New printer recommendations

[beeza1]

Printer has packed up and I need to replace it fairly quickly, I would normally go for another HP but, whilst I can get a printer no problem, HP ink cartridges are like hens teeth at the moment.
I can order one from Argos and have it delivered to my local Sainsbury's for next day collection.
As I rarely use it (cartridges usually last me 18 months to 2 years), I don't want to spend too much, probably in the £50 to £60 range.
Can anyone give me any recommendations.
Thanks.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Samsung CLX 4190 might be a good shout - combined printer, scanner, copier and fax. Four functions in one, no tangle of cables, toner readily available.

 

[trainmania100]

Laser printers would probably last longer, the toner at my office lasts ages but I don't think they're cheap

I have a cheap HP Deskjet and it gets the job done.
I have this printer.

Buy HP DeskJet 2632 Wireless Printer & 4 Months Instant Ink | Printers | Argos

Buy HP DeskJet 2632 Wireless Printer & 4 Months Instant Ink at Argos. Thousands of products for same day delivery £3.95, or fast store collection.

www.argos.co.uk

 

[beeza1]

Thanks for the replies, as I stated previously I rarely use a printer and have managed for ages with a fairly cheap HP.
I would get another one but, at the moment cartridges are just about unobtainable.
It's not worth me going down the instant link route due to my limited use.
With regards to Samsung, they no longer make printers for home use.

 

[DelW]

I retired late last year and needed a printer / copier / scanner for home use, since I could no longer use the full size printers at work. Looking at reviews, the Canon Pixma series mostly did well, and in the end I chose a Pixma TR4551, which was available from Argos, prints double sided (without having to re-feed the sheet), and can stream-feed sheets into the scanner. At the time it was listed at £50, though it was on offer at £40 when I got it. I bought a double pack of cartridges (black + colour) from Sainsbury's as well, so that I have them ready when needed (having no idea how long the originals would last). I also opted to buy a USB cable to connect it, rather than setting up wireless links.
So far, I'm very pleased, I've used it for printing, scanning and copying and it's straightforward to use. The instructions that were included weren't great, but there's lots of guidance online if needed.

 

[High Dyke]

I use Cartridge Save* for printer ink supplies. Usually I buy the cheaper alternative, as opposed to named brand products. I don't seem to notice any difference in quality or performance. My desktop computer is linked to an HP mono printer, with a Xerox colour printer also available. (* other ink cartridge suppliers are available.)

 

[Peter Mugridge]

With regards to Samsung, they no longer make printers for home use.

To be fair, this model is rated as a light office use machine, not a home machine.

 

[Crossover]

Re Samsung, they were bought by HP a while back. We have some Samsung multifunctions at work and the drivers etc. are obtained via the HP site now

 

[gswindale]

A couple of years ago, I got fed up with having had another HP Deskjet printer that had serious issues with paper misreading (about the 3rd one with that issue since approx 1999!).
We replaced it with what has so far turned out to be a much more reliable HP Officejet model that in the end only cost about £40 due to a ridiculous cashback offer from HP at the time.
My reasoning for sticking with the brand was that in my experience, equipment designed for office use tends to be more reliable than home ones.

 

[thejuggler]

Before lockdown I needed a new printer and went for an HP Laserjet rather than the inkjet as the inks just weren't lasting.

Thanks to HP cashback it was £100 for a full colour model.

 

[Tom B]

I have a low-end HP mono laser printer which I picked up for, I think, £70-80 at Costco a few months back. I seldom print, and when I do it is usually an official form, letter, set of instructions for something, or to copy things before posting them etc etc. It does the job happily enough although, like any printer, it can be reticent.

In the very occasional circumstances where I need to print a photo I'd go to a high street place or order online, and if I needed a standard colour page printed I'd cheekily do it at work (where it is ok, so long as not excessive).

