Printer death

[tim]

My rubbish all in one printer has finally kicked the bucket. Can anyone recommend a printer that I could replace it with. I don't print that much (maybe as a resul of having a rubbish printer?) and miainly B&W but sometimes I need to print colour images to send to customers who are pc shy.

Budget - well ideally I'd like to spend no more than a couple of hundred and have replacement ink that didn't cost an arm and a leg.

Thanks for your help.

Cheers

Tim

 

[Steve Maskery]

Tim
Have a look at the Epsom range. I don't know the current model numbers, but there are several under £100, they have separate colour cartridges (so if your logo is red and you only ever use up the red ink, you only have to buy a red cartridge) and some will print directly onto CD's too. I have a couple of Stylus models, both several years old and still going strong. Reliable and good output.

HTH
Cheers

 

[Howjoe]

I second the epsom stylus range....ours is a 6400 (?). No problems at all. The separate ink cartridges are about £5ish for the black and £9ish for the colours.

 

[RogerS]

Tim

Epson. Canon or HP...all pretty good and constantly updating their ranges so you can always pickup a good price on the 'not-quite-the-latest' model.

Be prepared for the cartridges supplied with the printer to run out really quickly. Wonder why that is :evil: ?

I've never used one but separate cartridges does seem to make sense.

Roger

 

[Freetochat]

Why not have a look at a colour laser. You may have to spend a little more up front costs, but the toners are a lot cheaper per copy, and you don't have the ink jet nozzle and drying problems with little used inkjet printers. They have reduced in price quite considerably.

 

[Adam]

Be prepared for the cartridges supplied with the printer to run out really quickly. Wonder why that is :evil: ?

As I've no doubt you know, the "supplied" cartridges are only supplied part full, so you have to replace them pretty ASAP. In fact its hardly worth leaving the shop without a complete replacement set, and if you do that, it gives you an idea of what the running costs will be.

Their are quite a few "alternative" cartridge suppliers now, although if you believe the manufacturers, it'd cause your printer to stop working.#


Adam

 

[tim]

Why not have a look at a colour laser. You may have to spend a little more up front costs, but the toners are a lot cheaper per copy, and you don't have the ink jet nozzle and drying problems with little used inkjet printers. They have reduced in price quite considerably.

Yeah I have thought about that. The ink drying thing is really annoying. I'm assuming print quality is higher as well. Is that my budget knackered then?

T

 

[DaveL]

Be prepared for the cartridges supplied with the printer to run out really quickly. Wonder why that is :evil: ?

Well on the Epson I can explain that one. The epson cartridges are boxes of ink, the print head is part of the printer. So when you first set the printer up the head needs to be primed before it will print. I have a 5 year old photo 1270 that is A3 with a black cartridge and a 5 colour cartridge and have in the last 6 months bought an R200 that has 6 separate cartridges that will print straight on to CD or DVD discs. 8)

I have used a couple of different makes of cartridge, very few epson ones as they are up to 4 or 5 times the price of the clones and never had a problem.8)

HP cartridges have the head built in, but for many printers they make two or three different cartridges that have different amounts of ink in. HP put a self life on the ink so if you are a 'light' user you should only buy the small cartridge so the ink doesn't go out of date. :shock:

If you need any volume of printing lasers are fast and cheaper to run, I bought a second hand HP laserjet 4000N with duplex unit for £60. £60 is about how much a new cartridge will cost when it runs out. (Its only monochrome.)

 

[RogerS]

I'm assuming print quality is higher as well.
T

No..it's not. Lasers are adequate though for most purposes.

We bought a special deal Minolta IIRC and that came with a scanner (colour) that bolted on top...so you can photocopy colour stuff as well as B&W...£10 notes come out quite well but the paper is a bit of a give away :wink:

 

[Freetochat]

Have a look at http://www.misco.co.uk as guideline for prices of colour lasers. The pictures are not as good as an inkjet photo printer, but we find it is good enough for all that we do. You can get a Xerox Phaser for £268 + VAT or Minolta Magicolor 2400W for £239 + VAT. So the budget needs only to be pushed for the price of a couple of cartridges. I have a Minolta Magicolor and in four years we have had no problems with it.

One note of caution, when they describe the number of prints from a set of cartridges, don't include the ones when buying a machine. Often they are not full sized ones included in the original purchase. Much the same as all printers.

 

[Travis Byrne]

Hello Tim

One word or 2 about the Epson 6400 model. I have had it for about 6 months and I think it does a fine job of printing and plenty fast enough for me. (Now comes the but) but the thing that I don't like is this. If any one of the ink cartridges goes empty, the printer will not work. My old HP would keep going. Just something to think about.
Good luck on finding what you want.
Travis

 

[Anonymous]

My rubbish all in one printer has finally kicked the bucket. Can anyone recommend a printer that I could replace it with. I don't print that much (maybe as a resul of having a rubbish printer?) and miainly B&W but sometimes I need to print colour images to send to customers who are pc shy.

Budget - well ideally I'd like to spend no more than a couple of hundred and have replacement ink that didn't cost an arm and a leg.

Thanks for your help.

Cheers

Tim

Tim

I have a colour laser printer arriving at work today. HP 2500L. It costs £238 including VAT form http://www.Dabs.com

These are brilliant and so fast. Full copour photos at 4 pages per minute! 20 pages per minute black and white.

The toner cartridges are expensive when compared to inkjet but you replace each colour independantly. We have a few around here including the head of department and he still has the original colour toner in there - he purchased the 2500 in 2003!!!

Black toner is good for 4000 pages and each colour on is good for 2000 pages (HP say this, not me!)

http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/hardware/printersandscanners/products.htm?catid=99

 

[Adam]

I've seen at least a couple of colour lasers that should just come in aroudn the £200 mark if you shop around a bit to find an online supplier

Adam