New printer - Recommendations?
Pacman1854
Posts: 1,380 Forum Member
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After many years of dedicated service (well, 7) my current Lexmark printer 'died' at the weekend. No power, no lights, deader than a Norwegian Blue.
Looking for a replacement just for normal household use, preferably Wi-Fi, and an upper limit of £50.
Canon seems to be the favorite at the moment, though my wife's seen a couple of Epson ones, though they are supposedly very thirsty on ink.
Any recommendations, ones to avoid, help in general?
Looking for a replacement just for normal household use, preferably Wi-Fi, and an upper limit of £50.
Canon seems to be the favorite at the moment, though my wife's seen a couple of Epson ones, though they are supposedly very thirsty on ink.
Any recommendations, ones to avoid, help in general?
0
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http://www.johnlewis.com/hp-instant-ink-delivery-enrolment-kit-50-pages/p797296
The search found 14 printers, (well 15 actually but one was was incorrectly priced), between 55 and 70% and prices starting at £40 up to your max £50.
I'll concentrate on the 8 in the range 65 to 70% because the only differences were noise levels, speed of colour printing and price, apart from the Epson Expression Home XP-312 which was marked down for very poor quality of black text printing, so we'll discount that one.
The HP Officejet 4620 eAIO (CZ152B) was the top scorer on 70% and has an excellent performance, quiet and fast, but no auto-duplex. There is an auto-document feeder for fax as well. Normally it would retail for £70+ but Misco are selling it for £46 inc VAT: http://www.misco.co.uk/product/Q557603/HP-Officejet-4620-Inkjet-e-All-in-One-Printer. The cost of delivery page wouldn't load though.
Next at 67% is the Canon Pixma MG4250 with auto-duplex, although this prints slightly slower on colour. John Lewis has it for £49 with a free 2 year guarantee: http://www.johnlewis.com/canon-pixma-mg4250-all-in-one-wireless-printer/p231818875?tmcampid=51&tmad=c&s_pccid=pc_pr_200_20000
The Canon Pixma MX455, MG3150, MG3550, MG3250 and HP Deskjet 2540 all scored 66 or 65% and the differences between them are that the MX455 and the HP don't have auto-duplex. The HP was also marked down for the quality of scans. The MG3150 was well liked in the Which? customer reviews, although this opinion wasn't universally shared by Amazon customer reviews. In black it's over £50 but Amazon have a red version that retails just under £50.
Looking in depth through all the Which? reviews, the 2 top scorers above were overall the best in terms of print quality, and I would choose between them.
I'd say about 90% e-mails, and then the occasional picture. Of course, with a better printer and paper I'd probably look at more and better photo's.
Inks, I tend to source from Ebay and look at recycled cartridges where possible.
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1982932
Just out of interest why do you print out emails?
Not your usual day-to-day e-mails, but my wife gets a lot of vouchers and offers so we tend to print them off until needed.
And i was told that printers had gone out of fashion and home users don't use them any more.
i was going to get one last week but changed my mid and got a sound card instead.
You say Epsons are thirsty, but compatible cartridges are cheap as chips.
See ebay and amazon prices for any models on your shortlist.
While I do not know if Epsons are thirsty or not, but if they are then even if the cartridges are as cheap as chips it may not work out any cheaper in the long run.
Notice I said may not.
i have not used a Epson for a long time, to be honest they don't appeal to me, so I have not really done a cost comparison. i suppose it also depends on the model
Indeed they are, 30 for £11.59 including delivery for my Epson, great printer too.
Well I have had a Lexmark and a Canon and I couldn't find anywhere near cheap cartridges in spite of searching intensively.
I pay about a £1 a cartridge for Epson, neo-wales above is paying 50p in higher quantities. You can't get cheaper and it does work out very cost effective against other brands.
Edit: These are my T1281 Blacks on a Google search
https://www.google.co.uk/search?pws=0&gl=uk&q=t1281&gws_rd=ssl
T1282 etc are the other colours.
4 cartridge printers are cheaper to refill than 2 cartridge.
Also you can buy Ink Tank Conversion Kits. if you do a lot of printing
You must research yourself. It's only an amazon or ebay search, won't take long.
My Cannon Pixma IP4200 i can get 10 cartridges from ink squid for £13.95, that is around £1.40 per cartridge, you can not complain at that and the more you buy the cheaper they are
You can go to cheap and i have tried different inks that been cheap and got poor results, these ones I buy now give me good results time and time again. Personally I would not buy a Epson printer, my brother seems to get on with them, but I prefer Canon. I do nto mind paying a bit extra and looking at the company I get my ink from for a modern Epson printer, they sell one set of ink for the same price i can get 2 for mine.
I expect older Epsons are cheaper to get ink for.
I looked at the conversion tanks, I was thinking of getting one, but Printers seem to be throw away things these days with many not lasting 18 months, so I did not go down that route, also I do not do the amount of printing that requires it.
I have seen one in use and that was on a Canon that is older than mine and it works fine.
The one thing that is getting annoying is this thing about all in ones, Canon only got a few printer only models, Epson seems to have less, i have not looked at HP, but I expect most of theirs is all in ones as well. Brother is all in one, Kodak is as i don't think they have ever produced a stand alone printer anyway.
Not sure who else makes printers now for home use.
I haven't thrown it out, but I use an Epson all-in-one now.