Need a printer

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OrangeRKN
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PostNeed a printer
by OrangeRKN » Mon Mar 11, 2019 1:43 pm

Last topic on this was from 2013 so probably not that useful

I need a home printer for printing documents. Monochrome printers don't seem to be a thing, so I'm guessing I want a colour printer that will work fine with just black ink cartridges. Needs to be wireless and work with Windows 10, and print double sided. Nothing else really matters.

I'm wary of buying a cheap one and getting screwed on ink, anyone have any advice?

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Sandy
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PostRe: Need a printer
by Sandy » Mon Mar 11, 2019 1:55 pm

How much are you planning on printing? My advice would be to not buy a printer.

If you work in a office that has a big Xerox or Canon then use that.

Otherwise go to the library or local print shop.

Last edited by Sandy on Mon Mar 11, 2019 2:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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OrangeRKN
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PostRe: Need a printer
by OrangeRKN » Mon Mar 11, 2019 2:06 pm

None of the local shops do printing, but I hadn't thought to check the library. Good shout!

Opening times might be a little awkward (similar problem with relying on printing at the office) but will probably be alright

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Moggy
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PostRe: Need a printer
by Moggy » Mon Mar 11, 2019 2:23 pm

The perks of an office job 8-)

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OrangeRKN
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PostRe: Need a printer
by OrangeRKN » Mon Mar 11, 2019 2:34 pm

I can print the odd ticket off at work, but my girlfriend wants to start printing 20 odd page documents off as she prefers reading on paper, and I don't think I can justify doing that at work's expense :lol:

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Return_of_the_STAR
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PostRe: Need a printer
by Return_of_the_STAR » Mon Mar 11, 2019 2:39 pm

Just anyone elses work place have a log in system so they can see how much each person is printing off?

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Sandy
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PostRe: Need a printer
by Sandy » Mon Mar 11, 2019 2:42 pm

If you need help justifying it they probably pay you about 1% of what you make for them and then distribute the rest between inept, alpha male, middle management, fat cat CEOs and do nothing share holders.

I'm sure they can afford your 20p of printing.

Return_of_the_STAR wrote:Just anyone elses work place have a log in system so they can see how much each person is printing off?


Most modern printers come with the option if implemented by admin. The question is more does anyone work for or with something that has enough time to bother to check that kind of thing and then actually give a gooseberry fool about it.

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OrangeRKN
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PostRe: Need a printer
by OrangeRKN » Mon Mar 11, 2019 3:00 pm

The CEOs office is 5 metres from my desk, the CTO's desk is by his door, and the head of engineering sits directly opposite me (on the same 6 tables as my team lead). So while there are technically 3 layers of management between me and the top, I know none of them can be described as inept middle management!

Not going mental with the office printer isn't so much about the money it costs my company, its just about common courtesy imo.

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Moggy
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PostRe: Need a printer
by Moggy » Mon Mar 11, 2019 3:00 pm

OrangeRKN wrote:I can print the odd ticket off at work, but my girlfriend wants to start printing 20 odd page documents off as she prefers reading on paper, and I don't think I can justify doing that at work's expense :lol:


It was quite a long time ago but I once printed out a 100 page+ Gamefaqs webpage at work and then put it in the works post so I didn’t have to carry it home. :lol:

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OrangeRKN
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PostRe: Need a printer
by OrangeRKN » Mon Mar 11, 2019 3:01 pm

:lol:

Fair play

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Jenuall
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PostRe: Need a printer
by Jenuall » Mon Mar 11, 2019 3:19 pm

I printed 3 copies of my PhD thesis at work.

What's a thousand or so pages between friends I say! :slol:

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PostRe: Need a printer
by Qikz » Mon Mar 11, 2019 3:20 pm

People who use printers are the devil. strawberry float printers.

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Moggy
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PostRe: Need a printer
by Moggy » Mon Mar 11, 2019 3:30 pm

Qikz wrote:People who use printers are the devil. strawberry float printers.


It’s fine when you work somewhere with decent IT support.

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Cheeky Devlin
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PostRe: Need a printer
by Cheeky Devlin » Mon Mar 11, 2019 3:33 pm

Moggy wrote:
Qikz wrote:People who use printers are the devil. strawberry float printers.


It’s fine when you work somewhere with decent IT support.

:lol:

That said I do agree with Qikz.

Any printers I've had to deal with at home over the last twenty five years have been consistently gooseberry fool and seem to operate on their own rules of physics and logic. Horrendous bits of kit and I'm glad I rarely need to use the damn things now.

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Tsunade
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PostRe: Need a printer
by Tsunade » Mon Mar 11, 2019 4:40 pm

I have a cheap canon one, it does everything you said you want it to do and it was about £30. I think tesco still sells the same model for around the same price. I haven't used mine in a while, I think I need to get more ink for it.

Ludo is gooseberry fool!
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rinks
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PostRe: Need a printer
by rinks » Mon Mar 11, 2019 7:56 pm

OrangeRKN wrote:I can print the odd ticket off at work, but my girlfriend wants to start printing 20 odd page documents off as she prefers reading on paper, and I don't think I can justify doing that at work's expense :lol:

Sounds like a firmware update is required.

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Green Gecko
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PostRe: Need a printer
by Green Gecko » Wed Mar 13, 2019 1:26 am

Truth about printers:

1) Buy a business class printer if you want it to work

2) Also, use the printer regularly or they will ALL die due to a lack of routine self-service routines.

