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Just wondered if anyone out there had any knowledge on printers and could give any advice on the best printer to buy.
In a nutshell, I currently have a HP all-in-one inkjet. It’s capable of photo-print quality, which I don’t necessarily need. I generally use it for printing off fact sheets, letters, and for scanning documents and I use the fast economical setting. It’s a good quality printer but it uses up cartridges like it’s going out of fashion! I dread to think how many cartridges I’d use if I was actually printing photographs!
I am so fed up with its ink consumption that I’m thinking of replacing it but the question is….what with? Does anybody have any recommendations for a good quality reasonably priced printer that goes easy on the ink?
Haveing tryed several myself , i now use the Lexmark x9350. It will do all the same
things as the one you have, and also has a fax facility. However it is quite big and takes
up quite a large space , as for the ink consumption , i find this has been the best so far ..Sorry to be so late on picking up this post.(Busy busy busy etc)
I have always had a problem with Lexmark printers. We used to include them in a “bundle” with a PC monitor etc. We bought them 1,000 at a time for around £4.50 each (special OEM price) and gave them away FOC with each new PC. Lexmark made their profit on the sale of the ink cartridges but the printers were cheap plastic cr*p.
My personal preference has always been for HP (as in Hewlett Packard) printers for several reasons. They use a metal chassis (as opposed to plastic construction) and are pretty robust. The software allows you great controllability of ink usage – printing “Best” quality simply pisses ink onto the paper and burns through cartridges at a rate of knots. Using “Normal” or better still “Draft” quality settings give you a nice balance between acceptable quality and acceptable ink consumption.
The ‘all in one’ printers offer extremely good value for money but I would steer well clear of ‘photo’ printers as these are geared primarily towards printing photograps and are high ink users.
Currently the “Officejet” all-in-one offers scanning, copying, faxing & of course printing with a great software bundle.
If you buy a “photo” printer usually the scanning software tends to allow production of .gif or .jpeg copies (aimed at the digital photographic market). So-called ‘business’ all-in-one printers generally allow you to scan stuff to a .pdf file as well which makes them far more flexible in practical usage.
Finally, it is always a good idea to buy an HP printer model as it reaches the end of its producion cycle and just before HP launches the successor model. They often sell off end of range models (brand new and ex-factory) for around £75 – £90 as opposed to £250 – £400. Don’t worry about the availability of cartridges as they are always available for several years after a particular model becomes ‘obsolete’.
Well i can assure mr pb mine was not a give away , and 18 monrhs ago i had Hp
was crap, each to there own ..Hi- just seen your question about your HP printer using loads of ink. Here are a few tips on how to save on ink:
1)If you’re just printing a draft or a record and can sacrifice quality, set printer to ‘low-quality’ mode. Go to >file >print and choose “draft output”, which prints a fast and low-quality draft copy without images. This will open the print menu. In the bottom left click >options and check >draft output.
2.) When you’re printing web pages there’s an online website editor, Printwhatyoulike.com, which allows you to optimise websites for printing by eliminating ads and white spaces so you only print what you need.
3) Turn your printer on and off manually
To save energy, turn your printer on only when you need it! And to keep the ink from drying out, turn the printer off manually. Don’t use the power strip! Using the manual on/off button activates a program and the printer will properly “park” the ink cartridges. In the park position the ink is protected from drying out quickly.
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