Best Economical Way to Print?

[Sunset]

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.

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Laser is great for people who don't print much, I used to suffer from dried up ink cartridges but never since switching to laser

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

First, I have not read the reponses, so my apologies...

The best thing I ever did was buy and old, but refurbished, laser jet printer. That one lasted me several years but finally died. In Jan of 2020, I bought a Brother HL-2300D laser printer for $65.16 (taxes and all). I also bought an E-Z Ink compatible toner (a 2 pack) in Aug of 2020 (when the low capacity sample one that came with the printer ran out) for $20.08. I am still on the first of two toners a couple of years later.

This toner (cost about $10.04) so far has printed 3909 pages and it appears that I have about 60% left in the toner.

So, not counting electricity or paper, it is costing me about 0.00102 cents per page for toner.

 

[friar1610]

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.

Mirrors my experience precisely. I think HP is using the old Gillette razor business model - sell the razors really cheap (or give them away) and make the money on the blades.

 

[wdberry62]

I paid $150 for a Pantum wireless laser printer off Amazon. Works flawlessly (monochrome black), faster than any inkjet and prints 1500 pages before you have to replace the toner cartridge at $55. By far the best option I've ever had for home printing.

 

[Dreamer]

I used to be frustrated by my inkjet printers being dry, whenever I needed to print something. I read a thread about this problem on this site and several people recommended the Brother B & W laser printer. I ordered one and have not had any problems since that time. I love this site for all of their wisdom.

 

[Al18]

I’ve only used HP inkjets and haven’t seen one clog in more than a decade. The trick is to never turn the printer off - they go to sleep automatically and the wireless models only use about 4 watts when on standby and 12 watts while printing. Brother laser printers typically use 500 watts while printing.

 

[target2019]

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.

Laser printer is the way to go. I have one color and one B/W, and always went in that direction. The up-front cost is larger, but it always works.

My trusty Canon MFC prints forever on an empty toner cartridge ($79.99). A small miracle!

 

[Jerry1]

I use a color laser all in one. It isn’t cheap but we like it and there’s no problem with time between prints. Before we went color, we had a black only laser printer. That was good and cheap printing. I’ll never have an inkjet again. The color laser doesn’t do good pictures. They’re okay but not even close to photo quality. If I wanted photo prints, I’d print at the drugstore.

 

[CardsFan]

I’ve only used HP inkjets and haven’t seen one clog in more than a decade. The trick is to never turn the printer off - they go to sleep automatically and the wireless models only use about 4 watts when on standby and 12 watts while printing. Brother laser printers typically use 500 watts while printing.

That has been my experience, as well. Heck my current printer is over 10 years old. It needs to be replaced because I am getting "fuzzy" prints, but ONLY when printing, scanned docs are fine. I am guessing comms problems with old software, but what ever.

I will likely get a new HP ink-jet printer. We print sporadically, but do print photos sometimes.

 

[zaqxsw]

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 I've owned Brother laser printers for close to 15 years. I think that covers two printers. They last forever and are cheap to maintain.

I would never go back to ink jets. I can remember in the early 90's, the mess refilling the cartridges myself because that's how "economical" I was. Bought ink pen ink at a local pharmacy back then.

 

[jimbee]

I gave up using ink jet printers in 2005. Switched to laser and never looked back. I don't print often enough, and my ink jet printers would clog.

I'm still using the laser printer I bought in 2005. Had to buy toner once.

 

[foxfirev5]

Every time our old HP printer needs a new cartridge I wonder if this is the last time. Currently I only need to print off the completed fed and state tax forms in the next month or so. I'm trying to learn from the TV ads that tell the old folks "you don't need to print the internet"

 

[Koolau]

I've never had a printer last very long. Even changing cartridges doesn't seem to help. SO, if I absolutely, positively have to print something, I put it on a thumb drive and take it to a print shop. Probably not good for anything very confidential, but we're finding that we really don't need to print that much stuff. I always get to tell someone "I don't have a printer." Then they send me what they wanted to send me to copy. YMMV

 

[CincyDave]

We print very little. After years of having clogged up inkjet printers from lack of use, I was about to get a laser, but didn't and glad. Our local library used to charge 15 cents a sheet to print, but now is free up to 20 pages. I either put the document I need on a thumb drive or email it to myself, pull it up on a library computer and print. Library is very close to our house. We probably need to print something maybe once a month on average.

 

[Ronstar]

I have an HP monochrome laser printer. Single cartridge - probably replaced it once in 5 years. Very economical.

 

[Marita40]

Thanks, everyone, for your help. I will comb through these responses and make a plan. This is a great forum!

 

[mpeirce]

I’m also in the cheap monochrome laser printer camp.

If I want a photo printed, I go to one of the local stores that does this - Walmart, one of the office supply stores, many drug stores and such. I look around for the best deal and the quality is much better than what a cheap ink jet printer provides.

 

[Koolau]

Thanks, everyone, for your help. I will comb through these responses and make a plan. This is a great forum!

We're glad to help. Just remember what we charge for advice. I'm sure our advice is worth what you pay for it since YMMV.

 

[Walt34]

We have two printers, the default is a color laser all-in-one (Dell E525w) and use the EZink cartridges from Amazon for that, and for photos we have a Canon Pro-100 inkjet that prints up to 16x13. It uses eight different cartridges and will print gallery-quality prints. I buy the Canon ink cartridges for it and have had no issues with the printer. It is slow though, but for the one-off prints that we want that doesn't matter.

 

[misshathaway]

If you live near a library, check to see if they offer printing. Mine does. You upload your file through a link on their site and then go to the library to print it. It's already in a queue under your lib card so you just go to the kiosk, choose which doc and pay. B+W .15, color .30 inkjet.

A couple of months ago one of Epson's automatic updates to my inkjet caused it to put up an error message and refuse to print bc it did not have a genuine Epson black cart. What really infuriated me was that it also refused to scan.

When I thought about it, I realized I only really print once every 2 mo. or so for legal forms or Amazon return labels. The inkjet carts dry out fast that way. And scanning docs, which I do alot of, works fine on a phone now.

 

[ncbill]

Thanks, everyone, for your help. I will comb through these responses and make a plan. This is a great forum!

I use an ancient laser Brother black & white all-in-one to print & scan.

It's old enough that it doesn't use chipped cartridges.

Even with chipped cartridges an inexpensive Brother laser printer will easily meet your needs.

 

[KT1R]

Epson ET-4760 requires no ink cartridges for a year. Best in my lifetime. And I worked for HP for 35 years.

 

[meleana]

We have an inkjet. I shop ink on Amazon or EBay.

 

[geezee1957]

Printer

I went to Brother black and white laser printer about 7 years ago. My oldest was not even wireless . I still have it and two more. I sure don’t miss the dried up expensive ink jets. Buy the more reasonable cartridges from either ebay or Amazon. They are about 1/2 or even 1/4 the price and mostly no difference in performance.

 

[Sue J]

I'll add another vote for a Brother black and white laser printer. In 2014 I needed a new scanner and my son suggested that I get a combo scanner/printer. It was under $100. We don't print all that much so a toner cartridge lasts us over a year. I use the scanner all the time and save as a .pdf. Our model is wireless so we can print from any computer and even from our iPads and phones.

My printer gives a warning when it "thinks" it's running low on toner. I take out the cartridge, slide the doohickey back and forth a few times, give it a couple shakes and it keeps going for quite a long time. You can also find instructions online to override the warning.