I'm on the lookout for a new printer/copier/scanner for light home use - just something reasonably basic and compact. Which brands/models have the best priced inks - mainly black if that makes any difference? I'm in The UK.
Thanks for any advice.
I got fed up with the price of Ink so a while ago I bought a Colour Laser Printer, I rarely print my photography at home but the Laser will give me the occasional "Proof" of an image that I intend to send to a Professional lab for printing, for normal printing (B&W Text documents) the cartridge set lasts for around 20,000 pages, the colour cartridges are the same lifetime, but of course will not be uses as often
I have a Brother DCP-9020CDW which is an all in one, fully duplex, Printer, Scanner, Copier with fully automatic paper feed (in & Out), that I paid a couple of hundred pounds for on offer, a set of (non original) toner cartridges are less that £40 online and give a cost of pennies per page.
For general household use I would expect to have to change the black cartridge once every couple of years, and have not yet after several years replaced a colour cartridge
There are a lot of makes to look at, and it's a good idea to check online to find the spec you want, then wait and check for special offers, as the initial cost is more than the Inkjet that a cheap and designed to make the profit on the Ink.
I like Dell and Brother as my experience over many years has been very good
I use a HP printer/scanner and use their Instant Ink plan. Don't have to worry about replacement ink for a small monthly payment. Ideal if you have a kid that does a lot of homework printing.
If you don't fancy a laser printer and want to stick with an inkjet, then look at one that has refillable ink tanks, Epson EcoTank or Canon MegaTank for example.
Printers on test: can a refillable tank printer from Canon or Epson save you money? – Which? News
I have an Epson EcoTank. The printer isn't as cheap as a cartridge printer, but a bottle of black ink sufficient for 7,500 pages is £13.49 (not that I'll need one any time soon, the printer came with two sets of colour and black bottles of ink in the box).
Epson and compatible ink, i get mine from ebay for under a fiver
Vendors are getting wise to the refurb cartridge deal, and check that the chip in the cartridge is OEM.
If it's not, the printer throws an error.
My Workforce 7710 comes up and says non-OEM cartridge do you want to use it anyway. Just answer yes. I'm not sure about the MIL's Workforce 7510 because the wife does her cartridges, but she uses ebay refurbished too with no issues. Both of these printers have been running for years, the only issue being color jets clogging due to non-use at times, which happens with any ink, genuine OEM or not. I do imagine there are newer printers being manufactured now that will just refuse to run off anything but a brand new OEM cartridge.
Yet one more reason why we're moving to a color laser before the end of the year.
At one time HP were notorious for doing that.
I kept an XP machine running just to keep using my Lexmark printer/scanner (no drivers available beyond XP). No chip in it's cartridges - too old.
But even re-manufactured cartridges were getting hard to find by the time it finally died on me. That's when I swore I'd never buy another cartridge again and switched to an inkjet with a refillable tank. I need an inkjet for photo printing.
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