Color printer suggestions

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Any suggestions as to a good color printer that will work well on WiFi and can also print from iPads? Our Lexmark is on its last leg. Also advantages at to an inkjet over lazer? Thanks.
 
I have 2 that are very similar to the one linked above. One is WiFi and one is wired. Great printers, IMO, and can be had very cheap if you're patient. I got one for free as a hand-me-down and one on clearance found on slickdeals a few years back.
 
A laser will typically be much cheaper per page. I have a Samsung wireless color laser printer and it works great going on 3 years. I refill from the cheap containers every other cartridge.
 
I've had good luck with Canon printers and outlaw ink from Amazon. One is 6-7 years old and still going strong.
 
Got burned on junk Lexmark and bought a Brother printer. I get the cheapo cartridges on eBay for less than $2 each (way less) and get hundreds of pages of decent quality text and graphic per set. I believe the key to longevity is to print frequently. The Brother printer I use was purchased from Fry's Electronics for $35 (a returned refurb LOL) It's like a Timex.
 
For me Epson Printers have been the best, can't say the same thing about my Canon Printers though. . .
 
Love my HP Officejet Pro 8600, it is an all in one. It scans, prints, faxes, etc. Has an auto document feeder for the scanner and also will print both sides automatically without having to reload the paper manually. I've had it for almost a year and have yet to change a cartridge. I bought it for its low ink use. Print quality is good and it prints fast as well. I just got a warning that the ink is low for the yellow cartridge and I should order one. Now I wish I had not ordered all the colors as backups back when I bought the printer, I've never had a printer that gave me a warning before and before this printer I was changing out either the black or color cartridges at least once per month. These cartridges are bigger and more expensive but they seem to last forever.
 
We have a very cheap Canon printer we bought at Walmart like 6 years ago. It still prints great. It replaced a horrible Kodak printer with messed up print heads.

I will never again buy a printer that uses low-cost ink replacements where just the ink tank itself is replaced, and not the print head as well. This is what that Kodak printer had...the print heads themselves never got replaced. You bought inexpensive ink tank replacements instead. Nice concept. But after a short while of inactivity, the print heads would gum up and not work right. This was a huge issue with these Kodak printers and Kodak replaced a lot of print heads for free for people with issues.

That's when we bought the Canon. It's a Pimxa MP250. I think we paid 30 bucks for it at a Walmart one evening when we needed to print something, and it's been going ever since. I use Google Cloud Print a lot and so we've pretty successfully worked around the fact that it's not wireless. But if I were buying a new color printer today, it'd likely be a Canon.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I need to research some more. Not sure if I want to go with a laser or injet. It is amazing that you can buy an injet for $48 and then when it is time to get ink, that can cost you $30 a cartridge. It's a scam
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Pretty much the same thing happens with a color laser printer, my HP costs a boatload to replace all four cartridges. For me though, the biggest upside is that even after weeks of non-use it prints out correctly the first time. I was always having clogged or dried out ink jets on my old ink printer if you didn't use it regularly.

I also suggest you consider a printer that can print from the cloud, that is something that I use frequently. You can print to it from anywhere, my daughter at college can print something at home that I need to help her with. If you ever buy a Chromebook that makes printing easier too, it is possible to print to a legacy printer from a Chromebook but there are issues.

Originally Posted By: Rat407
Thanks for all the replies. I need to research some more. Not sure if I want to go with a laser or injet. It is amazing that you can buy an injet for $48 and then when it is time to get ink, that can cost you $30 a cartridge. It's a scam
smile.gif
 
Originally Posted By: kschachn
I also suggest you consider a printer that can print from the cloud, that is something that I use frequently. You can print to it from anywhere, my daughter at college can print something at home that I need to help her with. If you ever buy a Chromebook that makes printing easier too, it is possible to print to a legacy printer from a Chromebook but there are issues.


If you can use Google Cloud Print (through Chrome), I think most or all of the issues go away, as it uses the Chrome browser as the print spooler/engine. I regularly print stuff on our little Canon ink jet printer at home from my computer at work, because I'm using Chrome. I can also print to it from any of our iOS devices or our Chromebook through Chrome.

My post isn't intended to be an advertisement for Chrome, but since you mentioned the Chromebook in particular... Are you having issues printing from your 'Book using Google's Cloud Print?
 
I prefer HP printers for general printing

I recently bought their wireless printer... Envy -Something

If I wanted nice color photos.... I would go Epson
 
Originally Posted By: WishIhadatruck
Love my HP Officejet Pro 8600, it is an all in one. It scans, prints, faxes, etc. Has an auto document feeder for the scanner and also will print both sides automatically without having to reload the paper manually. I've had it for almost a year and have yet to change a cartridge. I bought it for its low ink use. Print quality is good and it prints fast as well.

We have one of these, too. It's a good all-in-one, and you can print something just by emailing the document to it, without ever having to install it as a printer in your machine, but I guess most of the newer printers support it these days.

The starter cartridges did not last long in my experience, but then again, they're called starters for a reason. It looks like the full-size cartridges that I replaced them with will last quite a while. HP makes it very easy to order replacement cartridges through their website. Their prices are actually competitive and include 2-day free shipping.
 
No not directly. "Issues" may have been too strong of a word. From a Chromebook, you can print directly to a cloud enabled printer. If you have a legacy printer that isn't cloud enabled (like our cheaper Brother B&W laser), then you can still print to it if you set it up on a Windows or Mac computer and that computer is on (and the user is logged in) at the time you wish to print. It still works unless Windows updates overnight and reboots the machine, or you turn it off, then the printer appears offline until you log into that account on the computer.

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Originally Posted By: kschachn
I also suggest you consider a printer that can print from the cloud, that is something that I use frequently. You can print to it from anywhere, my daughter at college can print something at home that I need to help her with. If you ever buy a Chromebook that makes printing easier too, it is possible to print to a legacy printer from a Chromebook but there are issues.

If you can use Google Cloud Print (through Chrome), I think most or all of the issues go away, as it uses the Chrome browser as the print spooler/engine. I regularly print stuff on our little Canon ink jet printer at home from my computer at work, because I'm using Chrome. I can also print to it from any of our iOS devices or our Chromebook through Chrome.

My post isn't intended to be an advertisement for Chrome, but since you mentioned the Chromebook in particular... Are you having issues printing from your 'Book using Google's Cloud Print?
 
We've had a Samsung CLP-315W for years. While there is some sticker shock spending $200 to replace all four toner carts, since I do most of my printing in B&W, I get about 18 months out of the color carts and about a year from the Black cart.

Like others have indicated, unlike ink carts, toner doesn't dry it out. It works even after sitting for weeks without printing.

The per page cost of a laser is cheaper than an ink jet. Our family of five gives it a pretty good workout. It has WiFi, wired Ethernet and USB connection options.

I've had good luck with this model. Can't speak to it's successors, as I've had mine since 2009, IIRC.
 
That's actually pretty cheap. For my HP, if I have to buy all four and I dig around for a coupon code, it comes out to about $300.

Originally Posted By: javacontour
We've had a Samsung CLP-315W for years. While there is some sticker shock spending $200 to replace all four toner carts, since I do most of my printing in B&W, I get about 18 months out of the color carts and about a year from the Black cart.
 
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