Need Copier/Fax/Printer Suggestions

D

douglee25

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Jan 13, 2008
4,756
Dallas, TX
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I am sick and tired of replacing ink catridges in the typical $100-$200 dollar HP/Canon/Lexmark, etc printers. This last time has set me over the edge. I replaced both the black and the color printer catridges at a total cost of $30-$40. I then printed 8-10 color pages and the color is already out! I am done!

I need a copier, fax, printer solution for home and a small business. Something more 'industrial like', although I don't think I need a full office size model. Anyone have any suggestions? Point me in the right direction.

Doug
 
I tend to stay away from multifunction printers... one function goes bad and the hole thing is useless. If you do mostly black and white... get a laser printer. You can get a decent one for $150 - $300 and the toner will do 3,000 prints or so. Pick up a scanner for $150 if you need the copy function. If you need color prints, there are several color laser printers for $300+ or so... much more economical than ink jets in the long run.

My $0.02
 
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I've got this in my home office and love it. Toner is a bit pricey, and only 1500 pages per cartridge.

If I did it over, I'd of bought a WiFi model, and check toner costs.
 
I would stay away from HP. Their software is so bloated that it will take your computer performance down a few notches. (800MB install)

I have changed to Brother MFC 9440 CN 4 years ago and is still happy. Not a single problem. And the best thing (compared to HP MF Lasers) is the fan is SILENT when printer is not printing.

A/C's and InkJet is a bad combination resulting in high ink replacement cost since the A/C dry's out the ink very quickly. You have to print every 2 days to keep them from clogging on my previous HP.
 
I had a multi function HP that lasted over 10 thousand pages and I never had a problem. I recently upgraded to another multi function HP with wifi. I do not use it nearly as much because shortly after I purchased it I took a new job that didn't require me to have my own office. My new model is faster, quieter, and produces better quality copies and scans then the old. I do hate the cost of ink, but the new printer seems to be better than my old.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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FWIW, don't install the HP software. Just plug it in and let the windows drivers run it. No issues here.
 
I just read, in a digital photography book, that Epson printers are very good, if you are interested in printing any photos...:huh:
 
mistercomputerman said:
Doug

This is your best choice.

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/18972-18972-3328064-12004-3328083-3597338.html


This one is new. I have no experience with it.

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF05a/18972-18972-3328064-12004-3328083-4089171.html
Click to expand...

Will check those out. Thanks!

JimG said:
I tend to stay away from multifunction printers... one function goes bad and the hole thing is useless. If you do mostly black and white... get a laser printer. You can get a decent one for $150 - $300 and the toner will do 3,000 prints or so. Pick up a scanner for $150 if you need the copy function. If you need color prints, there are several color laser printers for $300+ or so... much more economical than ink jets in the long run.

My $0.02
Click to expand...


I have heard about buying separate machines for various tasks, but I don't know that I necessarily agree with it. After you done adding up all the expenses, you're well over $600-$800. That will buy you a pretty nice multifunction unit.

D-Sill-D said:
I just read, in a digital photography book, that Epson printers are very good, if you are interested in printing any photos...:huh:
Click to expand...

I agree with this. I've owned Epson in the past and they do produce a very accurate photo print.

Doug
 
This is timely thread. I'm also looking for something similar. I'm also debating if I want to get all-in-one. Last epson all-in-one unit I got about 5yrs ago. It was couple hundred unit. I din't need to do a lot of printing, but wanted to have other features at hand. That thing lasted for only few months with light usage. After that I switched to HP laser B/W and loved it. About a year ago I bought another Brother Laser B/W, which I'm happy with. I think that laser printers are way better, but I've read that for color printing InkJet produces better quality. It's a tough choice, but for my needs I may go with just color laser (not all-in-one).

Hopefully we'll get more feedback from other folks.
 
When just printing black and white set the print to fast draft. Saves a ton of ink. However, for fine work and color all inkjet printers use lots of ink.
 
mistercomputerman said:
Didn't you say you wanted to get away from inkjets?????????
Click to expand...

I didn't say that I wanted to get away entirely, just away from the low end inkjets where I had to replace cartridges in 10 pages.

I am up in the air in regards to injket vs. laserjet. From what I have been reading (feel free to comment), laserjets 5 - 7 years ago blew away inkjets concerning the cost/page. The article I was reading went on to say that the higher end inkjets (like the business one pictured above) the cost/page was almost approaching the cost/page of the laserjet.

I'm at a toss up at the moment.

Doug
 
Ink Jet = old technology
Color Laser = new technology
 
douglee25 said:
I didn't say that I wanted to get away entirely, just away from the low end inkjets where I had to replace cartridges in 10 pages.

I am up in the air in regards to injket vs. laserjet. From what I have been reading (feel free to comment), laserjets 5 - 7 years ago blew away inkjets concerning the cost/page. The article I was reading went on to say that the higher end inkjets (like the business one pictured above) the cost/page was almost approaching the cost/page of the laserjet.

I'm at a toss up at the moment.

Doug
Click to expand...

The last time I calculated cost per page on my HP Laserjet color printers, it was $.09 per page including the paper.
 
As a follow up, I purchased the Epson 4530 as opposed to the 4540. Only difference is the paper handling capacity. I think the one I got does 250 sheets as opposed to 500 sheets. Anyway I set it up last night. Here is what I was able to accomplish -

1. Print wirelessly in the house from any laptop
2. Scan from the printer to the laptop in jpeg and pdf. It also has OCR (optical character recognition) to scan documents and be able to edit them in say Word for example.
3. The machine supports multi page fax and copy via the tray indexer.
4. I setup the printer with Google Cloud Print on my phone. I can print from anywhere now to my printer via this program. It will print documents, web pages, pictures local from the phone, SMS chats, contacts, etc. All from the phone!
5. I setup the printer with a dedicated email address. Just as you would email someone and attach a pdf document, doing the same thing but using the printer's email address, the printer will open up the document and print it. This can be accomplished all remotely.

And to top it off, the printer is fast and the print quality was very nice on just plain paper.

I am very impressed.

Doug
 
Glad you found a machine. I have the HP 8500 series and am very happy with it. The ink is easy to replace and last for quite some time, and I do use it for work.
 
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