Best Economical Way to Print?

[Marita40]

My printer generally does a good job. HP Envy, with a scanner etc. However, the cost of ink is preposterous. I seem to get very few printed pages from a cartridge, much less than advertised, and it must be because I print so infrequently. My typical printing needs, more or less, are (say) 5-15 pages over the course of a month. Even with this tiny amount of printing, I seem to be changing cartridges nearly every month. I'm wondering what the most cost effective printer, or ink supply, would be for a very infrequent printer like me. Thanks for any thoughts on this.

 

[TheWizard]

I use WiFi-accessible Brother laser printers at both locations.
When toner gets low, I order inexpensive replacement cartridges from Amazon. I check the reviews to see if others are happy with the product before ordering...

 

[pb4uski]

That's a lot different from us. We have similar Brother inkjet wifi printers at each of our two homes. A set of cartridges last us about 1/2 year or more. I buy third party cartridges on Amazon. A set of 6 color ink cartridges (2 each of cyan, yellow and magenta) is $13 and 5 black cartridges cost $14.

 

[MichaelB]

We had an inkjet with infrequent use and the ink cartridges always dried up and became useless, even clogging the print system, so it was replaced with an inexpensive monochrome laser printer. The price for laser printers has come down substantially over the past few years and a decent one can be had for close to $100. Right now they are in short supply, but that should clear up in the next few months.

 

[Ncc1701]

HP Toner cartridges are over $75 each on my color Laser Jet. I'm not paying that anymore and will be switching to an Epson ECO TANK printer. No cartridges and the ink lasts a very long time. Costo has it on sale for $379, picking it up tomorrow.

 

[braumeister]

I gave up on inkjets years ago. Laser printers are cheap and reliable, with relatively low refill costs. I highly recommend you switch to one. Brother printers have been great for me.

 

[Souschef]

I gave up on inkjets years ago. Laser printers are cheap and reliable, with relatively low refill costs. I highly recommend you switch to one. Brother printers have been great for me.

+1 for Brother printers. I have 2 of them. I got rid of my Epson inkjet because of clogs from infrequent use.

 

[jim584672]

Inkjets will always burn you, hard avoid.

 

[Aerides]

I print a lot more than most as I have a small business. I print shipping labels and other docs on a pretty regular basis, probably 100 pages per month. I've used cheap inkjet printers - mostly Canon - for years. A printer will usually last me at least 5 years before something glitches, and then I get a new one as they usually cost well south of $100.

My current printer cost me around $90 in 2017. I buy the ink cartridges from amazon less than $20 for an entire set, and those last me usually 6-10 months, and I've never had any issues with cartridge compatibility.

 

[OldShooter]

Buy a good used B&W Laser, use aftermarket refilled cartridges. I tend towards buying used HP printers because HP's market share pretty much guarantees many competitive sources of refilled cartridges.

 

[dixonge]

I was stuck on Inkjet printers for the longest time. I guess I kept imagining I would actually use them to print frameable nature photos that I have taken. Oddly enough, I rarely did that. I priced the refillable tank style of printer on a regular basis, but the payback time on them was insane, given how little we print. But the inkjet cartridge prices drove me crazy every time I had to replace them.

Back in May/June some friends moved back to the states and I got a *sweet* deal on their Samsung M2070 laser printer, 3-4 extra toner cartridges included. I may never run out! I've printed a lot more than I though i would have, and the wife has taken up ukulele and prints out sheet music fairly regularly.

In between uses it just sits there in sleep mode, using almost no electricity. I'm oddly pleased with this purchase.

 

[yhoomajor]

Solution you are looking for is to move to Laser printer. They don't have dried-ink problem. Because their stuff is already in powdered form.

 

[Qs Laptop]

I use WiFi-accessible Brother laser printers at both locations.
When toner gets low, I order inexpensive replacement cartridges from Amazon. I check the reviews to see if others are happy with the product before ordering...

^^ This right here ^^

Of course if you NEED color printing this won't work for you. Then I suggest an inexpensive Brother all-in-one scanner/color printer and aftermarket ink cartridges.

 

[easysurfer]

If you don't need color, I'd think a monochrome laser is probably the most economical.

If you need color, then things aren't so clear.

 

[CaptTom]

I like the option to print in color, but I don't print enough to justify a color laser printer. After years of frustration with cartridges, I broke down and bought one of those "ink tank" printers about a year and a half ago.

I also use it for scanning, trying to work through all the boxes of old records I've kept over the years. I just checked, and it says I've scanned over 10,000 pages since I got the printer. Fortunately I'm pretty much done with that project.

So far I'm very satisfied. Again, I don't print a high volume, but the ink tanks are each still around 3/4 full and I have more ink I can add, left over from the initial fill.

 

[OldShooter]

Maybe one in fifty pages I print needs to be in color. So my B&W laser is the workhorse. It will print double-sided, too, an increasingly common option it seems.

For color I have an Oki workgroup color laser printer. Because it gets used so seldom, the cost and availablity of toner is not an issue. Each of the CMYK toners has its own drum, so toner it scrapes off the drums can be re-used. Formerly I had a printer that had only one drum, so toner scraped off was an unusable mixture and it went through toner far too fast. This is not a photo-quality printer. At one point I also had one of the Canon loss-leader inkjets. Ink was a nightmare and head clogging was common. I got rid of it and now use a service for photo prints.

