I read that Epson printers default to colour for B&W printing and it is causing a lot of bad press. Not sure if swelecting B&W with every copy overcomes that.
I also notice some bulk replacement cartridges bought on line can be more expensive. My epson cartidges are far more than my previous CAnon equiovalent.
I wont be bying a lower end Epson again - probably a refillable ink tank model even if more expensive, but longer lasting and cheaper in the long run given ink cartridge replacement costs compared to just ink refill.
I dont print very much so the HP printsmart free 15 pages per month. This means they monitor the printer and send me free replacement ink when I run low or the cartridge goes wrong.
Not making a suggestion for James just throwing this in for others who may need a solution if the only print occasionally.
Had an Epson and always used compatibles no problem. Then after Brexit could no longer get the compatibles had been using since before moving over. New compatibles did something to the printer whereupon it only wanted to print text in blue.
Then got an HP, worst printer ever, devoured ink and then ink holder broke after less than six months.
New canon printer also gets through the ink very quickly. 19 colour A4 prints =€23. So tried compatibles, which then printed everything purple on the photo setting (which I need for work).
So back to the expensive Canon’s own cartridges for now.
Can I just warn people: if you are considering a cartridge-type inkjet and wary of the cost, be even more wary of the cheap “compatible” cartridges. Some of them aren’t really – and can “gum up the works” of the printer. A game of hit and miss.
The “eco-tank” models are a lot more expensive to buy – so you need to do the maths: how many sets of cartridges would the extra pay for? And – although not relevant to the current discussion – tank printers are generally geared to volume office document printing. If you’re a photographer wanting pix to hang on the wall, cartridges still dominate – even if they do cost the best part of €100 a set.
What is that based on Ken, real world experience or just repeating what you heard?
By example, I had 2 Cannon printers, 1 used genuine ink, the other after market German ink. After a print head failure the print heads were removed and taken to Cannons HQ for inspection. The failed head was from the genuine ink machine!
The back pedal from the Cannon engineer was “you must of used the ink cartridges below the minimum level and its over heated the print head”
At that time the most expensive fluid on earth was printer ink.
Epson printers used to be very susceptible to non-genuine ink, although they would also clog badly if unused for long periods. On the photo forum I was involved in there were always people asking how to unclog print heads.
With HP reliability seems hit or miss, and independent of operating system or device. Our MFD often refuses to print in colour from either Mac or PC. Sometimes the same doc will print in colour from a phone, but only sometimes. The issue is software and drivers, rather than hardware, but there have been times when reinstalls etc fix nothing. The only thing that stops me binning it is that it’s cheap to run and a new divice is not guaranteed to be better.
Learned the hard way not to trust third-party inks.
In my last job we had an Epson A3 photo printer for which the full set of cartridges were well over £100.
After the accounts dept had a shakeup they had to be ordered by our purchasing officer.
His main area of activity concerned operations, catering supplies and drinks – almost £2m a year. But he was a keen computer user, and insisted on ordering cheaper compatibles from a supplier who had previously supplied cartridges to a branch office.
They arrived the day we needed a dozen A3 posters for an evening event hosted by the chairman and chief exec.
After installing, the first couple of prints were poor, so I ran the head cleaning routine, and they were no better. We rushed down the road to a friendly local print shop who charged us a fiver each, arriving back at base with minutes to spare.
Next day we launched a systematic troubleshooting attack - remove and refit cartridges, run head cleaning and alignment, print test pages on film and glossy. All to no avail – and meanwhile the chairman was wondering what the *** was going on as he needed more colour printing for another event.
We explained events to the chairman who had words with the purchasing officer – and sent me off to the shop in central London we knew stocked the branded cartridges. We fitted those, ran the setup and tests again – and hey presto: perfect prints.
It might depend upon which type of HP printer (inkjet / laserjet) that you use.
Without exception, every large company that I worked for used HP Laserjets, which Is why I bought one nearly 4 years ago.
Its been absolutely perfect and reliable.
Yes Laserjet technology is by nature more reliable. When HP introduced the first Laserjet we were all in awe. So many pages such high quality so fast so cheap. Inhouse we had it in our computer room, and used to visit it several times per day to admire it.
Now you get the same thing in a small cube on a desktop.
I changed from a HP to a Brother MFCJ5910DW a couple of years ago. It works perfectly for all our units . I airdrop from an iPad and my wife from a Samsung. We also have it hardwired to our Lenovo PC.
I recently bought a Brother MFC-J5335DW. Looking at the manual, it says it supports airprint directly. There is no mention in the manual of installing any Brother drivers or apps. In fact, it says the support is driverless. Look here for the manual
The printer itself prints up to A3 (this is why I bought this model) and scans up to A4. It was a very reasonable price and although the genuine ink looks expensive, the XL cartridges claim to do 3,000 black + 1500 colour pages, although since I’m still on the starter cartridge I can’t tell how accurate this would be. You can also get non genuine cartridges as well. So far I’ve had no issues at all with the printer, although I’ve only had it 4 months.
My previous printer was a Ricoh gel printer. Unless you print every day, avoid like the plague. The quality is excellent, but if you leave it for a few weeks turned off without printing it can gum up the print head. I went away for 3 weeks and unplugged most things, including the printer, and that’s what happened to mine and it was unrepairable. Used genuine gel cartridges as well.
I didn’t know that I had it so good with my outrageously cheap Canon Pixma (35€) which did automatic double side printing etc. I broke one of the cogs in a rush to finish some interminable work. In a hurry I bought an HP Deskjet 2700. Which cupboard did Darty pull that out of to resell? It was 80odd € expensive inks, doesn’t do automatic double siding and regularly glitches. Never again will I buy HP but it’s a shame that Canon no longer do the Pixma’s that were on offer 5 years
I had a Canon pixma once, worst printer I ever had. It went back for repair for far longer than I ever used it until Confo very reluctantly refunded me.
Sometimes it’s luck of the drawer, bit like lots of other stuff🤔
But did you all notice how prices for home printers now start from 2 or 3 times their price before lockdown? For no improvement in the quality of the printer.
Before Covid I was easily able to source my low-end printers for 29 euros. 49-59 if I was in a hurry. Or if I wanted a red or pink one. This fitted with the manufacturers’ strategy of rinsing us for ink cartridges that lasted 2 minutes and giving away the printer to do that.
Now on the first day of the sales Leclerc’s only offering starts at 80 euros. For a printer that’s worse than the one it was easy for me to find for 29 euros up to 2 years ago.
