Seconded on the hp or brother color lj. Less maintenance and much lower cost per page. On Fri, Jun 5, 2020 at 2:57 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On 6/5/20 2:18 PM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
So I've been using HP inkjet printers for years. I haven't had any big problems with these until recently, but it seems the quality of inkjets has steadily declined over the years. I haven't had problems like I have now. I have two HP Photosmart 6520s and now the black ink is clogged. I followed some procedures to unclog it with no success. I will continue working on it. It is likely I will keep these printers for the document scanning feature, but it is likely that I will go get a color laser printer.
Ian Primus who fixes printers for a living recommended laser printers over inkjet even though they tend to be more expensive. Inkjets tend to get clogged and have issues.
Here are a few that Consumer Reports rates highly: HP Color LaserJet Pro M452nw printer Brother HL-L3230CDW printer Canon Color imageCLASS LBP622Cdw printer
Does anyone recommend any particular models or brands?
I don't fix printers for a living, but I did many years ago. Now, I just do a LOT of printing, on many printers.
Very nearly universally, ink jet printers are garbage. They are built to generate supplies revenue and provide the smallest degree of value to the customer that the manufacturer can get away with. This is true of most consumer-grade equipment, of course, but it is especially true of ink jet printers.
These days, my main color printer is an HP Color Laserjet 5550DTN, and my main mono printer is a Xerox WorkCentre 4260. I recommend both wholeheartedly. These are both $5K+ high-volume printers, but I got them both on the surplus market, one for free and the other for less than $200. It's really nice to not have to worry about printers, and just print.
Either way, I would not recommend buying one new. Let someone else have the moment of thrill from opening the box. Get a real printer (not consumer garbage), and it will be supported for a very long time for supplies and such. It's the difference between a fifteen year old Mercedes and a brand new Yugo.
I'm reminded of a funny story. I will never forget a conversation I had with a guy back when I lived in Florida. He was thinking about a new printer, because his ink jet was "over a year old now" and thus surely needed to be replaced. I ignored the obvious stupidity there. He asked me what printer I use, which at the time was an HP LaserJet 8150DN, a laser printer. He asked how much toner cartridges cost, and I told him about $125. He screamed (actually screamed) "OH MY GOD!!" He then informed me that I must be insane, and I obviously know nothing about computing.
Heh.
I explained that that single $125 toner cartridge was good for 30,000 pages, which was more than the entire service life of his ink jet printer.
He didn't get it. I don't talk to him anymore.
-Dave
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA