all-in-one printers

[lizzie]

very shortly i'm going to have to buy another laptop for business use only, and an all-in-one printer/scanner/copy/fax.

was looking at the dell laptops and they seem pretty good value for what one gets ... however, their all-in-one printers seem to be ink guzzlers, with many users complaining of getting barely black in 100 pages per $45 cartridge, which would get rather expensive in a short space of time.

i don't need superb quality as will mainly be for record keepings and invoicing. can anyone suggest a reliable all-in-one that has good ink usage?

 

[Rockstar]

I've had a HP all in one for years Lizzie. Great for heavy ink users as I can refill myself. Just buy 250ml of ink off ink king or similar shop and keep topping up the cartridge. I think the 250ml was around 70 bucks at the time and does 20 - 30 refills.

 

[motivated 5555]

I use both a laser printer for lots of black White printing
U can't beat laser for black White ease and economy
and an Epsom color 3 in one
Epsom r great as each color is separate so u r not changing cartriges because one color is used while others r fine

the bottom of line one has been fabulous for last several yrs

If u want extra features eg re photo printing get next one up .

 

[Indifference]

For documents, I always use a laser MF. I have a Canon Imageclass and it is great, prints double sided, multi page feeder for scanning etc. Quite economical. Had a Lexmark Laser MF for 6 yrs before that.

I use an Epson Stylus for color stuff and Wi-Fi printing, but prefer the laser for black & white, by far.

 

[Spectre]

Get a laser. I started with inkjets but for the amount of ink I was using plus having to keep buying replacement ink (off of ebay mind you) it would have been cheaper to buy a laser from the outset. Damn things, one cartridge runs out and the whole thing can stop, even not able to use the fax etc.

You can buy bottom end multis like this http://umart.com.au/newindex2.phtml?bid=2 for probably close to an ink jet anyway.

 

[boods99]

Seriously, I have a HP all in one, and the cost of the ink refills is astronomical!
It is almost cheaper to just go and buy a new printer which comes with all the ink than to buy the ink seperately...

Seriously, its got to be the biggest scam in the world...why is replacement ink for ink jet printers so goddam expensive??

Boods

 

[Rockstar]

Seriously, I have a HP all in one, and the cost of the ink refills is astronomical!

You talking about the cartridges Boods? How much do you pay?

 

[aaarghhh]

Seriously, its got to be the biggest scam in the world...why is replacement ink for ink jet printers so goddam expensive??

Boods

Because the income stream is in the consumables such as ink, toner, paper etc. Printers are selling nearly at cost prices.

 

[boods99]

You talking about the cartridges Boods? How much do you pay?

from memory about $16 (5 colours) each plus about $30 for the black = $110

Stupid printer only cost me about $160! Probably cheaper now too as it's nearly 2 years old.

Boods

 

[Rockstar]

We refill all our cartridges ourselves - of course we use mainly black. Haven't bought a new cartridge in ages.

 

[Sanzy]

I would recommend the Brother Laser all in one units.

They are reasonably priced to buy the toner and drum are not to expensive (and are easy to change yourself) and they last for ever.

I had 40 of them in use in the company i work for (i am in the IT department) some of these units went 5 years without any thing more than a toner change.

They can be bought from office works and so can all the consumables so if you need a toner in a hurry they are easy to find.

The big draw of laser of ink for a home user is that it does not dry out. if you do not use a inkjet for a few months it is not uncommon to find the ink dried out. I had a brother laser that did not have it's toner changed in 3 years before the site finally companied about having issues. changed toner and it was back to normal. where as teh older ink jets we had would always cause trouble for us with dry ink.

 

[RumpledElf]

We have a samsung laser b&w all in one unit, used infrequently for printing letters, invoices, photocopying, sending/recieving faxes etc. We specifically bought a laser because we know we can have dry spells between using it and inkjets self-clean and can go through an (expensive) cartridge just turning them on and off.

We bought it about 2 years ago for $250ish and we're still using the toner thingy it came with, which allegedly does X,000 pages, but I forget.

 

[lizzie]

thanks guys - they are all written down on my "after christmas" list to investigate.