If you are only going to print in black and white - no - CMYK printers always use some amount of colour, even if they print in black. This is because all the print heads need to be regularly excited to expunge old ink from them or they will clog and "burn" (meaning they are permanently strawberry floated and can never be repaired) - buy a mono laser printer from the likes of Samsung, Xerox, Brother, HP or whoever you want. They are all the same. Get an aftermarket toner cartridge about 3-5 years later or recycle it. They only cost about £60. This one is £70 with wireless:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Xpress ... B00YU62KR6

It's a starter toner though so it'll go a few hundred pages before it runs out, but it's much cheaper and less hassle than an inkjet printer. It'll print things like barcodes, qr codes and text most reliably so it doesn't strawberry float up postage, tickets and stuff.

You can also replace the drum on a laser printer. You can't replace the printheads on an inkjet printer. It just starts printing crap and dies.

95% of people don't need a colour printer. Order your photos on the Internet; it's actually cheaper.

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OrangeRKN
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PostRe: Need a printer
by OrangeRKN » Wed Mar 13, 2019 9:24 am

Yeah after looking it up laser seems the way to go, much cheaper per page and more reliable.

That said the library is open a full four (4!) days a week, sometimes for almost six (6!) hours, so I might be alright. Going on an adventure there this lunchtime.

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pjbetman
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PostRe: Need a printer
by pjbetman » Wed Mar 13, 2019 10:02 am

Green Gecko wrote:Truth about printers:

1) Buy a business class printer if you want it to work

2) Also, use the printer regularly or they will ALL die due to a lack of routine self-service routines.

If you are only going to print in black and white - no - CMYK printers always use some amount of colour, even if they print in black. This is because all the print heads need to be regularly excited to expunge old ink from them or they will clog and "burn" (meaning they are permanently strawberry floated and can never be repaired) - buy a mono laser printer from the likes of Samsung, Xerox, Brother, HP or whoever you want. They are all the same. Get an aftermarket toner cartridge about 3-5 years later or recycle it. They only cost about £60. This one is £70 with wireless:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Xpress ... B00YU62KR6

It's a starter toner though so it'll go a few hundred pages before it runs out, but it's much cheaper and less hassle than an inkjet printer. It'll print things like barcodes, qr codes and text most reliably so it doesn't strawberry float up postage, tickets and stuff.

You can also replace the drum on a laser printer. You can't replace the printheads on an inkjet printer. It just starts printing crap and dies.

95% of people don't need a colour printer. Order your photos on the Internet; it's actually cheaper.


I was just about to ask if anyone knew of a good laser printer that was cheap...you've answered it for me! Thanks.

Btw, what would a decent colour one set me back? And can i get one that will scan and photocopy?

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Green Gecko
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PostRe: Need a printer
by Green Gecko » Wed Mar 13, 2019 7:29 pm

Colour generally starts around £110+, multifunction around £200.

I dropped £185 on an Epson WorkFroce 4630 and while I've burnt out several of the printnhead nozzles so I only get a perfect print on high quality settings it's lasted about 5 and a half years and still just churns out postage etc. With the XL cartridges the cost per print is actually slightly lower than a laser printer. Including inks I've probably spent almost twice that much on my businesses (although I've bled cartridges once or twice to unblock them).

You shouldn't have that sort of problem with a laser, but as I do art I needed the reproductive quality of an inkjet printer. Ideally I would have both.

Last I was looking into it I was considering Xerox actually.

Business class printers have more memory and are just more responsive, starting up quickly and not taking an age to spool a job. You may want to look at an HP LaserJet Pro if you want colour laser and multifunction stuff.. but honestly you might be better off with just a colour laser printer and a cheap MFC inkjet printer for scanning and stuff or the odd photocopy - they don't generally need to be brilliant quality reproduction. A full office style colour laser printer is about £300.

Samsung do some colour multifunction printers too, as they're new to the market they are good prices. Brother, HP, Xerox etc all do those as well.

Here's a no-frills colour Samsung laser: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B010NE2HGW/ ... B010NE2HKI

Here's an MFC version: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B010NE2HKI/ ... B010NE2HGW

But please bear in mind with a colour laser printer you have to replace all four toners (black, cyan, yellow, magenta), and one toner cartridge can set you back anywhere between £40-£100. The thing is you don't have to replace them anywhere near as often as colour inkjets. So you need to look at the total cost of ownership and how much you print.

Brother are well known for having lower running costs and more easily replaceable components. If I was spending that kind of money on a printer I'd probably go for an HP, Brother or Xerox by just weighing up the running costs and it having the features I want (two sided automatic duplex, auto document feeder (ADF), edge to edge print, envelope printing, Wifi etc etc).

Another nice thing you get with most home office / biz printers is cloud scanning/printing abilities. I nearly always scan documents directly to my dropbox now.

I find this supplier good to compare against other sites like Amazon as sometimes older models or newer revisions etc. look very similar but have wildly different prices. They also offer cashback and extended warranties on a lot of printers: https://www.printerland.co.uk/

(That site will also call you and try to offer you cashback on a different printer. Ignore them because they earn commission on some stuff, last time it was HP over an Epson.)

You want to look at reviews obviously. Printers are generally horrible - you either have an "OK" one or worse luck with them in my experience. They're complicated machines that require a lot of maintenance with nobody doing it. Just look at office printer problems all the time for machines that cost £3000+

Laser printers need less maintenance and don't need to be used constantly to maintain themselves. For the odd print, with the cost of them going down a lot in recent years, I'd certainly recommend a mono laser for most people over an inkjet if they occasionally need to print a form or a ticket etc., or for reading.

Over that I would recommend printing nothing at all but that's not possible for some people.

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