Good home printer?

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GaryMGg

GaryMGg

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McIntosh, Florida, USA.
Mrs G does a fair amount of B&W printing but not a ton.
We had an HP and their online cartridge refill program was a rip! And, they wouldn't let us use generic refills of other brands.
So, she got an HP MFP M140W B&W laser printer. The cartridges are supposed to manage about 1,000 pages before needing to be replaced.
She's getting the low ink warning after roughly 250-300 pages. This has happened several times.
I'm pretty much done with HP—I expect it's their software.
Sooooo…anyone have a printer they are happy with which is reliable and reasonable on toner and refill prices?

Thanks.
 
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I have an Epson ET2760. It's the best printer I have aver had. It's an "Eco-Tank" printer. When the ink gets low it is refilled from a bottle. There is no mess. A bottle of ink lasts a long, long time. I print all of my labels on it and my wife does a fair amount of photo printing. They are not too expensive, under $300.00. I've had mine for about 2 1/2 years, I think I have bought replacement ink twice.
 
I have a 4850 EcoTank at work, a 4850 at home and my daughter has a 3850. Love them. Been printing since the late 1980s in a home office and had some precision printing and lasers too, but nothing like EcoTank for long spells between ink refills and at a a very reasonable cost.
 
Printers are normally rated at how many text documents their refills will print. Text documents are usually less than 50% ink coverage per page. Printing artwork, especially black and white can offset that balance quite a bit. Artwork is normally printed at a higher resolution.

Look for a printer that the actual print heads are integral to the printer. Most economy printers have the print heads in the refills that is why the refills are so expensive. You'll pay more for the printer but the refills are negligible.

FWIW, my wife and I had a Lexmark Laser Printer (not a cheap one but a higher end office type) and we loved it. Since we no longer are in that level of need we have downsized to more reasonable priced printers. I have for the longest time depended on Epson Photo Printers for my personal printer (photography uses) but their ink cartridges were outrageously priced. I have not used an ECO fill version as I do not use the printer as much as I used to. My wife has a general use HP that she has a love/hate relationship with. I am currently using a sub $50 Canon that I like better than her sub $100 HP.
 
I have had an Epson XP-7100. Cartridges are available locally at Staples. Only thing is the control panel won't contract to flat but stays at a 45 degree angle. CSR said they would make the tray icon more visible which tells me they didn't read my inquiry. It will retract if the unit is turned off.
 
Just FYI

The copier-printer industry rates the number of copies based on a 6% original--that is to say 6% of the total square inches on a letter size copy will be ink.
There are several 'test originals" in the industry that show what this means, but in the real world, it is pretty accurate for "normal office copying".

What we do on pens, with pictures, etc will greatly reduce the yield.
Sold copiers since 1972
 
I thought I was familiar with the standard by which a page is a page. Clearly not.
I would expect double spaced plain text without images to be normal—it's what a reasonable person without technical knowledge would think.

Anyway, most of what Mrs prints is plain text and not usually a full sheet of double spaced plain text — so, the low toner still seems like an issue.

Knowing your background Ed, I was hoping you might chime in with a recommendation. 😉
It looks like we'll go see what the Epson EcoTank looks like. Heck, she might just get color again.

Big print jobs don't get done at home. Once the draft passes muster, it's thumb drives and print shops or Staples type stores.
 
If I had a good recommendation, I would let you know, Gary!! Copiers change often.

I recently did a study for an old customer--the Epson had a very reasonable cost per copy (based on published yields which COULD BE wrong)
And you can buy one for $99 on Amazon--hard to beat.

But I am no longer an "expert"--that required continuous monitoring of new products--I don't do that any more.
 
I have 2 Brother HL L2405W. Black print. Laser printer. Would buy again and again... Got them from BH Photo in NY...shipped to Pa and Fl.
edit...have not purchased refills yet.
 
monophoto said:
Very happy with my ET 2850. Had it for about 2 1/2 years, and have had to refill the black ink tank once - color tanks are on their original fill.
Click to expand...
Louie
How much do you use your printer? Saying you've had it for 2 1/2 years is a rather ambiguous statement. Not that I am doubting your happiness with the unit.
I ask because I am curious and interested in Epson ECO printers. My wife prints multiple 10 page documents for her job and spends a lot of money on the HP cartridges.
 
