Looking For A New 3 in 1 (Printer, Scanner, Photocopier)

Herrick

I'm looking a new printer as my HP is broken, its a good few years old. I need new but cheapish printer that is also able to scan & photocopy.

A big thing here guys is one that can take very cheap ink catridges. The prices for the HP ink catridges were a an absolute rip off, even getting them refilled at refill stores was expensive especially when they ran out in time.

whizbang

I love Epson Inkjets for this reason.

cartridges can be got for less than €1 in bulk. It doesn't matter if one or two are bad at that price.

however you have to be prepared to do a little bit of TLC. Refill an empty cartridge with slightly soapy water and use it every few carts, for cleaning.

Amprodude

whizbang wrote: »

I love Epson Inkjets for this reason.

cartridges can be got for less than €1 in bulk. It doesn't matter if one or two are bad at that price.

however you have to be prepared to do a little bit of TLC. Refill an empty cartridge with slightly soapy water and use it every few carts, for cleaning.

What about Brother printer/copiers? I was told print cartridages for them are relatively well cheaper than my dell printer.

Herrick

whizbang wrote: »

I love Epson Inkjets for this reason.

cartridges can be got for less than €1 in bulk. It doesn't matter if one or two are bad at that price.

however you have to be prepared to do a little bit of TLC. Refill an empty cartridge with slightly soapy water and use it every few carts, for cleaning.

Can you rec a particular printer? Also could you tell me where do you get them in bulk for such a cheap price?

Overheal

depends on your printing needs. most printers are wireless, can scan/copy/fax/duplex/etc so the real differentiators are what youre printing and how much.

If you want real cheap ink, its not sufficient to say the brand is expensive. An older HP printer that takes the 61 cartridge, based on retail pricing and yield information supplied by HP, runs you about $0.09/sheet for plain text documents (which is just a convenient way to standardized the yield measurements, making them useful. your actual mileage may vary). In contrast, a modern Officejet 8600 that uses the 950 cartridge can cost as little as $0.017. Thats a huge savings in ink when you multiply that out. Given a 61 cartridge does about 280 sheets and a 950XL has volume for 2,300 sheets, theres a lot of improvement. That, and the ink they use in the 950 cartridge is an improvement over older ink systems: sprays in much smaller drops, measured in microns, and its instant dry, you can run a highlighter across your output the second its left the printer.

For a while Kodak advertised the cheapest ink - and with cartridges as low as $8 they might have been right except that when you apply the yield information to them they were costing 3 to 5 cents a sheet. The average HP printer (most use the 564) are about 3.2 cents/sheet

Thats just a small fraction of the useless retail knowledge that I have acquired. But look, it was just useful!

http://hp.com/go/learnaboutsupplies

paulgalway

My HP photosmart packed up and was looking for a new printer when someone told me about this crowd here in Galway.

It took him 5 mins to tell me it was the power supply. He gave me one for €30. Probably could have got it cheaper on the net, but need it urgently.

Anywhere near you that could look at it, or have you confirmed that it is completely gone.?

Overheal

paulgalway wrote: »

My HP photosmart packed up and was looking for a new printer when someone told me about this crowd here in Galway.

It took him 5 mins to tell me it was the power supply. He gave me one for €30. Probably could have got it cheaper on the net, but need it urgently.

Anywhere near you that could look at it, or have you confirmed that it is completely gone.?

Considering a new printer is relatively cheap, it seems uneconomical to repair one. Especially again when a newer printer has cheaper ink

Herrick

Thanks Overheal. Well it would do a large volume of printing, college notes to be precise. So ideally I'd like a setup along what you've said above

modern Officejet 8600 that uses the 950 cartridge can cost as little as $0.017. Thats a huge savings in ink when you multiply that out. Given a 61 cartridge does about 280 sheets and a 950XL has volume for 2,300 sheets, theres a lot of improvement.

Anything you could rec off the top of your head? I've seen some cheap Epsons and Canon's in Argos for circa €100 but am wary of buying a cheapo that could be cheap for a reason. I'd really love one that could handle dirt cheap ink.

Overheal

Officejet 8600 Pro/Pro Plus are good choices. One is heavier duty than the other, and they have that 950 ink system, but their more expensive to buy in to. Officejet 6600 is a good middleman. still has the touchscreen interface which makes it easy, even fun to operate. The 4620 is a new contender but I'd avoid it. Cheap, cuts some corners in functionality like the touch screen and it does away with duplex printing. For college, duplex printing and an automatic scanbed feeder are necessities. Dont expect to find duplex-scanning unless you want to buy a newer dedicated scanner - saw an Epson one... for $350. I don't need it that much. This one uses the 564 ink, like the Photosmart series. I use the same ink, no real complaints, rebuying a printer today, I'd stake it on the 6600 or better. 6600 uses 932 ink, which has about the same cost as the 564, just a slight bit cheaper.

Two other tidbits, that I went and researched partially on HPs third party training site. Most of their ink systems aren't really explained, but they're proud of the 951 system. It is a pop-in pop-out cartridge (like an SD Card in a Camera etc) and it has a reserve-ink feature: where most new printers (even a lot of HPs, and definitely the 564 system. grr) will stop functioning if a color runs out, the 950/951 will keep running in spite of the outage. And its that newer, cheaper, instant dry stuff. 8600 is the kind of printer I'd buy as an investment if I was going to be using it a lot out of college; 6600 is my pick for getting through college.

As for the 6600's ink, the 932, I didn't find any other helpful info from HP but ebay is chock full of 932 ink system mods that allow for Continuous-Ink flow. Meaning you just fill the vats and the printer keeps on chugging. Kinda neat, except will you really do that obscene volume of printing (no) and also you have to source good quality ink: impurities will lead to the printer eventually clogging up and breaking down. Even if you're using it as intended (buying regular cartridges) it's still a cheaper system than older HP cardridges like the 61 - a third the cost.

whizbang

ebay is chock full of 932 ink system mods that allow for Continuous-Ink flow

This is probably the ideal long term solution.

Overheal, are the printheads replaceable in this system ?

Overheal

whizbang wrote: »

This is probably the ideal long term solution.

Overheal, are the printheads replaceable in this system ?

I know the cartridges are, really not sure about the heads

blindsider

Do you need colour?

if not, then I recommend this:

http://www.dabs.ie/products/panasonic-kxmb2000-multifunction-printer-70CY.html?q=panasonic%20kx%20mb2000&src=16

I got it cheaper than the list price here - I'm sure i got it for ca. €100 from the www above. I have mine for 1.5 yrs now and it's great. I'm not a very heavy user, but I need a reliable printer, copier and scanner - no issue with this printer and the drum lasts forever.