been discontinued, so I wouldn’t pay any more than $70 for it.
As for me, we recently bought a Brother 2070N for the house, and it’s a great printer. In three months of steady usage, we still haven’t replaced the half-capacity starter cartridge. The Brother 2040 is basically the 2070N with a USB connection and no network capabilities.
For color printing, I have an old Epson R320, which I rarely use, sitting next to my computer. I honestly can’t recommend Epson printers anymore. We used to be an Epson family, but the printing mechanisms on almost all of our Epson printers suspiciously failed just a few days after their warranties expired.
So, to sum all of that up, I think that a Brother 2040 would be great, provided that your dad doesn’t need to do any color printing. If he does, I recommend just about any low-cost inkjet as long as it isn’t manufactured by Epson.
I have an HP and i am very satisfied with it. For 2 years works with no problems. I love it.
It sounds like his needs are very basic. My current favourite range of printers are the Canon Pixma models, any of the bottom range of this series should suit done to a tee. They are cheap (relatively) to run and will also print the occassional photo at a reasonable quality.
I use a lexmark MFD, and yes the biggest expense are the cartridges, knowing a bit about the prices, the canon cartrisges do seem to be one of the best for value. However you should try Re-manufactured cartridges, as these are now good quality, and you get that extra feel good factor of helping the planet.
If he doesn’t care about color, I would go with a laser printer hands down. They are much more cost effective than an ink jet. You can get a little Samsung for under $75.
Yes, I agree with Plastkort to go with laser based printers, as cost per page will be dramatically lower, and the print speeds would be much faster than ink-based printers. Most manufacturers have their under $100 laser printers these days. Just price out the consumables and make sure there are cheap/generic supplies available, otherwise, the on-going cost might become a pocket emptier just after a couple of cartridges!
http://www.tonerall.com
Save up to 80% on Printer Cartridges
I would go with a generic laser based printer as well. The key is generic as they should be most available at a department or computer store.