Home printer recommendations

Rodeo Joe

Rodeo Joe

Administrator
Staff member
Lifetime Supporter
Joined
Sep 13, 2023
Messages
1,059
Location
Franklin, MA
Vehicle Details
1997 Thunderbird LX 3.8L/4.2 Wannabe
Country flag
Looking for replace the aging HP printer. Doesn't need to have all the bells and whistles, just print and scan and user friendly! :gapteeth:

Joe
 
Put it this way -

I bought a cheap consumer-grade B&W Brother laser 6 or 7 years ago. It's still on the same toner cartridge! No scan on that model though; I use an old (inkjet with dry tanks) MFP for that. :)

Color lasers are more expensive, but you can get thousands of pages from a set of toner, vs. inkjets which dry out over time if you don't use them and you're constantly replacing ink tanks which cost as much as or more than their equivalent toner. And at that, they have like 5% the coverage!

The last office-grade color laser MFPs I put in at a client site was an HP 4301, but they're about $500.
 
Thanks for the input! Any particular brand?

Joe
 
If you can stomach the price tag, this looks like a good one. You probably won't need to buy new toner for it for years!


If you can find the MF654Cdw, they're a little cheaper - they come sans the duplex scanner.

Lots of my clients are using Canon's big copiers and higher-end desktop MFPs and they're pretty good units overall.
 
Quality wise, it's hard to beat HP or Xerox. Every HP inkjet I've had, died due to either copy protection and the lack of features, The copy protection means the printer wont work at all, with a non-oem cartrige, even the fucking scanner. I'm using a 30 yo scanner that is way fucking better than the one in the all in one I inherited.
I bought an HP M255 last year, or the year before, and It loooks great. The prices on toner has come down considerably. I do have to say tho, if you like to build electrinic shit, or know someone who does, they're a eat source of encoders for turning parts.
 
Xerox printers lately are not high on the list of "favorites" that our clients use. Many are dumping them in favor of alternatives. Quality-wise, Konica Minolta's units tend to be at the top, but their UI is clunky and outdated. Ricoh and Canon are a good mix between quality, useability and features, so it depends on the level of support you get from the MSP. HP's enterprise grade stuff is absolute trash! We've also got a coupe clients with Sharp units, but I don't know much about them because they were absolutely nowhere to be found at my clients until recently.

You're absolutely right about HP's toner security chips though. The client I recommended the HP 4301 to wanted to be able to use generic toner with it, and from what I found there's a special tool that comes with them (the generic toner cartridges) that lets you move the HP security chip off the OEM toner so it will still work. Sheesh!
 

255dw Wireless Laser Printer, Remote Mobile Print, Duplex Printing, Works with Alexa (7KW64A), White​

But it's been updated, which version I know nothing about.

HP Color Laserjet Pro 3201dw Wireless Color Laser Printer, Office Printer, Duplex, Best-for-Office (499Q9F)​





$339.00

I had a canon bubblejet printer at work once, it totally sucked. The best printers are "Dye Sublimation" printers I have a sony photo printer that is incredible, that I inherited.
 
HP sucks. Their subscription-based ink DRM is such a dirty anti-consumer scam that I refuse to buy anything from them again. I don't think there's a mainstream company I dislike more in the PC peripheral space today (although Asus and Samsung have come really close lately), and I liked the HP DeskJet 560C and 895Cxi printers that I had decades ago.

Just on the basis of buying from a company that has the least scummy practices, I'd recommend a Brother LED/laser. I recently helped my parents get a manufacturer refurbished Brother HL-L3290CDW color LED MFP for around $280. Previously, they were using an Epson NX420 for a long time and I was more tired of the constant ink replacement BS than they were due to their ignorance on the subject.

Personally, I have a Xerox Phaser 6500DN color laser network printer that I bought about 11-12 years ago. I got it in excellent used condition for $200 and only finally changed the black toner for the first time maybe 3-4 years ago despite having a low toner warning since 2014.

Prior to this Xerox, I had a Canon Pixma inkjet that I don't even remember the model number of. It wasted such exorbitant amounts of ink that I might have gotten at most a half-dozen uses out of the last set of ink cartridges I bought for it because I don't print that often. To add insult to injury, it gave me some kind of error involving either the print head or the waste sponge that required more than a new set of ink cartridges. I took that entire hunk of e-waste to Best Buy for recycling despite it looking like a brand new unit cosmetically.

While I miss being able to get photo quality prints from an inkjet, printing photos is such a rarity that I'm more than glad to let Walgreens take care of that now.
 
Last edited:
theterminator93 said:
If you can stomach the price tag, this looks like a good one. You probably won't need to buy new toner for it for years!


If you can find the MF654Cdw, they're a little cheaper - they come sans the duplex scanner.

Lots of my clients are using Canon's big copiers and higher-end desktop MFPs and they're pretty good units overall.
Click to expand...
I have the Canon MF743CDW. Looks about the same as the one in the link. Think I paid $350 for it about 4 years ago. Its been great and I agree with everyone about the laser toner lasting much much longer than Inkjet. For what it is worth This Canon laser is great. I used to have a Canon Inkjet which worked great. The last couple Hp printers, and other brands all had problems.
 
All the hp printers I had worked thru multiple computers. After 20 years, there'sno carts but fakes.
 
I have one of these M477’s. Print, scans, copy, color, fast, laser. Absolutely love it.

HP CF378A Color Laserjet Pro MFP M477fdn, Copy/Fax/Print/Scan https://a.co/d/8sWMJx9

Here’s a lower cost option, but it’s not color.

HP LaserJet Pro MFP 4101fdn Printer, Print, scan, copy, fax, Fast speeds, Easy setup, Mobile printing, Advanced security, Best for small teams, Ethernet/USB only https://a.co/d/5bcLLtn
 
Thanks for the suggestions guys, appreciate it! :thumbsup:

Some of these are pretty big (tall), bigger than the space I have to work with. I'll do some digging around.

Joe
 
Rodeo Joe said:
Thanks for the suggestions guys, appreciate it! :thumbsup:

Some of these are pretty big (tall), bigger than the space I have to work with. I'll do some digging around.

Joe
Click to expand...

What's your space limitation? Do you want to put it on your desk or in a cubby within your desk? How much space do you have?

I bought a separate end table to set my printer on next to my desk.
 
It's on a pull out shelf in the desk, 15.5" deep, 20" wide and about 11" in height to work with. There's no room for a separate table, the desk is tucked in between a couch and the wall.

Joe
 
..and don't forget to check out Amazon and other outlet stores for "refurbs". More often than not there wasn't much wrong with the device to begin with.
 
theterminator93 said:
Put it this way -

I bought a cheap consumer-grade B&W Brother laser 6 or 7 years ago. It's still on the same toner cartridge! No scan on that model though; I use an old (inkjet with dry tanks) MFP for that. :)
Click to expand...

Probably the same one I have since I got it around 7-8 years ago as well. For my needs(printing shipping labels, printing templates for my guitar projects) it’s been perfect.


HL-L2305W | PrintersAIOsFaxMachines | By Brother

Print up to 24 pages per minute ;Wireless Printing;250-sheet capacity paper tray
www.brother-usa.com www.brother-usa.com
 
I've got a 30yo 20' usb cable; Printer isn't colocated with the computer. You may need to look for something similar and run it to another room. My new one does wifi, network, and usb., and it's plugged into my desktop, but most of the printing I do comes from the laptop over wifi.
 
Currently I am using an Epson Ecotank. I have printed somewhere between 1k-2k pages through it. It has been working well for my needs. The fact that it can be refilled very inexpensively, and even use aftermarket ink without issues is a nice feature.

If it doesn't print for several weeks it sometimes needs to be ran through a few clean cycles to clean the print heads. It's obviously not as fast as a laser and I miss the smudge free toner instead of ink. But otherwise besides the occasional paper jam it has been working great.


If you don't print a lot I would recommend the Oki color lasers. High volume they are not cost effective, but they have good print quality and speed.

Previously I had the Oki c332 It worked well but they have software on a chip in the toner cartridges that makes them go bad after so many print cycles.
I finally gave up on it when the printer deemed the drum needed replacing even though it was still printing fine. It had close to 10,000 pages printed on it when I got rid of it.
 
I only print B&W at home and its for occasional use. Brother laser printers (or the all-in-one scanners) has been my go-to recommendation for about a decade now since they work without issue and never cared about non-Brother replacement cartridges.

Apparently some news came out a month or so ago that claimed some brother printers were going the way of HP and updating themselves to NOT print with non-Brother cartridges. They denied it of course, but just to be safe, its always a safe practice to block automatic updates.
Examples:
- On your printer, look for settings to disable automatic updates
- Remove any brother supplied SW on your clients that talk to the brother printer (you won't want your laptop to update the printer).
- Perhaps the best recommendation, set your WIFI router to always give the same IP address to your printer (DHCP reservation), and THEN block all traffic from your printer through your router (so the printer, even if it wanted to phone home, can't talk to anyone).

Took me 10-15 min of effort just to be safe and make sure my printer doesnt act up in the future (hardest part was figuring out that the FW on my brother printer was already so old it did NOT have the option to check for automatic updates from the printer side). Just to be safe, I still implemented the firewall rule.

PS. I still think my all in one is great. Scans and prints via WIFI and that's all I need.
 
My Best luck with all printers has been with Canon. I'm currently running a MF743CDW laser printer by Canon. Paid about $350. The first toner that came with it lasted 2 years. HP always gave me trouble. I threw away 3 HP printers before I bought my latest Canon.
 
Canon fucked my parents over by not releasing
supergordo said:
My Best luck with all printers has been with Canon. I'm currently running a MF743CDW laser printer by Canon. Paid about $350. The first toner that came with it lasted 2 years. HP always gave me trouble. I threw away 3 HP printers before I bought my latest Canon.
Click to expand...
My experience with Canon was buying a laser all in one for my parents in 2017. Canon didn't release Windows 10 drivers for that POS, and the old drivers wouldn't install under compatibility mode, so I had to get them a new printer in 2021. For a printer, I don't think thats sufficient life and I had to call in a favor to have a friend do onsite IT for my parents since I'm in a different state. Never again.
 
gunn said:
Canon fucked my parents over by not releasing

My experience with Canon was buying a laser all in one for my parents in 2017. Canon didn't release Windows 10 drivers for that POS, and the old drivers wouldn't install under compatibility mode, so I had to get them a new printer in 2021. For a printer, I don't think thats sufficient life and I had to call in a favor to have a friend do onsite IT for my parents since I'm in a different state. Never again.
Click to expand...
Terrible. Good to know.
 
supergordo said:
Terrible. Good to know.
Click to expand...
What bugged me the most about it was that if I recall correctly, it was a Wi-Fi enabled printer. That should have been standard enough to communicate with one of the out of the box drivers. But of course, Canon didn't care
 
I’ve been using an HP desk jet 2700 series for a few years now, it gets the job done, mostly for printing shipping labels for eBay.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Back
Top