Inkjet printers...dare I go there?

[Scott Douglas]

We have two printers in our house. Both rather old (+5 yrs) by 'computer age' standards I'd guess. I have an HP Photosmart C7280 all in one and my wife uses an HP Photosmart 3210.

Hers apparently is giving up as she uses hers a lot more than I use mine.

What I like about these two printers is they use the same ink cartridges which simplifies shopping for ink.

Her printer is not printing correctly now and running multiple print head cleaning cycles seems to be making things worse rather than better.

What I'm looking for is advice on a replacement.

I've read reviews and when I look at replacement ink costs it's staggering.
Am I just not in touch with the current marketing?
I know we've spent more on ink than we invested in our current printers, but really?

She doesn't do a lot of printing, but when she does she wants it nice as her scrap book of quilt pictures is dear to her heart.

Any advice you guys can lend would be most appreciated.

[fastfredracing]

No recomendations for a printer itself, but I purchase all my print cartridges off E bay. I get them dirt cheap, I think a 2 pack for 10.99 or something like that . I just always order a big batch at at a time so I never run out . I print quite a few documents at work, and ink from a retail store is silly expensive .

[ian c2]

I bought at bestbuy recently .

It seems the “thing” these days is to pay monthly for ink , but I didn’t do that .

They had some great deals online , that they’ll match in store ..

[LakeCleElum]

Printer/Ink Recommendations

[ian c2]

Why do you have 2 ??

I have one that does air-print , so everything in the house connects to it via Wi-Fi and all phones etc share the printer .

[Scott Douglas]

Originally Posted by ian c2

Why do you have 2 ??

I have one that does air-print , so everything in the house connects to it via Wi-Fi and all phones etc share the printer .

Because back in the dark ages I didn't like my wife using my computer to do her printing. She has sewing programs that are on her computer only and our 'system' at home isn't all that sophisticated, even today, that we can share a printer.
That and the fact I hate to throw anything away, like a perfectly good printer.

[GH85Carrera]

I bought a Color LASER printer. It is also a copier, and scanner, and fax. It is cheap. And BONUS, it is a Apple air print printer so iPhones or iPads can print easily.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00YBZE1M8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

For $178 buck it is darn cheap. My black cartridge only lasted 700 pages and it is the short fill of the first cartridges. $50 bought full replacement cartridges with CMY and 2 K (black) so I am set for a while.

My only complaint about it, no manual feed tray. If you print a lot of envelopes it is a pain. Take out the regular paper, put in the envelopes and tell the printer it has envelopes. Then reverse that to go back to regular paper.

Overall for the price, great deal.

The printer is wif-fi ready, and I plugged it in to my router via USB. It was super easy to set up.

[rwest]

I bought an Epson Eco Tank printer after my inkjet basically gave me six pictures for $70 since I don't use it much and the ink dried out.

Eco Tank uses bottles of ink that are much cheaper than cartridges; printer was more expensive, but the ink is lasting for a long, long time, I've hardly used any.

[wildthing]

New printers are wi-fi enabled. Just share a printer.

[Scott Douglas]

Rutager - I read that you had to keep the printer hooked up to power all the time so it could keep a vacuum on the tanks to keep the ink from drying out. We routinely shut down all power to the printer and computer via a power strip.
Have you run into this problem as my wife liked the idea of the eco tanks.

[Scott Douglas]

Originally Posted by wildthing

New printers are wi-fi enabled. Just share a printer.

The printer on my desk isn't wi-fi enabled. It's old, kinda like me.

[CurtEgerer]

For the last several years, I've used the cheapest, most basic HP Inkjet available, direct from HP. That's the 1112 currently and it's $29 including ink. When the ink runs out, I throw the printer away and buy a new one. It's cheaper than buying replacement cartridges.

The print quality is outstanding.

[wdfifteen]

I would stick with dot matrix. Fuel injection and inkjet are the devil's work. Don't even ask about anything that says turbo.
Just sayin'

[widebody911]

Originally Posted by CurtEgerer

For the last several years, I've used the cheapest, most basic HP Inkjet available, direct from HP. That's the 1112 currently and it's $29 including ink. When the ink runs out, I throw the printer away and buy a new one. It's cheaper than buying replacement cartridges.

The print quality is outstanding.

And new ink for your $29 printer is $31 and change...

https://www.amazon.com/HP-Tri-color-Original-Cartridges-L0R46AN

[legion]

I used to spend $40-80 every time I printed with an HP inkjet. I'd print 3-4 times a year and the cartridges would dry out.

5 years ago, I spent around $100 on an HP home laserjet with wireless. The "trial" cartridge lasted 4 years. I think the refill was around $80, but I expect it to last much longer.

[HardDrive]

Printers. Pffffftttt! Newfangled crap.

I picked up a second hand Gutenberg press and never looked back.

[legion]

Originally Posted by HardDrive

Printers. Pffffftttt! Newfangled crap.

I picked up a second hand Gutenberg press and never looked back.

I pay monks to illuminate manuscripts for me.

[ian c2]

Originally Posted by Scott Douglas

The printer on my desk isn't wi-fi enabled. It's old, kinda like me.

If you plug it into an Apple airport it will be ....

There might be other options , I dont really look into it as everything here is Mac or i- ..

[Scott Douglas]

Thanks all.
I'm going to take a good hard look at laser printers.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

+1 to the laser idea. I recently donated my HP color laser all-in-one (loved it but never really print stuff at home anymore, I pdf everything now, plus it was a large, bulky device and I’m actively trying to get rid of stuff like that).

Ink printers are a scam. The ink costs are ridiculous and they go bad far too quickly.

Good luck.