Home printer recommendation for light / occasional use

[Nesty1760]

Hi All

I am looking for home use printer recommendations. I currently have a HP Envy 5532, it’s about a couple of years old. I don’t use it often, but occasionally may want to print every couple of months etc.

However, I am having issues with it and the whole HP scenario, ink cartridges not working when ink halfway in them, having to keep buying genuine cartridges at extortionate price, otherwise it detects a re-manufactured cartridge and screws it up for you on purpose, then when you do place in a genuine cartridge in the machine, it just wants to keeps printing a set up page, every time you turn it on.

In summary, I have just had enough of HP and looking for am alternative manufacturer 3 in 1 printer, in the range to £150, which will serve the purposes as an occasional printer.

Any recommendations?

 

[Basinguy]

I've had probably most males over the years.

Canon and Kodak were absolute junk so would avoid at all costs.

Last time I had an Epson which worked very well and lasted several years but hadn't printed in about a month and the head dried out. Bought a new print head and it suddenly decided to refuse all cartridges so binned it.

Bought a HP this time which has its drawbacks (subscribe to ink notifications constantly, give us all your details or we'll make scanning anything a pain in the arse) but it's tiny and only cost £40. Cartridges are c.£15 each and have the massive benefit of having the print head in the cartridge so get refreshed every time.

For your budget I'd definitely recommend Epson

 

[Fe_man2000]

I have the opposite experience with the Canon I have (which has the printer heads in the carts which is why I think its been so good) has been the longest working one I have ever had and I dont print much so the issue was it standing around and dying from lack of use rather than wearing out.

Canon MG5750 - it cost around £60 and I dont use genuine carts ever. I get a full set for around £17.
Not sure what the current model of this is now.

 

[sep8001]

Not sure if you need b&w or a colour printer, if it is only b&w we have this one

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8508205

And third party toners are also cheap

Amazon product

We bought this in the first lock down and have used it to print all the kids work etc

 

[LV426]

I'd share Fe_man2000 's experience with Canon - in my experience way, way better at not clogging up and longer-lived than Epson. I think, though, the general view is that a laser printer will be more suited to occasional use than any inkjet since they are inherently "dry" (and therefore, don't dry out). My Brother (colour) laser is almost as good as an inexpensive inkjet for photographic work, given decent paper. Yes, the upfront costs tend to be higher but typically the "starter" toner cartridges come with something like 10x the life of a typical inkjet. And high capacity replacements (whether genuine or not) have 2.5 or 3x the life of regular cartridges so may well last you years. Mono printers are somewhat cheaper. And they are typically physically larger than inkjets - esp colour ones.

 

[Sloppy Bob]

I recently bought a 3 in one HP and wouldn't recommend it. I only got it really for a scanner and copier with very occasional colour printing as I have a Samsung laser for my general printing needs.

The HP instant ink is an absolute scam where you pay a fixed price per month and get so many pages to print as part of that with cartridges sent as and when required. I never use the free minimum so it's fine for my needs.

The issue I can easily see with it is not only the price, which we all know ink cartridges are utterly ridiculous, is that if you're not printing frequently the heads/cartridges dry up, you then need a new cartridge but it's still 70% full, so you're not due one.

TL;DR

I wouldn't recommend an HP using the instant ink system.

 

[EndlessWaves]

A lot of the issues with catridges only affects cheaper inkjets. The more expensive ones tend to happily accept third party catridges and do a much better job at keeping the ink flowing.

But even they have their limits and if it's only being used once every two months on average I wouldn't go down that route, especially as they have much larger cartridges.

I'd either just use a print on demand service or if it has to be done instantly and at home then get a laser as a lot of the downsides of cheap lasers won't affect you.

 

[oneman]

If its only occasional printing then I believe that HP Instant ink includes a few pages without any cost though I hear it is ending soon. Think they also also rollover of unused pages.

 

[vacant]

Do you need copier and scanner functionality? We have a cheap laser for printing out return labels once every few months but we don't miss a scanner or copier as phone cameras are so good these days. The laser is years old and probably came with a low capacity toner cartridge but it hasn't run out and obviously doesn't dry out.