 

[Happyras]

We had several Brother laser printers for our small business, most failed over time, I just threw the last one out. I used HP at home for way too long. I absolutely recommend the Epson Tank systems. I have had an ET-3760 now for 2 years and it is awesome cheap bottles of ink. I just recommended to friend to but the new model now at Costco, it was on sale and cheap. If you need color, fax, copy, scan its the way to go. If you want just BW printing, we have a small HP laser for that. It works, and the cheap chinese laser cartridges work well for it. It has design issues and breaks easily. We bought it 6 years ago for our camper due to small size and need to print while traveling. So it stood the test of road trips.

 

[donheff]

My cheap B&W Brother laser has served me for years. I have an HP color inkjet printer but I rarely use it. For the few color prints I make it is easier to just farm the processing out online.

 

[easysurfer]

I've gone color and what I use now is an Epson Inktank model ET-4760 (multi-functional). The occasional (several times a year) clogging that requires the printer to run clean cycles and wastes ink, is a bit of nuisance. But for now, the printer is still good enough. If I found an inkjet that doesn't clog (don't know if that's possible, I'd definitely reconsider).

I don't presently use any other printers. Donated away a few monochrome laser printers in the past. Just not enough space to keep around. But I do look back fondly on some of them.

 

[scrabbler1]

My ladyfriend had a Lexmark all-in-1 color inkjet printer for many years. But she printed infrequently, so the cartridges dried up all the time, sometimes after printing maybe 10 sheets. The cartridges, even cheaply refilled by Cartridge World, were expensive after a while (and annoying for me to go out and buy them), considering how little she printed.

So, a few years ago, I bought her an HP all-in-1 B&W printer, as she really didn't have any need to print in color. She still prints rarely, but toner cartridges don't dry up so she is still on the original one she got with the printer more than 3 years ago.

My own experience in moving from inkjet to laser is similar. I replaced my inkjet printer with a laser back in 2010. I print more often, but the laser printer printed more quickly and with higher quality than the inkjet. My printer is only a printer, not an all-in-1. But I took my LF's Lexmark so I can fax and scan with it, both very rare events.

Cartridge World sells refurbished toner cartridges, too, although the last time I tried to buy one from them they were unexpectedly closed, forcing me to go elsewhere for a costlier new one. Still, a toner cartridge for me, with my heavier print load, lasts me at least 3 years.

 

[Al18]

I joined the HP Instant Ink program when I bought my HP Envy 7155 nearly 5 years ago. I was on the 50 page per month plan, which costs $3.99 per month for most of that time. They send you the color and black cartridges in advance and they send you more ink before you run out. You agree to connect the printer to your network/internet and everything is done automatically, including charging your credit card monthly. Doesn’t matter if you print 50 pages with text or 50 photos - same price. Unprinted pages rollover up to a max of 3 months. I’ve never bought an ink cartridge for the past 5 years. For more info check out https://instantink.hpconnected.com/us/en/l/

 

[FlaMariner]

We outsource printing.

We have very few print jobs anymore and I became very frustrated with the cost and aggravation of keeping a printer going.

When we do need something printed, I email the local UPS store and pick it up there.

The business case for us is much more positive. Also, this method also minimizes printing because we have to seriously consider if we really need it printed....and most of the time, we do not.

YMMV

 

[Qs Laptop]

I use my Brother MFC-L2700DW quite a bit in my business. I think I got it 5 or 6 years ago (not sure). I just took a look at the page counter and it's at 66,735 pages. In the time I've owned it I've replaced the drum four(?) times and I'm currently buying a toner cartridge about every 90-120 days. I have not had a thing go wrong with it besides drum and toner cartridge replacements.

I do a lot of UCC-128 bar code label printing (4" x 6" labels) which requires me to buy authentic Brother toner cartridges. If I weren't printing bar codes I could use generic toner cartridges and they would last longer than 120 days.

 

[Ian S]

My Canon MF 4150 laser all-in-one is about 15 years old and still works well. Toner is still available. I realized after a couple of injet printers that I really didn't need color for my personal printing. Maybe inkjets have improved but a family member with a fairly recent one still has to frequently replace expensive cartridges.

 

[ownyourfuture]

My printer generally does a good job. HP Envy, with a scanner etc. However, the cost of ink is preposterous. I seem to get very few printed pages from a cartridge, much less than advertised, and it must be because I print so infrequently. My typical printing needs, more or less, are (say) 5-15 pages over the course of a month. Even with this tiny amount of printing, I seem to be changing cartridges nearly every month. I'm wondering what the most cost effective printer, or ink supply, would be for a very infrequent printer like me. Thanks for any thoughts on this.

I also own an HP envy (4520)
If you're literally printing only 5 to 15 pages per month & need to change the cartridges 'nearly every month' it seems something else must be wrong with the printer.
I can't help you with that, but I can say I used to buy my cartridges directly from HP Ink. Last needed cartridges about 9 months ago, and was outraged by the prices.

I purchased them on eBay instead & they worked fine. Saved approximately 60%