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What's the best printer for the money?

C

Captainnumnuts

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[The Author's Hangout is for authorly/writing discussions, or for discussions started by Literotica authors. Thanks for understanding! - Admin]

Almost all authors use printers right? What's the best,most practical printer (black ink) for the money? That doubles as a copier? Not necessarily the cheapest nor most expensive - but I'm looking down the road as well. Ink costs, cartridges, refills, compatability w/computers, etc..

I've been looking around lately, but I need opinions from personal experience. Nothing too big or commercial usage. Hype, sales people, and advertisements tend to get in the way trying to make that extra buck and it gets in the way of making an informed decision. Something dependable and low maintenance as well. W/out all the extra cool stuff I doubt I'll use.

Thanks to anyone that can help. All answers will be taken into consideration,
 
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A small domestic laser probably produces a lower price per page printed than an ink jet.
I use an HP 1010.
 
When I had my own little book company, I use a local print shop. She did the printing and binding, a loose leaf type binder, and her sister, a retired English teacher, did the editing. We split the profits. We sold a ton of books through 42 outlets in four states.

The sister who ran the print shop died late last year, I'm sorry to say.

She used Lazar printers at her shop, if that helps any.
 
In general, I'd recommend a credible national mint, such as the US, UK, or Canada. Private money printers tend to produce notes of inferior quality.
 
I have an HP Deskjet 2540 that I really like--fast printing, WiFi connected (or USB, if you have problems with WiFi), and a great scanner. The 2540 is discontinued, but the current, comparable versions are supposed to be just as good. I think HP's new model of it is the OfficeJet 3830. Before you pull the trigger on it, though, I'd look to see if you can get third party ink cartridges or third party refills of HP carts. The one's branded by HP can be really expensive. If you have a Costco membership, I'd look at what they sell the carts for.

I'm curious to know what you need the printer for. I do all of my writing and editing on my computer, and my printer only comes out for other, unrelated tasks. The scanner is mostly used in my artistic endeavors or copying documents for work. Obviously, a good printer is a very useful thing to have--as is a scanner (even if you don't use it that often)--but they really aren't needed for writing.
 
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Handley_Page said:
A small domestic laser probably produces a lower price per page printed than an ink jet.
I use an HP 1010.
Click to expand...

I have an HP 1018. PC World ran an advert in The Times when I was on holiday offering the 1018 at a very low price. I went into the nearest PC World but they hadn't seen the offer, in an issue a couple of days previously. I had to got back to the holiday cottage, retrieve the newspaper from recycling and take it to PC World. They honoured the offer even though the price was 25% of the current retail.

It is a mono lazer. I buy clone toner cartridges for about £12 each. They last for about 5,000 pages.
 
I have a Canon MG2500 Ink Jet Printer...it cost $39 US. The refills are expensive at around $50 us for a pair, one black on color. It copies and scans.

I really don't print that much...I do everything electronically.

So for me if I want to print something it's just the printer for those one off print projects.

How long do the refills last...The ones that are in there now are over a year old and are just now running out of ink. Actually the color one is full, the black one is running out. But like I said, I rarely print stuff.
 
From what I hear home printers are manufactured to be disposable. So I would suggest buying the cheapest one that you can find. If it lasts long enough to replace the ink twice (they come with minimal ink in the cartridges so the first replacement doesn't count), then it was money well spent.
 
Wow. I wasn't expecting such quick responses. An unexpected pleasure.


In my current situation, I've become self-employed as a Notary Public and take it very seriously. I wasn't expecting such an influx of clients and I'm completely engaged w/various tasks that often require a printer and copier. I work out of my home and not interested in getting an office at this time.

As for my writing, it too has taken a rapid pace as I've decided to publish some things as well as more writing itself. I can only go so fast and currently exploring the self-publishing aspect of it. I'm not sure what will happen there, but also requires printing and copying - possibly faxing if email options aren't applicable. I like seeing my personal writing on paper, as it too has unexpected advantages.

I'm a big fan of HP. Love them. My favorite from years past was a dot matrix that was extensively used by multiple persons for different reasons. Not sure if a jet printer is similar to that. I'm also in a school of sorts in a quest for Nurses Legal Aide certification.

I had an old personal HP printer/copier that was ok for various things, but it exceeded my expectations as I lately placed demands upon it that it simply wasn't capable of doing at such an accelerated usage. Plus the cartridges were too expensive. It developed multiple problems and simply became unreasonable to try to use it. Not worth repairing, I threw it away. I got my money's worth out of it.
 
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I have a Samsung ML-Series laser printer. It was around 90 Euros, connects to both our computers wirelessly and I get about 2000 pages per cartridge. They cost almost as much as the original machine, but I've had zero issues with the printer at all. No trouble with the paper transport, no constant hiccups when printing complicated documents, it just works, something my previous Epsons and HPs never got right. It has no scan/copy function itself, but since my wife uses a flatbed scanner for her text-to-speech solution, that's not an issue.