GaryMGg said:
Mrs G does a fair amount of B&W printing but not a ton.
We had an HP and their online cartridge refill program was a rip! And, they wouldn't let us use generic refills of other brands.
So, she got an HP MFP M140W B&W laser printer. The cartridges are supposed to manage about 1,000 pages before needing to be replaced.
She's getting the low ink warning after roughly 250-300 pages. This has happened several times.
I'm pretty much done with HP—I expect it's their software.
Sooooo…anyone have a printer they are happy with which is reliable and reasonable on toner and refill prices?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
I purchased a Brother B&W laser printer with copier and scanner for $150 at Walmart. I must say it's the best printer I've ever had. Comes with a partially filled cartridge which will do about 1500-2000 pages. Replacement ink is expensive for all printers and it sometimes is cheaper to buy a new printer. But I've had and used the Brother printer for years now on the cartridge that came with it.
Wi-Fi or Ethernet cable possible.
 
Forgot to mention this. The same printer was available for about $50 less at Walmart but doesn't have the ability to scan or copy. I figured for the small price difference I would get the one that copies and scans. Very handy features to have.
 
Mortalis said:
Louie
How much do you use your printer? Saying you've had it for 2 1/2 years is a rather ambiguous statement. Not that I am doubting your happiness with the unit.
I ask because I am curious and interested in Epson ECO printers. My wife prints multiple 10 page documents for her job and spends a lot of money on the HP cartridges.
Click to expand...
Fair question, but something that is hard to quantify. Rick Bergeron mentioned that ET printers keep a running record of the number of copies, but I haven't found a way to retrieve that number. Just found it. Our printing total so far is 4245 pages since September 2022.

Our printer is set up on our home network where my wife and I can both access it - and out son also though he doesn't do a lot of printing. And we can print from either our computers, tablets or phones. We generally use it in draft mode, and try to always print back-to-back - to reduce the rate of consumption of both ink and paper. I occasionally do some photographic printing - using photo paper and with the printer set to squirt more ink - but that's probably two or three times a year at most. Wife prints a lot of stuff - recipes, knitting patterns, etc. I'm desperately trying to move into the 21st century and reduce the amount of printing that I do, but I sill like to have a hard copy of important records. And I'm finding that more and more, I have to print those records myself because the businesses who used to send me stuff in the mail are now going to on-line data. So even my monthly bank statement is something that I now have to print myself.
 
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monophoto said:
Rick

How can that number be retrieved?

I can't find anything in either menu on the printer display, or in the various setting/status screens that I can see from my computer.
Click to expand...
Louie, on my ET-2850 it is screen 6/9 of the settings menu

Settings/print counter. (On my ET-2850) menu 6/9
 

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Thanks Rick

On mine, there is a link on the 'maintenance' tab of the print preferences menu. It can also be found by doing a print-nozzle test.

They appear to have tried to hide as much as possible. The people who design these menus clearly don't actually use them!
 
WriteON said:
I have 2 Brother HL L2405W. Black print. Laser printer. Would buy again and again... Got them from BH Photo in NY...shipped to Pa and Fl.
edit...have not purchased refills yet.
Click to expand...
I think the Brother B&W laser printer is excellent. I've had mine about two years. Do a fair amount of printing and I'm still on the partially filled cartridge that came with it. The print quality is great.
 
I;m not at my printer (4850) until tomorrow (Thursday 3rd)), but I print "about" 3 reams a year with about 10% duplex (front and back). After the initial tank filling, I have refilled it once. I usually print a full half page to full page in quality mode. I had a 3850 at home, but gave it to my daughter and got a 4850 because on one thing that is not a big deal to most - The 3850 has a slightly smaller LCD but the touch button to operate the LCD is off to the side. The 4850's LCD screen itself is "touch". The difference is like that of a laptop with keyboard/mouse versus iPad with touch screen for operation. On the printer I work MUCH better with the touch screen operation.

That said, my wife and kids (when they visit) and I also use the EcoTanks wirelessly without a problem. I do 8 to 10 scans a month. I don't do graphics art like I used to but if I want to do something like that, I do full quality mode and photo paper. It does as good now as my $1000 Epson photo printer I had in Japan back in 2004 - 2006.

I bought a Brother 3170 CDW color laser back in 2012 and still have it. It doesn't print card stock well, and for current speeds is slow by today's standards, but it still works and does well for general color correspondence, but it doesn't do true photographic quality. The price of the cartridges are not that much with the generic ones but it is about the cost of the EcoTank per sheet. It is still a slow reliable work horse, and fairly cheap per sheet printed.
 
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