 

[dgl]

Cashback and an eBay discount code got me a Brother MFC-L8690CDW colour laser for ~£150, comes supplied with a decent amount of toner (3k black and 2.2k colour iirc) and compatible ones are relatively cheap (although the cyan on my compatible set is a bit too dark).
Whilst it's not supposed to it will take the UHC cartridges with are 9,000 pages (at 5% coverage) each, plus it even has a secret "toner reset" menu if you want to fully deplete the cartridges.
Also unlike other printers the cartridges are not chipped, I believe it may use a mechanical device on the cartridge to know when it is empty, so it can never have the problem of firmware updates stopping compatible cartridges from working (or it even knowing that they aren't genuine), or as my OKI did get confused and think new cartridges were empty.

Has colour printing with automatic duplexing, USB for printing of memory sticks, copying, scan (to PC/Server/email/one drive Etc.) and FAX, plus can access brother online services for things like printable templates.
One other handy feature is that by using the ADF it can scan bot sides of a sheet of paper at the same time, having an extra scanner element in the ADF instead of flipping it mechanically as in some other al-in-ones.

Needed it initially to print off copies of my grans memoirs which is approx. 110 a5 pages, two to each side of an A4 sheet, a really good test for a new printer, didn't break a sweat and got a decent amount of copies on the supplied toner.
Being able to upgrade the memory from it's stock 512Mb would be nice but you can't, to get more memory you have to go for the higher level models, though still better than the OKI which only had 256Mb onboard with upgrades via special DDR2 memory modules that are very expensive, my XEROC 6140DN was similarly expensive on the RAM front if you went genuine, and you needed it for some features, what XEROX didn't tell you was that it used bog standard DDR2 SODIMM modules of which a 512Mb one that I had laying around worked fine.

 

[D365]

Cashback and an eBay discount code got me a Brother MFC-L8690CDW colour laser for ~£150, comes supplied with a decent amount of toner (3k black and 2.2k colour iirc) and compatible ones are relatively cheap (although the cyan on my compatible set is a bit too dark).
Whilst it's not supposed to it will take the UHC cartridges with are 9,000 pages (at 5% coverage) each, plus it even has a secret "toner reset" menu if you want to fully deplete the cartridges.
Also unlike other printers the cartridges are not chipped, I believe it may use a mechanical device on the cartridge to know when it is empty, so it can never have the problem of firmware updates stopping compatible cartridges from working (or it even knowing that they aren't genuine), or as my OKI did get confused and think new cartridges were empty.

Has colour printing with automatic duplexing, USB for printing of memory sticks, copying, scan (to PC/Server/email/one drive Etc.) and FAX, plus can access brother online services for things like printable templates.
One other handy feature is that by using the ADF it can scan bot sides of a sheet of paper at the same time, having an extra scanner element in the ADF instead of flipping it mechanically as in some other al-in-ones.

Are double sided ADFs common on printer/scanners around this price? I picked up a Canon TR4550 for just over £40 last year as it was the cheapest printer with an ADF document scanner, but it only does one side at a time.

 

[najaB]

Laser printers would probably last longer, the toner at my office lasts ages but I don't think they're cheap

You can pick up mono laser printers from around £75. Colour start around £200. I don't know if that falls into the "cheap" category.

 

[gg1]

You can pick up mono laser printers from around £75. Colour start around £200. I don't know if that falls into the "cheap" category.

If you're a light user and only need mono they'll still work out cheaper in the long run as the ink in inkjet cartridges will dry out if they're not used for a while, toner cartridges don't have that problem. I have a Canon mono laser printer I paid £40 for around 10 years ago (amazed prices have shot up so much since then) which is still on it's original toner cartridge.

