What Printer To Buy?

[Helen-Stephen]

looking to buy a new desktop ink printer/scanner for doing normal office work, scanning, and the odd photo printing on A4 from home. The things that are important are the running cost i.e would like to use compliable ink cartridges or even refill them up myself? also the power when the printer in sleep mode.
There are 3 that seem to have good reviews are: Brother DCP-J132W-Epson XP422-Canon Pixma MG5550.
We really need your views to which way to go.
The last printer we had was a Epson R300 now retired after 11 years .
Many thanks for taking the time to help us choose  which way to go from here.
If anyone has a new Epson Stylus Photo R300 Print head I'm interested .

Kind regards

Helen & Stephen

[granalacant]

as you yourself indicate - running costs are the most important element.

I make a point of using a laser printer, always stick to Kyocera - you have some excellent buys on ebay - check both germany and the UK. The german site has a lot of only one year old printers (ex leasing)

One Kyocera I am using at the moment cost me some 100 euros, "only" 80,000 copies (it is built to do some 12,000 copies per month  .... and to last 5 or 6 years) and hardly uses any toner. Cost of toner is some .09 cent (i.e. 10 pages cost one euro cent or some 1000 pages for one euro in toner) per page. The drum is ceramic and lasts a lifetime.

Kyocera: fantastic build quality, at times have a print run of some 5,000 pages on a day and it takes it without any problem. Incl. double sided.

If you need MFC would recommend Brother - I use it for simple one page scanning and one page photocopies. When making multiple scans I normally use my Fujitsu IX500 scanner and the Kyocera printer.

[Mark Etheridge]

Is this for use in Spain?

The reason I ask is that we had a Lenovo printer, and when the cartridges ran out we couldn't find replacements for them at any of the usual places. Whatever you choose, make sure the cartridges are freely available! 

[granalacant]

yes, Kyocera have an agent in Alicante, called DASS - they are in c/. Italia and in an industrial area in Alicante.

Know they are there, but I never used them   :-)
Toner you can buy easily on internet - ebay.es or ebay.de (I usually buy the printer and ask them to put in one or two extra cartridges of toner so I don t have the extra transport costs).

One of the Kyocera's I use is an A3 model, extremely good, Kyocera have been producing some 5 or 6 years already. Workhorses ...

[GAMagazine]

Epson are always the best as the inks are  the cheapest

[John H]

We have an Epson printer in GA, we get it out maybe once a year to print our boarding cards, I always think that after sitting there for a year it wont work, it works perfectly every time..
My experience of compatible ink cartridges has been very poor, it might be the "brands" I bought, the end result was blocked ink jets resulting in two printers being thrown away, a false economy IMHO

Regards all

John

[Aficionado]

You may just have been unlucky John, our experience in the office with both ink jet and laser compatibles has - up to now, anyway - been good.

We normally buy from a company called Cartridge Save.

Michael.

[granalacant]

We have an Epson printer in GA, we get it out maybe once a year to print our boarding cards, I always think that after sitting there for a year it wont work, it works perfectly every time..
My experience of compatible ink cartridges has been very poor, it might be the "brands" I bought, the end result was blocked ink jets resulting in two printers being thrown away, a false economy IMHO

Regards all

John

Strange, never had that problem with the Brother 5910 I have as MFC - and only use ink from ebay sellers   :-)
In any case, if you only print two or three pages every year I suppose it is cheaper to go to a print shop ...

[Lesue]

It´s a tricky one to recommend where printers are concerned. There are so many makes and models around and you will often get quite different reviews from different people about the same model. Most models these days are a multifunctional printer/scanner/copier and some will also be fax and can be purchased reasonably cheaply so I suppose one of the most important factors is the cost of replacement ink/toner. I have been using a home printer for many, many years and found the Epsons I have had to be good quality, reliable and not too costly to run. I did have an HP printer at one time, that was also pretty good but I found the Epson inks to be a bit cheaper. As regards "compatibles" my Epson at home does not like them and I have to use the genuine Epson cartridges but then I use an Epson (different model) in the bowls club office which runs quite happily with "compatibles" and that model is for a small office and is a real workhorse. A friend of mine has a Pixma that again does not like the "compatibles" so it´s all a bit strange really. Probably best for you to check out the professional reviewers on the internet for the 3 models you have looked at. I would try several different reviews (which usually take into account the running costs as well) and go for the one that´s best recommended and also suits your budget. Very difficult really to evaluate.

[Helen-Stephen]

Thank you everyone for your lovely feedback. We are looking at the possibilities ,all the pros and cons from all sides ...this homework is becoming much longer than we expected, but as long as we get the right printer in the end that's all that matters . Everyone individual needs are different ...as long as we can print our boarding passes lol.

Helen & Stephen

[Helen-Stephen]

Is this for use in Spain?

The reason I ask is that we had a Lenovo printer, and when the cartridges ran out we couldn't find replacements for them at any of the usual places. Whatever you choose, make sure the cartridges are freely available! 

The printer going to base in the UK.

[Helen-Stephen]

Just an update, I ended up buying a Cannon MG5650 which has some top reviews. Printer/scanner/copier/Prints both sides when set. and when it prints out photos very high spec all in all very please also has wifi.
The other thing it goes into sleep mode when not in use for a while saving on power.
Was on offer from Argos £55.00 that was a couple of weeks ago see it gone up to £79.99 John Lewis are selling for £69.99.

[Philndeb]

Is that one of the Pixma ones?,if so I have one and it prints straight from my iphone and is easy to set up.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Helen-Stephen]

Yes it the Pixma model as you say it great with the airplay as well to use with iPhone & ipad or any smart device.
Setting up was done in 2 mins sort of auto connect to wifi.
With the iPhone you do have to download the cannon apps for it to send info over to printer.
Another great thing you can do is scan on the scanner and it will save onto the iPhone.
Possibility are endless with this printer.

[granalacant]

Possibility are endless with this printer.


Yes but how is the coffee it makes?