A quick Google search showed there's a model (M2070F) with a dedicated copier function for about 120 Euros. If the internals are on par with my printer, I can give a wholehearted recommendation.

Edit: It sems four years are a long time in printer country - the reviews for recent Samsung printers are very... meh. Mine works very well, but the new ones seem to have issues with everything from paper transport to basic driver functionality. Damn :)
 
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I'd second what people have been saying about a low-cost laser printer, especially if the vast majority of your printing is black-and-white. I also have a cheap all-in-one inkjet machine that I use for scans, copies, and what little color printing I do. Since I don't use it that often, the high price per copy doesn't bother me.
 
jehoram said:
I'd second what people have been saying about a low-cost laser printer, especially if the vast majority of your printing is black-and-white. I also have a cheap all-in-one inkjet machine that I use for scans, copies, and what little color printing I do. Since I don't use it that often, the high price per copy doesn't bother me.
Click to expand...

I [also] have a Canon 'Pixma' colour 'ink-jet' printer which features a good scanner.
 
The best printer for the money certainly MUST be the one the Federal mint uses, I mean, why would they print the money on an inferior printer when they can afford any printer they want?
 
Zeb_Carter said:
I have a Canon MG2500 Ink Jet Printer...it cost $39 US. The refills are expensive at around $50 us for a pair, one black on color. It copies and scans.

I really don't print that much...I do everything electronically.

So for me if I want to print something it's just the printer for those one off print projects.

How long do the refills last...The ones that are in there now are over a year old and are just now running out of ink. Actually the color one is full, the black one is running out. But like I said, I rarely print stuff.
Click to expand...

I have this same one, but I go through ink pretty fast and it's $$
I sew and am always needing to print off a pattern, and I sell on etsy and ebay so always printing labels.

But it works really well for me, just wish the ink wasn't so $$$
 
Handley_Page said:
I [also] have a Canon 'Pixma' colour 'ink-jet' printer which features a good scanner.
Click to expand...

I also have the Pixma, and strongly recommend it.

I went through (probably) a dozen HPs in as many years, and hated every one of the ... but they had a great reputation, so I just assumed the problems I had with them were standard for all printers.

Got the canon, and ZERO problems, better performance than the HPs, and far easier to use.

Sad, because until then I'd been fiercely loyal to HP both for home products, and their enterprise, HP-UX corporate-level machines.

On a cost-per-page basis, most cartridges will end up being about the same - so the best advice is not to buy them but have them refilled instead. I take my old cartridges to Costco, and the cost of refills is about 1/3 the cost of new cartridges.
 
TheeGoatPig said:
From what I hear home printers are manufactured to be disposable. So I would suggest buying the cheapest one that you can find. If it lasts long enough to replace the ink twice (they come with minimal ink in the cartridges so the first replacement doesn't count), then it was money well spent.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure where you're getting your anecdotes, but you're pretty far off the mark. I'm sure there are some crappy printers out there, but all of the printers I've used and the printers I know that (many) other people use have lasted for years. I've had my printer for four years, and it prints just like the day I got it.

A lot of people talk about planned obsolescence in electronics, but you'd be surprised how few products that actually applies to.
 
TheeGoatPig said:
From what I hear home printers are manufactured to be disposable. So I would suggest buying the cheapest one that you can find. If it lasts long enough to replace the ink twice (they come with minimal ink in the cartridges so the first replacement doesn't count), then it was money well spent.
Click to expand...

I rather think it depends a lot on how often you use the printer.
A laser printer needs to be warm [-ish] while an ink-jet should not dry out.
 
Thank everyone for your contributions to this thread. I've read all of them to this point. Glad I did. I'm a dinosaur of sorts when it comes to this type thing. It's like being thrust into a new world unprepared.

I've always rolled w/the HPs because that's what I started with and kept on using them. Canons seem to be as good or better. I've considered Brothers. Today, I'll find something based upon an informed decision - not necessarily what I'm accustomed to. I see a major preference to ink jet printers. Thanks again.

I may go to a disposable for now, as a stepping stone. Something more permanent is inevitable.
 
I actually still have an old dot-matrix printer in a box around here someplace. I might just hook it up, I can find the drivers for it somewhere. :D :eek: :cool:
 
Zeb_Carter said:
I actually still have an old dot-matrix printer in a box around here someplace. I might just hook it up, I can find the drivers for it somewhere. :D :eek: :cool:
Click to expand...

Can you even get ribbons for them anymore?

I remember tractor feed paper and 25 megabyte hard drives. And cassette tape storage. Those were the days.
 
Zeb_Carter said:
Raises hand.

Who remembers 19 platter 25mb hard drives?
Click to expand...
I used to work in a center with one of these. I had a watch like that one, too.

ibm-3390-hard-drive-teardown-640x353.jpg
 
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