 

[dgl]

Are double sided ADFs common on printer/scanners around this price? I picked up a Canon TR4550 for just over £40 last year as it was the cheapest printer with an ADF document scanner, but it only does one side at a time.

at the £250 ish it originally cost then a double sided ADF is something I would look for, the Brother and Xerox I was looking at both had double sided ADF's, plus the OKI it replaced that was around the same price also had a duplexer built into the ADF.
It's worth noting that there are two ways to copy/scan both sides. One scans one side and then flips the page to scan the other side, the other method is to have an extra fixed scanning head in the ADF allowing it to scan both sides in one pass.

Of course before you buy any printer look at the cost per page, some have much smaller cartridges than others yet the cartridges have little to no difference in price.

Also if it needs to be wireless then don't be put off by wired Ethernet only models, esp. if there is a decent price difference, wireless Ethernet bridges can be had for under £15 and will convert any wired Ethernet printer to a wireless one. I have used a tiny USB powered Vonets unit that worked fine.

 

[najaB]

I have a Canon mono laser printer I paid £40 for around 10 years ago (amazed prices have shot up so much since then)...

To be fair, I only looked on one site so you might be able to pick one up for less - especially when they're on offer.

 

[gg1]

To be fair, I only looked on one site so you might be able to pick one up for less - especially when they're on offer.

The starting price you quoted for mono printers is about right, I checked a couple of sites.

It occurred to me an hour or so after I posted that one possible explanation could be a change in the marketing strategy used by printer manufacturers following societal changes. Traditionally they sold the printers themselves at cost price or at a small loss with all their profit being generated from future ink/toner cartridge sales, but with society gradually moving to a paperless state there's simply less need to print stuff now which means reduced consumables sales. As toner cartridges pretty much last forever until used, low usage laser printer owners like me would generate no profit for the printer manufacturers under the old business model.

 

[dgl]

Cashback and an eBay discount code got me a Brother MFC-L8690CDW colour laser for ~£150, comes supplied with a decent amount of toner (3k black and 2.2k colour iirc) and compatible ones are relatively cheap (although the cyan on my compatible set is a bit too dark).
Whilst it's not supposed to it will take the UHC cartridges with are 9,000 pages (at 5% coverage) each, plus it even has a secret "toner reset" menu if you want to fully deplete the cartridges.
Also unlike other printers the cartridges are not chipped, I believe it may use a mechanical device on the cartridge to know when it is empty, so it can never have the problem of firmware updates stopping compatible cartridges from working (or it even knowing that they aren't genuine), or as my OKI did get confused and think new cartridges were empty.

Has colour printing with automatic duplexing, USB for printing of memory sticks, copying, scan (to PC/Server/email/one drive Etc.) and FAX, plus can access brother online services for things like printable templates.
One other handy feature is that by using the ADF it can scan bot sides of a sheet of paper at the same time, having an extra scanner element in the ADF instead of flipping it mechanically as in some other al-in-ones.

Needed it initially to print off copies of my grans memoirs which is approx. 110 a5 pages, two to each side of an A4 sheet, a really good test for a new printer, didn't break a sweat and got a decent amount of copies on the supplied toner.
Being able to upgrade the memory from it's stock 512Mb would be nice but you can't, to get more memory you have to go for the higher level models, though still better than the OKI which only had 256Mb onboard with upgrades via special DDR2 memory modules that are very expensive, my XEROC 6140DN was similarly expensive on the RAM front if you went genuine, and you needed it for some features, what XEROX didn't tell you was that it used bog standard DDR2 SODIMM modules of which a 512Mb one that I had laying around worked fine.

Just a slight update to this as of today it has done 4145 pages, that's made up of 1955 colour and 2190 b/w pages and it's on it's second set of toner (replacing the supplied toner which is 3k black 1.8k col) with 100% black (9k cartridge) and 70% colour (4k cartridges).
Also the price has shot up with an RRP of £478.8!, near double what I paid excl. cashback.

 

[EssexGonzo]

I know you didn't want HP, but the only printer I have ever got to work faultlessly and wirelessly is the HP Envy 4527. It just works.

I use cheaper pattern cartridges with no issues.