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Welcome to Techsurvivors => Tech => Topic started by: jwboyd on January 10, 2017, 06:58:53 PM

Title: Printer died
Post by: jwboyd on January 10, 2017, 06:58:53 PM

I use two printers, a laser for everyday black & white, and an inkjet for the occasional color and/or photo printing.

Would welcome your suggestions for a replacement inkjet (make and model) that will print, copy, scan, and do photos. Duplexing is not really necessary.

Must admit being partial to HP, since an engineer son worked in HP's imaging division for 20 years, but will welcome glowing recommendations for other brands.

Gracias, amigos!

Joe

Title: Printer died
Post by: jchuzi on January 10, 2017, 07:02:12 PM

I have never personally owned an HP printer, but someone I know consistently had trouble with them. I have had good luck with Epson, although mine doesn't copy, scan or fax. I use it for photos and it is superb. I don't know how good Epson's all-in-ones are for photos.

Title: Printer died
Post by: RNKIII on January 10, 2017, 07:43:21 PM

Have had very good performance from our HP Envy 7640.. print, copy, fax, scan all work well. Separate paper trays hold good quantities. Only minor complaint is, as per usual, ink usage/cost... and that the color cart is 3-in-1.

My $.02...

Bob K. rnkiii

Title: Printer died
Post by: kimmer on January 11, 2017, 11:20:03 AM

I dumped my HP because it never worked nice with my iMac. I'm happily using a brother laser (B&W). This is the brother color printer/scanner/etc that friends recommend:

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B016AT5WES?ref=emc_b_5_t

Title: Printer died
Post by: chriskleeman on January 11, 2017, 12:38:04 PM

Best bang for the buck is probably an Epson. I've had pretty good luck with them, but like all inkjet printers, you need to print at least a few pages every week to get the best life out of them. And then there is the cost of ink.

This Workforce gets very high marks. If I were to replace my aging Artisan 810, this is the printer I'd buy right now.

HTH.

ck

Title: Printer died
Post by: jchuzi on January 11, 2017, 01:40:51 PM

Epson seems to regularly have 15% off sales on ink. I wait until they send me an email about it (I have signed up for the emails, naturally) and then stock up. They also have 40% off sales on paper at frequent intervals. I just ordered two reams of their Bright White paper (which is the best plain paper that I have ever used) and got it for a total of $12.95, including shipping and tax.

Title: Printer died
Post by: daryl66 on January 11, 2017, 08:34:23 PM

QUOTE(jwboyd @ Jan 10 2017, 07:58 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

2 more pennies worth. Over the years I have run the gamut. HP, Epson, Brothers, but the past 3 years I have been using a Canon PIXMA 495 a do all jobber (which I don't think is currently in their inventory but probably something similar probably is) however this printer has been heads and shoulders above all of the prior ones. Ink of course is their money maker. The one time I needed support they were excellent. Would return to Canon in a heartbeat.

Daryl

Title: Printer died
Post by: Xairbusdriver on January 11, 2017, 09:37:16 PM

I've used many Epson ink jets, but I absolutely love the Cannon PIXMA I have now! But it's just a printer. All the multi-funcyion machines we’ve had for 20+(!) years have been Brother lasers. Only use the scanner for making duplicates, I have an Epson V500 Photo scanner for higher quality scans.

I haven't bought ink for over a decade. It's too easy to buy ink in bulk and refill the carts, not to mention the cost savings!

Title: Printer died
Post by: krissel on January 12, 2017, 12:57:37 AM

Have had Epson, HP and Canon over time. The Epsons lasted many years and the ink was the cheapest. The ancient HP is still running as a backup, but the best quality has been the Canon PIXMAs. They both can scan but I have a separate scanner that is larger and has templates for film and slides. However, as noted above, the Canon ink is outrageous in price. We decided to take a risk after spending a fortune and go for generic refills and have had no problems as yet.

Title: Printer died
Post by: jwboyd on January 12, 2017, 10:19:48 AM

Looks like we are a diverse lot. If I were ordering today, it would be the HP ENVY 5540. Very similar specs as Bob K's 7640 but a little slower and without the document feeder. Since I'm not desperate, I will wait a few days for more feedback from my TS friends.

