Help me pick a printer

What with our workhorse Canon printer dying, my wife and I are in the market for a new printer. We need a wireless color printer. Preferably inkjet, but if it isn't too expensive, a laser will do. It also needs a scanner and the ability to print pictures on photo paper as well.

Do you have any Apple devices that would benefit from AirPrint, or any other specifics like that from other gadgets?

I picked up an HP Photosmart 7510 in January. It works great, ink consumption seems moderate (compared to what I had before), it prints nice photos and the scanner does what it is supposed to do. I think I picked it up for ~$100, so pretty cheap. It has more features than I am interested in (lot of web stuff) but works fine for what I need it to do.

The only idevices we have are iPhones. While printing directly from the iPhonewould be nice, it isn't something that is a make or break for it.

Thanks for the HP recommendation. I will take a look. Is it truly wireless, or do you need to plug it into a router??

mudbunny wrote:

The only idevices we have are iPhones. While printing directly from the iPhonewould be nice, it isn't something that is a make or break for it.

Thanks for the HP recommendation. I will take a look. Is it truly wireless, or do you need to plug it into a router??

It's truly wireless. Additionally, it can connect via USB.

That HP also has AirPrint for your iPhones. It's the updated version of my mother's printer, a very nice AIO machine.

It doesn't have an ethernet port, but does have proper built in wireless, as tboon says. I might look into getting one myself, since my current printer is getting to be more trouble than it is worth.

At Best Buy right now, the Epson Workhorse 845 is on sale for $129, down from $199. All reviews look good, so I might pull the trigger on it this week.

I have an HP multifunction printer. We bought it for my wife's work. That sucker drinks ink, even colored ink when we print B/W and the fax machine can only connect to some machines. I have had several HP printers in the past, but this one has soured me on the company.

I have an Epson Artisan 725 that I've had a very good experience with. The killer feature that made me choose it was the integrated tray for printing onto CD/DVD's. This is something I need for work and that simplified several steps out of one of my least favorite processes.

I know I may be in the minority, but I absolutely love the Brother MFC devices. Their driver stack is small and unobtrusive, and their network integration is simply marvelous. As an added bonus, there's an app for printing/scanning/faxing from iOS and android devices. I have had too many negative impressions with HP to ever recommend their products again. Too many driver problems, firmware issues and network hiccups to call them reliable. They may have changed lately, but once burnt, twice shy.

The people over at Ars Technica seem to like Brother printers pretty well.

Dropped my $$$$ on the Epson. Installation was painless, but long.

I'd like to revive this thread for my own (nefarious?) purposes.

I've got a budget of about $150. Laser vs. inkjet and all-in-one vs. printer-only are open, but automatic duplexing is a must-have. Similarly, wireless networking and AirPrint support would be nice, but I've gotten this far without ever printing from an iOS device and there are two different devices on my network with printer-sharing capability.

What should I look at?

All-in-On's are the devils seed. A decent scanner should last you a decade (I bought my Epson flatbed in 2004 and it is still going strong) but you are lucky to get a year or two from an All-in-One.

The second biggest piece of advice I can give is to stay away from HP. Their drivers aren't worth a sh*t and the printers are just as bad (I say this as someone who work tech support at a college and has to trouble shoot them all the time). We have a couple of HP All-in-One's here that require manually uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers every 3 to 4 weeks like clockwork.

For low-end desktop inkjet or flatbed scanners I like Epson or Canon about equally. At the high-end ($500+) I like Canon. For desktop laser I like Brother.

I've been looking at this recently, one thing I found that surprised me is that Canon ink cost a load more than HP, which I thought was the poster child for the 'razor blade' approach to printer/ink pricing.

I think HP has switched to a make them replace the printer every year model. Also be sure you are checking the amount of ink in the cartridges. HP used to charge more for less and use the all colors together carts more than the others. Currently I don't know what the story on ink is because I don't pay for it

Rykin wrote:

For low-end desktop inkjet or flatbed scanners I like Epson or Canon about equally. At the high-end ($500+) I like Canon. For desktop laser I like Brother.

