Recommended Low-end Printer

[panicbird]

I am looking at getting a new printer. I do not need anything fancy. I typically print only those things related to my sermons and the weekly church bulletin. The only bell and/or whistle I need is that I require a color printer (if that is even considered a bell or a whistle any more). Something less than $100 would be necessary.

What do you recommend?

Lon

 

[gwine]

This may be a The Sound of Music way of helping, but I would not recommend a lower end HP all-in-one. I used to have a DeskJet 660C that I really liked, but I am not happy with the paper feed on my new HP. Print is nice, but having to feed the paper one at a time is pathetic.

Of course, your mileage may vary.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

There's a dirty little secret that the printer manufacturers don't tell you: they practically give away their printers because that's not where they make their money. They make their money in the cost of ink. Even with just sermon printing and the weekly bulletin, with a low-end inkjet, plan on refilling those cartridges at least 3 times in a single year. You'll end up more than paying for the cost of that printer in one year.

You can get around this by buying an ink refilling kit but you need to be committed to this. I had an HP 7150 that I just gave away that I refilled the ink for years. It was always such a pain.

I recommend a laser printer quite frankly. The cost per page is usually about 1/4th the cost of an inkjet.

But you need color.

Because of that, I recommend you spend more than $100 and get what I just got: http://techbargains.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php?masterid=4215713&search=officejet

Yes it's way more than you anticipated but it accepts the larger cartidges and brings consumable costs down to a few pennies per page. It also scans and does photo quality prints and can be a fax machine and a copier. You can also put it on your network and share it with everyone in your family. My wife loves that I just bought this because we used to have to forward all our documents to my computer to print.

In just two years you will more than have made up for the added cost of this model.

 

[panicbird]

Rich,

How does the ink usage on the HP compare with a low-end inkjet? Assuming a three-times-a-year replacement for the low-end inkjet cartridges (which is, by the way, very conservative...my usage is more like twice that, although I found an online supplier of generic cartridges which cuts down the cost of replacement considerably - like $7-8 for a black cartridge), how would the HP compare with that?

Lon

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Rich,

How does the ink usage on the HP compare with a low-end inkjet? Assuming a three-times-a-year replacement for the low-end inkjet cartridges (which is, by the way, very conservative...my usage is more like twice that, although I found an online supplier of generic cartridges which cuts down the cost of replacement considerably - like $7-8 for a black cartridge), how would the HP compare with that?

Lon

Depends on the printer. It's not the ink usage but how much ink is in each cartridge. The 7310 accepts cartridges that hold 3x as much ink as a typical cartridge so the cost per print is much less.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Oh, and generic cartidges do change the calculation by the way. Choose either Epson or HP for a low end in those cases but find out the type of cartidges it takes and how available generics are for the ink cartridges it uses.

 

[Arch2k]

Because of that, I recommend you spend more than $100 and get what I just got: http://techbargains.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php?masterid=4215713&search=officejet

Yes it's way more than you anticipated but it accepts the larger cartidges and brings consumable costs down to a few pennies per page. It also scans and does photo quality prints and can be a fax machine and a copier. You can also put it on your network and share it with everyone in your family. My wife loves that I just bought this because we used to have to forward all our documents to my computer to print.

In just two years you will more than have made up for the added cost of this model.

This is the fax that we use at work. I am one of two people that have access to it as a printer/scanner as well. I use it for scanning all of the time, although I have to say that I am disappointed with the feeder, as I have to help it along 99% of the time.

I wouldn't mind upgrading my HP 920C at home to this model at some point.

 

[jfschultz]

There's a dirty little secret that the printer manufacturers don't tell you: they practically give away their printers because that's not where they make their money. They make their money in the cost of ink. Even with just sermon printing and the weekly bulletin, with a low-end inkjet, plan on refilling those cartridges at least 3 times in a single year. You'll end up more than paying for the cost of that printer in one year.

You can get around this by buying an ink refilling kit but you need to be committed to this. I had an HP 7150 that I just gave away that I refilled the ink for years. It was always such a pain.

I recommend a laser printer quite frankly. The cost per page is usually about 1/4th the cost of an inkjet.

But you need color.

Because of that, I recommend you spend more than $100 and get what I just got: http://techbargains.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php?masterid=4215713&search=officejet

Yes it's way more than you anticipated but it accepts the larger cartidges and brings consumable costs down to a few pennies per page. It also scans and does photo quality prints and can be a fax machine and a copier. You can also put it on your network and share it with everyone in your family. My wife loves that I just bought this because we used to have to forward all our documents to my computer to print.

In just two years you will more than have made up for the added cost of this model.

I agree. Consider the cost of the ink cartridges! I have opted for Canon because it uses ink tanks with a much lower cost than HP and Epson that use ink cartridges that include a print head that pushes up the cost. You may find that at low end a full set of cartridges for an HP or Epson will be almost the cost of a new printer!