Joe

Title: Printer died
Post by: daryl66 on January 12, 2017, 10:42:13 AM

QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Jan 11 2017, 10:37 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's too easy to buy ink in bulk and refill the carts, not to mention the cost savings!

AND the inevitable mess no matter how careful one may be. I gave up a couple of years ago and just bite the bullet for the cartridges.

Daryl

PS: As time and technology marches on and the years keep piling up, the need to print anything has diminished tremendously.

Title: Printer died
Post by: Xairbusdriver on January 12, 2017, 10:50:34 AM

YMMV, of course, but the process and tools I use are quite clean. I think it depends on the company that provides the tools. It does take about 15 minutes to refill all the carts, but that's less time than it takes to drive to the store! Besides, I enjoy the hands-on 'work'.

Too few things we can do with our cars now! My last major handy work was rigging a handle for my wife's clothes dryer! Note who possesses that device!

Title: Printer died
Post by: Paddy on January 12, 2017, 11:38:20 AM

I've owned Canons, Epsons, HPs, Samsungs, Brothers and all I can is that the best ones for reliability have been the Brother printers. I now own both a Brother laser and an inkjet, both multi-function. The consumables are much more reasonable - whether you buy name brand or third party. We've owned a lot of printers in the past few years with kids away at university and two equipped households. I also liked my Canon all-in-one inkjet - until it died. My Samsung laser was a tank and worked well for 8 years - and then died. I might have bought another Samsung laser but the Brother I got was on sale at the time and got stellar reviews. By this time I wanted wireless, ethernet and multi-function in my laser printer as well as my inkjet. I've owned the Brother inkjet for about 4 years now - never a hiccup.

Won't touch inexpensive Epsons with a ten foot pole - they have always caused problems and died on us in very short order. HPs typically have very expensive consumables and little in the way of third-party options for some models.

Note: I expect my printers to do a good job - the B&W laser printers must produce crisp, clear results. Consistently. Inkjets should produce good results too, but I NEVER expect anything that is a "consumer" printer to produce excellent photographs. For that, you do need to spend a whole lot more ($800-$900 and up) and that's on both the printer and the inks (which should be light-fast, btw). The consumables on a printer in that class are very expensive - and unless you're doing this sort of thing all the time, it's so easy to make mistakes (and spend lots of money reprinting things) that I think for most of us, it's worthwhile to find a good professional digital photo printer to do that work. I'm talking about things you want to put on the wall here.

Read lots and lots of reviews. Ignore Consumers Reports, who rarely seem to get it right with things like printers - if you read their reviews and then read the actual USER reviews, it's like they're from two different planets. They are useful for things like cost of printing per sheet...not so impressed with their reviews...

Title: Printer died
Post by: jwboyd on January 12, 2017, 01:41:08 PM

Not only that, Paddy, but by the time Consumer Reports does their testing and publishes the results, the product often is no longer available.

Title: Printer died
Post by: Paddy on January 12, 2017, 02:39:06 PM

QUOTE(jwboyd @ Jan 12 2017, 03:41 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not only that, Paddy, but by the time Consumer Reports does their testing and publishes the results, the product often is no longer available.

Yep. I think the only reason I continue to pay for an online subscription there is the ability to quickly compare features on something. Even then - a fair number of things they list are only available in the US or you have to figure out which thing has an equivalent Canadian model... When we first started looking for appliances for our new house, I would read a CR review that made the item sound wonderful, then I'd read the actual USER reviews and the same thing came out sounding like a complete lemon. While I do realize that there is far more likelihood of someone who is not happy with an item bothering to post a review than someone who is perfectly content, it does make one wonder - especially if you can go elsewhere and find similar overwhelmingly negative reviews. For things that change so frequently, like printers and digital cameras etc., the CR product reviews are often fairly useless as you note.

For technology items, I find the reviews on places like NewEgg, Amazon, and some tech sites useful. The one thing you do have to watch for is reviews from people who have been supplied with freebies in order to review them - there seem to be a few more of those on Amazon now, which makes it more difficult as I treat those sorts of reviews with a certain level of distrust.

Title: Printer died
Post by: Frances144 on January 13, 2017, 04:46:38 AM

Fwiw, I have a b&w one like they have in the banks.

At the end of the day, if I want to print in colour, it would only be for photographs so I would get a better copy sending them to my local camera shop who charges pence for each photo printed.

This method has saved me much money in printer ink and time faffing about.