Come to think of it, my last experience with HP involved a printer that had worked just fine for years but had to be retired because they never released drivers for OS'es more recent than XP.

Do you have any experience with the Brother HL-2270DW? Looking around a bit, it seems very popular.

The 2240D also caught my eye because it costs about half as much right now, but it also only has a quarter of the RAM. (And no wireless, but as noted, that's not a dealbreaker.) I have no real idea whether 8 MB would be enough for my purposes. Mostly I just deal with text, but every now and then, I want to print an image-heavy PDF.

Gaald wrote:

My parents just got a Canon MX530. It's got duplex, Scans, Fax, Copy, Print. It can do wireless or wired and has Airprint.

Weird -- I checked at Amazon and Newegg, those being my usual tech-shopping sites, and neither one sells that model. Maybe they got such a good price because it was on closeout?

Brother 2170W or whatever the newest model is. Best black and white cheap printer you can buy, and it is laser and toner is cheap, and it is wireless.

LeapingGnome wrote:

Brother 2170W or whatever the newest model is. Best black and white cheap printer you can buy, and it is laser and toner is cheap, and it is wireless.

I own this model as well, but I believe it has been upgraded. I've had a great experience with it and other brother laser printers.

This looks like a newer version of the 2170W

We have a Brother HL-2140. We have had it basically since they first came out with this model (2007 or 2008 I think) and haven't had a single issue with it. Can't really comment on any of their other printers personally but have heard lots of good things second hand about their inexpensive laser printers.

My parents just got a Canon MX892. It's got duplex, Scans, Fax, Copy, Print. It can do wireless or wired and has Airprint.

Setup was a breeze, connecting to the network was dead easy, and Airprint just worked. It was fantastic.

The ink costs are a apparently a bit higher than some other printres, but just like my parents older printer the ink comes in separate tanks so you can replace each of them individually.

It was also on sale for like $79 bucks, and seemed to be reviewed very favorably.

misplacedbravado wrote:
Rykin wrote:

For low-end desktop inkjet or flatbed scanners I like Epson or Canon about equally. At the high-end ($500+) I like Canon. For desktop laser I like Brother.

Come to think of it, my last experience with HP involved a printer that had worked just fine for years but had to be retired because they never released drivers for OS'es more recent than XP.

Do you have any experience with the Brother HL-2270DW? Looking around a bit, it seems very popular.

The 2240D also caught my eye because it costs about half as much right now, but it also only has a quarter of the RAM. (And no wireless, but as noted, that's not a dealbreaker.) I have no real idea whether 8 MB would be enough for my purposes. Mostly I just deal with text, but every now and then, I want to print an image-heavy PDF.

Gaald wrote:

My parents just got a Canon MX530. It's got duplex, Scans, Fax, Copy, Print. It can do wireless or wired and has Airprint.

Weird -- I checked at Amazon and Newegg, those being my usual tech-shopping sites, and neither one sells that model. Maybe they got such a good price because it was on closeout?

That's because I am an idiot. It's the MX892 that my parents got. I fixed it in my original post as well.

The Canon Pixma 870 isn't bad, although I'm not sure it will do glossy photo prints. The quality is good, and the cost per print isn't as high as it is with many inkjets, although it's still high.

I also just found out that Costco does ink refills, and I think Walgreens does as well, so that might cut the cost down a fair bit.

Both the printer and scanner do duplex, which I was pleasantly surprised by.

edit: fixed a word I left out.

Gaald wrote:

That's because I am an idiot. It's the MX892 that my parents got. I fixed it in my original post as well.

Ah, okay. They've made an MX530, too, it just isn't a current model...

Thanks for all the recommendations, everybody! I still haven't made up my mind between laser and inkjet, but I think I've narrowed it down to one contender of each kind.

Before you make any purchases, be sure to go to http://CISinks.com and verify that a continuous ink feed system is available for the model of your choice.

That said, I love my old warhorse Canon PIXMA MG5220.

FWIW, the printer that we ended up with (an Epson WorkForce 845) works really well. Does duplex ad is pretty good in the ink.