Cheap printers

Tulipone

Tulipone

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Chris
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Grateful for advice. My colour laser printer has just broken - to be fair it is probably 8 years old and has been warning me for a while that it is failing - the on/off button is shot.

I don’t want to print colour pictures as they get printed through one of the online printers, I just want to print tickets or information usually with a bit of colour.

How dreadful are the <=£50 inkjets now?
 
Not the cost of the printers it is the ink that is way OTT on price unless you go 3rd party.
 
Honestly get yourself a laser printer. They are more expensive to buy but you'll get that back on the cost of ink.

Cheap toners are plentiful, never clog up, never dry out.

I have a colour laser printer which I print all my work stuff on so is used daily. It takes 4 toners which I get on Amazon for around £45 and I replace those roughly twice a year.
 
I have been looking at laser printers and it seems that since Samsung pulling out of lasers, buying a reasonably priced colour laser is doable, but no one seems to do compatible toners for them. Saw a Brother for £200 but the toner pack will be a further £186 when the supplied initial toner is gone. Certainly puts the price up.
 
Tulipone said:
I have been looking at laser printers and it seems that since Samsung pulling out of lasers, buying a reasonably priced colour laser is doable, but no one seems to do compatible toners for them. Saw a Brother for £200 but the toner pack will be a further £186 when the supplied initial toner is gone. Certainly puts the price up.
Click to expand...

No idea on your budget but a quick google find this


with compat toners.

 
That is very kind if you. I did try a number of make/models but they seem to be clamping down.

Will have a look locally and see if I can pick one up tomorrow.

The 'good' news is that with 4 screws out I can access under the micro switch and turn it on so at least until the new one gets here I can print.
 
Have a look at a cheap HP inkjet with an Instant Ink plan.
It costs around £5 a month for 100 prints (it just went up after 7 years), and you can carry over up to 200 (I think)

They do print very respectable photos too :)

Prior to that I had an HP laser for 12 year, which was OK but had to strip it down every couple of years to clean the mirrors etc, but it was not good for photos (most/all lasers are not as good for photos)
 
I have a 12-year-old Canon MG5250 and it is quite respectable in quality. If you're just printing tickets etc, you can replace the ink carts with compatibles at 10% of the price, when the first lot run out. In my case that didn't work out as printing black and white images with the compatibles had unacceptable colour casts, but text was absolutely fine. Obviously mine is no longer available, but any recent 5 or 6 ink Canon should do you a good job.

Otherwise, why not get a tank printer? Many folk are still using their supplied tanks a year or more after purchase, AFAICS!
 
As Chris has just suggested, have a look at the newer style of printers that have refillable tanks rather than single use cartridges - they are more expensive in terms of initial outlay, but if you compare the cost factoring in the cost of replacement cartridges a cheaper printer would need to print the same number of pages then they are actually much better value.
 
Thanks guys. I bypassed the switch last week but got a final red flashing light yesterday. I’m just going to get a cheap mono laser today and when the timer runs out make a decision then.

Really don’t think that inkjets are for me as recall if they are not used regularly than they just gum up.
 
Tulipone said:
Really don’t think that inkjets are for me as recall if they are not used regularly than they just gum up.
Click to expand...

I think that was mainly Epson, every September I would scrap several Epson inkjets after they had sat for the school holidays.
No problems with HP, but then if an HP did go wrong, you just replace the cartridge as the print head is part of the cartridge.

That was up to about 2008, when people eventually stopped buying Epson, I would hope they have solved that by now. (have not used one since then)

I think that reputation you recall is quite old now :)
 
The £50 printer are cheap to by but expensive to run ie. Ink, the epon eco tanks are more expensive to buy , but cheap to run, with the printers the ink supplied with the printer , is aproximatly the equipment to upto 6 sets of cartridges, on a non eco tank printer.
 
I was against after market ink for a long time. But ink for my printer's is just to high for me. A Canon ink cartridge for my 9000 MK II printer runs in the neighborhood of $16 and a bit up. Tried an after market ink and now my ink runs $5. The Canon cartridges I need for that 9000 can't be bought within 70 mi from my home so paying postage is no big thing! The best part is I'm finding I like the print's I'm getting with the aftermarket stuff just as well as the manufacturers' ink. Just got two cartridges in the mail a couple days ago. Cost me $14.95 and that included shipping! As for inexpensive printers, Unless your printing something you think is high dollar for a living, the inexpensive one work about as well but my experience was they don't last as long. My Canon iP 100 is doing it's best to prove me wrong on that point. Now if you wanted to start printing photo's to sell I would suggest you spend all you can afford. And at least a 13" printer. I'm giving a lot of though to moving up to a 17". Not because I can afford it or need it but just because I can. I haven't offered photo's for sale much, but, I like big photo's myself and frame them myself and I can rob my savings and get the money! I like printing photo's twice as long as wide and like doing panorama's. Lot of my photo's come out at 12"x24". I've run out of wall space but doesn't stop me! Got two big pile's of framed enlargement laying around here at home.
 
Just to update this as the courier eventually managed to deliver today. Got an HP colour laser jet that seems to provide good enough prints for what I need at a fairly reasonable cost. Seems it'll also take compatible toner when the time comes. I doubt that it'll do a great job of photographic images but it was never for that - but does do duplex and has the ability for wireless.

I remain grateful for all your thoughts - as usual they helped me make a decision.
 
I have a lot of printers in my office for work and photography. I use a couple of Brother laser printers and they're actually very good and cheap to run. I have two colour Xerox printers which cost me about £400 each to buy, the toner ran out on each of them and refills were £450.00... you can't get third party toner cartridges. I bought two new printers to replace two perfectly good Xerox printers for less money than new toner cartridges. Lesson learned, always check the printer has third party cartridges available. It's disgraceful the way these companies generate e-waste.
 
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Santafe2000 said:
I have two colour Xerox printers which cost me about £400 each to buy, the toner ran out on each of them and refills were £450.00... you can't get third party toner cartridges. I bought two new printers to replace two perfectly good Xerox printers for less money than new toner cartridges.
Click to expand...
3rd party rainbow packs are about £150 for this this one. I guess the biggest problem is that (I understand) most manufacturers sell new printers with cut down amounts of toner or ink in the initial cartridges. I’d rather pay a fair price for simplicity but this current craze of monthly subscriptions kills the idea of economy and green. You generally have a choice between either buy not both.
 
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