The little B&W manages all our correspondence (does one really need a coloured address?) and we have saved much money in not buying endless fancy inks.

Just my two penn'orth.

(as for the scanner part - I have an old scanner that I get out about once a year which works fine)

Title: Printer died
Post by: jwboyd on January 14, 2017, 03:33:38 PM

Thanks to all for your input.

I placed my order a few minutes ago for the HP ENVY 5540 All-in-One.

Hope it serves as well as the 12-year-old it replaces.

Joe

Title: Printer died
Post by: jwboyd on January 19, 2017, 08:09:03 PM

My HP ENVY 5540 was delivered timely. Got it set up today.

Can't use it on WiFi. An on-screen message during setup said it is not compatible with my wireless system (something about my 5Gb router). Used a USB cable, which works fine.

Took a while to figure out duplexing, but finally got it. Seems to work like it is supposed to.

I do not expect to subscribe to Instant Ink, because I will use this printer very little (only a few photos each month, and the occasional page I want to print in color).

Thanks again for your input.

Joe

Title: Printer died
Post by: Xairbusdriver on January 19, 2017, 09:45:52 PM

Congrats!

What WiFi router do you use?

Title: Printer died
Post by: jwboyd on January 20, 2017, 09:28:17 AM

QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Jan 19 2017, 10:45 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Congrats!

What WiFi router do you use?

Netgear AC1600 WiFi Cable Modem Router
802.11ac Dual Band Gigabit
Built-in DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem
You can probably Google the detailed specs. I don't understand it all.

I used to use separate Netgear router and Motorola modem. One or the other went bad a couple of months ago. I went to the local Walmart where a very knowledgeable associate in the electronics department steered me to this combo unit. Grandson-in-law Tim (whom you have met) helped set it up. Happy camper here.

Interesting side note: FedEx routed my new printer from Memphis to Olive Branch MS (where a granddaughter lives), then to Champaign IL (where another granddaughter lives), then here.

Good to hear from you, Jim! Stay warm and dry.

Joe

Title: Printer died
Post by: Xairbusdriver on January 20, 2017, 02:16:35 PM

My main concern about the router was that it seems not to be switching or using which band (2.4/5GHz) to printer uses. There may be a setting somewhere in the interface that is set to only use the higher rate.

I would think that by default it would be set to use whatever is being used from the device making the transmission. I would expect most 'consumer' printers would use the older, slower, and probably less expensive 2.4 Ghz band, since that is plenty fast enough for most non-professional needs. Hopefully, your Grandson geek can fix that! One less cable for the cat to chew!

One less item that has to be located close enough to the computer!

The box may have made the final trip by truck, thus the transfer to Olive Branch. That town is basically a suburb of Memphis, probably less than 10 miles south of the airport. Trucking is still cheaper than flying and sometimes faster when the destination is not close to a major airport. Since those packages are now paying my retirement, I'm all for saving money!

OTOH, what we called a "major airport" 40 years ago is much smaller now! I see pictures of DC-10's using airports like Reno where we didn't even fly the Falcons back in the beginning!

Title: Printer died
Post by: sandbox on February 22, 2017, 08:35:49 AM

What I like about the Canon is that no matter how long it's not used the Ink doesn't seem to dry out.
I have 2 Canons, one here in Florida and another in our northern retreat. Not using the printer for 5-6 months doesn't seem to phase it. All other printers (HP, Brother, Epson) would dry out.
I haven't tried generic ink yet.... don't tempt me. ;-)

QUOTE(krissel @ Jan 12 2017, 01:57 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Title: Printer died
Post by: Xairbusdriver on February 22, 2017, 09:09:18 AM

QUOTE

I haven't tried generic ink yet.... don't tempt me. ;-)

I don't usually wit that long, but my Pro-100 likes these <PrecisionColors> inks just fine with Ilford Galerie CLASSIC paper.

Title: Printer died
Post by: Texas Mac Man on February 22, 2017, 10:40:31 AM

I have a Canon MX922 all in one printer. It's flawless. Has separate trays for paper and 4x6 photo paper. It's a printer, scanner and FAX.

I buy my ink from a 3rd party http://www.sophiaglobal.com/ I can get a set of all 5 ink cartridges for about the price of one Canon ink cartridge. I've never had an ink clog.