Shopping for a Printer

Discussion in 'Scrapping Pad' started by KarenC, Nov 21, 2019.

  1. KarenC

    KarenC Well-Known Member

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    Does anyone do a lot of printing at home? I need a new printer that has low printing costs. I have a Canon printer that makes lovely prints, but it is usually sitting here empty because of how much the ink costs! My daughter has an HP with a subscription for prints. That seems like an economical option. I've also been looking at new printers with refillable, large tanks. Has anyone researched or have experience with low cost, good quality printing at home? Thank you for any recommendations! :)
     
  2. AJK

    AJK I plead the 5th ...

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    I have used an HP for several years. It is well rated.
    I used to have a different one- but like you got tired of the hassle and expense of buying ink. With our HP, we use Instant Ink program. We pay $9.99 a month for 300+ printed pages. With me in school and hubster teaching, we need that many.
    ink.JPG
    They ship you the ink BEFORE you run out- you never pay more than the plan you subscribe for- there are varying plans. We LOVE it. We always have extra ink and never have to leave the house!
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2019
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  3. cookingmylife

    cookingmylife Pizza would be my last meal, except ...

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    I don't do much printing at home but have had an HP, Epson and now have a Canon. Ink was expensive for all but the Epson or HP cartridges were sold at Costco and 'seemed' to be cheaper. Still I've been happy with any of them for the price - less than $100 and when I'm printing non color stuff like recipes or copies of emails/forms I always use the draft printing. I've never tried anything other than the appropriate brand.
     
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  4. bestcee

    bestcee In love with places I've never been to

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    I had HP and did the InstantInk for a 14 months. Suddenly, our printer stopped working. Of course it was 60 days out of warranty. Sigh. But, turned out that the instant ink black cartridge leaked and ruined the printhead. Since this is my 3rd HP printer to be dead in just over 6 years, I said no more HP. (But if you do, buy from Costco! They took it back for me after HP refused to do anything but offer a 20% coupon on a new printer.)

    I bought a Brother printer. Supposedly, my ink will last two years with the model I bought based on printing 300 pages a month (which is the plan I paid for with HP InstantInk). I bought the Brother INKvestmentTank Inkjet Printer, MFC-J995DW XL. XL = 2 years, no XL = 1 year of printing.
    I've only had it for about 1 month now. I'm shocked at how much faster it is to start printing than the HP was on the same setup! I have zero complaints about quality. I have zero complaints about ink usage also! Assuming I've printed the normal around 200-300 pages, I've only used the ink equivalent to 100. I also like that I don't have to worry about rollover or paying for pages that misprinted like I did with InstantInk.
     
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  5. bestcee

    bestcee In love with places I've never been to

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    Oh, I spent two days researching, and came to the conclusion that if the Brother really lasts as long as estimated, than it is the cheapest on ink. Plus, it had good reviews everywhere I looked.
     
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  6. Karen

    Karen Wiggle it, just a little bit!

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    The other option to try on your Canon printer is to buy some off-brand ink. The Canon cartridges are SO expensive (as they all are) so i decided to try buying some off-brand cartridges on Amazon. I've used Blake brand for several years and I do not see a difference with my prints. The only thing I do know is that they are not lightfast, so the 4x6 pictures that I've printed for my office at work that sit in direct sunlight have faded over the course of several years, but everything else that I've printed like hybrid projects and stickers and stuff like that hasn't faded one bit.
     
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  7. KarenC

    KarenC Well-Known Member

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    Thank you all very much! I really appreciate hearing your thoughts and ideas. :)
     
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  8. littlekiwi

    littlekiwi I charge by the hour for anything before noon

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    I’m a Canon girl through and through and have been for a few years now. My last printer is a more heavy duty multifunction that has 4 cartridges (that was important to me as i was sick of the wastage with a tricolour ink cartridge)
     
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  9. HavaDrPepper

    HavaDrPepper Space. The final frontier

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    I'm on the Canon bandwagon as well (both printers and cameras!).

    I found many years ago that having separate cartridges was a must. My current printer has 6 cartridges and it didn't cost an arm and a leg for the printer. I'm willing to spend more for manufacturer ink because I know it is formulated to work with the printer. The previous printer lasted me over 6 or 7 years. My previous printer had the print head fail and as old as it was, it wasn't worth it to try to get it fixed since it wasn't an expensive printer to begin with.
     
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  10. Nemla

    Nemla Stretching my skill set

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    I am a canon girl as well. My last one lasted 9 years, and the only reason I changed it was that the scan feature started playing up, and it wasn't worth fixing, it still printed ok, so now it lives on at a friends house, that only needs a printer for photocopies.
    My new one is a Canon too, and though the ink initially seems expensive, it lasts, especially the black one. It does not fade at all, and I have never had a leak in 9 years...…. (I don't work for Canon LoL )
     
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  11. patsyt

    patsyt Loop-de-loops? Not a fan!

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    Do any of you have a printer with a rear tray? I use cardstock a lot and need a rear tray. The only printer I've found in the last few years that had one is an Epson.
     
  12. KimJ

    KimJ Did you check in the refrigerator?

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    This is what we do too, although we have the 100 page plan, and now that I think about it, we could probably drop down to the 50 pager. I need to go look at our stats. We have done HP printers since the dawn of time (except one Epson that we tried and hated) and currently have the HP Envy 5660. We've had it for a couple of years and it's started to make funny noises once in a while when feeding the paper through, but so far it's still working fine. DH was skeptical about the subscription plan, but at $5/month it's less than buying the cartridges would have been for us, and I love that the ink is always on hand when we need it. :)
     
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  13. AJK

    AJK I plead the 5th ...

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    Hmmmm,@bestcee that is really odd! We have used II for 5 years without incident. ? Well, glad you found what works for you!
     
  14. AJK

    AJK I plead the 5th ...

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    @KimJ Yeah, we have changed plans a couple of times- we don't need as many pages in the Summer. And I was printing ebooks for my studio (Art) so I upped it to the highest. We could probably drop down a notch now because the school year is half over. :D
     
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  15. bestcee

    bestcee In love with places I've never been to

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    It is, but of course when I googled this had happened to other people. I imagine that somehow it got a tiny crack in it or the part that holds the ink from flooding was damaged. I checked before I loaded and didn't see anything, but there was a huge puddle of black ink on the side where it sits.
     

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