Ink jet printer recommendation

[Haole Boy]

Aloha. Residential customer wants a new printer for light duty general printing in their home. I've always just recommended buying an HP. Are all the brands pretty much the same, or are some better (i.e. more reliable, longer life?).

I don't like Epson's as they are a pain to uninstall (there are 5 - 7 programs you have to individually uninstall). But other than that I don't have a preference.

Any feedback from the folks here?

Mahalo,

Harry Z

 

[Tech Savvy]

What’s the budget? I really like the HP officejet 8600 series printers when they were a thing, i think they were replaced by the 8700 series which were okay, but the 8600s were better imo. You can stick to the line and go 9015.

I’ve been out of the residential game for a while though, so not too much recent experience there.

 

[Porthos]

I personally will never recommend an inkjet. I will only suggest laserjet. But the color ones are a little pricy.
Black and white not so much.

 

[britechguy]

I have had nothing but good experiences over many years with Canon's inkjet printers. They, along with Epson (and maybe Brother), are one of the few inkjet printer manufacturers that produce printers/multifunctions that use separate ink tanks, which results in significant cost savings over any that use tri-color cartridges (including those in Canon's lines that do so).

In addition, it is possible to buy ink tanks with automatic reset chips (ARCs) that are refillable at home for the Canon printers that use these. I've been using these for years, and even before you've gone through the first round of refilling all of the cartridges the cost of the ARC refillable tank set has paid for itself, and more.

I love laser printers, but they are just too expensive for many home users in terms of upfront cost (at least for color printers) and the actual cost of the toner cartridges (though no one can deny that the per-page cost of laser printing is far below that of inkjet printing if one is using only OEM ink cartridges - as the cost of ink cartridges is astronomical for what they are).

My current printer, sitting right next to me, is a Canon TS6320 that has refillable ARC tanks in it.

 

[coffee]

IMO, All these ink printers use the same mechs in them. A lot of my clients take off for the winter to places like Florida and come back to dried out print heads. So, Getting the print heads cleaned out is really not worth it and I just tell them to replace the printer. I do not even sell inkjets anymore. I like selling the Brother LED printers. They are more expensive but after I explain that the cost will be made up in buying toner vs. ink it makes sense.

I think on average you get about 300 pages on ink cartridges. On the toners you get about 10x that. Also, I just buy the refilled toners. If I get a bad toner I just return it for another. The cost savings is pretty big. Now the clients that leave for the winter do not have to replace the inkjet all the time.

I always push the usb/wireless/wired models too. They run a bit more for the wired network card in them but well worth it. Too many service calls on the wireless models - No connection ect...

 

[Mick]

+1 for Brother. Simple, rugged, reliable.

 

[BO Terry]

IMO, All these ink printers use the same mechs in them. A lot of my clients take off for the winter to places like Florida and come back to dried out print heads. So, Getting the print heads cleaned out is really not worth it and I just tell them to replace the printer. I do not even sell inkjets anymore. I like selling the Brother LED printers. They are more expensive but after I explain that the cost will be made up in buying toner vs. ink it makes sense.

I think on average you get about 300 pages on ink cartridges. On the toners you get about 10x that. Also, I just buy the refilled toners. If I get a bad toner I just return it for another. The cost savings is pretty big. Now the clients that leave for the winter do not have to replace the inkjet all the time.

I always push the usb/wireless/wired models too. They run a bit more for the wired network card in them but well worth it. Too many service calls on the wireless models - No connection ect...

I always push for wired connections whenever possible!

 

[Diggs]

It's hard to beat an HP OfficeJet for value. Print, copy and scan in color on the network for around $100. Sure, I recommend laser printers when ever asked, but lets face it, ink jets rule the consumer space and they have gotten much better. Their quality of image is remarkable for the money and they have gotten much better about nozzle plugging with their auto-clean routines.

 

[Sky-Knight]

I tell people, if you're asking about ink... go away.

If you're actually in the market for a printer, which is a dwindling market...

But if you are, you get a laser printer. Right now, the HP Color LaserJet Pro M454dw can be found all over the place for $250-300, and with a duty cycle of 50,000 sheets... a home user will literally never buy another printer again. There is one catch however... users need to use after market supplies for it... because HP is so off the rails nuts for these small lasers... a full supply of all four OEM cartridges can cost around $1000! Aftermarket will run you $200 for the full set.

Or you can buy a new ink jet every 2 years, and use your own blood to fill the ink cartridges. Not to mention deal with them clogging up because they sit for months between prints.

 

[britechguy]

Or you can buy a new ink jet every 2 years, and use your own blood to fill the ink cartridges. Not to mention deal with them clogging up because they sit for months between prints.

I have never had an inkjet technology printer die at two years of age, and the newer ones last longer than the older ones did by far.

If you get a model with single ink tanks for all the colors and black/grey shades used, and buy aftermarket ARC refillable tanks along with the ink in "easy injector" bottles you can get years out of an inexpensive inkjet with the cost of the ARC tanks and ink supply paid off on first refill cycle.

I love laser printers, but I love inkjet printers, too, but never use OEM ink/toner anymore because that's where the gouging takes place. Sell the printers for "next to nothing" and charge more than powdered gold/liquid gold for what you need to actually print.

 

[Fred Claus]

What do they consider light duty? I've had a lot of clients who print maybe once a month and find that the cartridge dries up, or the printer clogs. If they are extremely light duty, i would recommend an HP color laser printer. You can get them from Walmart for about 200 or do. It's more expensive, but the cartridges last forever. My clients that use them use maybe one cartridge every year and a half.

 

[frase]

HP Officejet 8010 is decent.
Epson are a piece of shite. Always get paper feed sensor errors. Meaning paper Jam when there isn't one - just the sensor tripping out.

 

[HFultzjr]

I have had sooooooo many people ask me to come fix their $69.00 printer.
Try explaining to them throw it out and get another one.
But it's only 2 years old..................lol!
75% of them are junk.
You may get lucky and get a good one.
Good luck.

 

[lan101]

I have had sooooooo many people ask me to come fix their $69.00 printer.
Try explaining to them throw it out and get another one.
But it's only 2 years old..................lol!
75% of them are junk.
You may get lucky and get a good one.
Good luck.

Yeah that's like the most annoying call I get. People don't understand that these things are all trash lol.

 

[Sky-Knight]

And they can't understand the lack of logic in paying $150 for someone to come to their house to tell them the $70 printer is trash...