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cheap printer (and cheap ink) recommendation please

LGabrielPhoto

LGabrielPhoto

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Hi!
Was checking the printers at walmart after a long time without looking at printers and was sad to see that nothing has changed...get a $30 printer and spend $30 on replacement ink...just amazing...
In any case, this is mostly for printing sheet music as I dont think printing photos at home is really affordable so maybe that HP desktjet 1000 with the $11 dollar black ink could be the one.
Any other recommendations?
Thanks
 
If you are fine with black and white, what about a laser printer? You can get a cheap laser for $50 and toner is about $20-40 depending on the printer but that toner lasts for thousands of pages.
 
Indeed that is a good idea. I will look for cheap laser ones. Any model you recommend?
Thanks!
 
The problem with laser printers is that they take a crazy amount of energy while printing to keep the drum hot. This issue can range from being a measurable increase in your electric bill to not being able to run the printer at all (if your outlet isn't up to the task -- though this would be a problem in older homes, I think).

If you're worried about ink prices, OP, then you can try one of those do it yourself kits, or find compatible ink cartridge on monoprice ( http://www.monoprice.com/home/find_toner.asp ). Another alternative is I know some companies that can actually refill your cartridge for you. The microcenter I live somewhat close to do does this.

Careful of HP printers. Their drivers suck. Also, my friend's HP color printer will not allow him to print documents if one of the cartridges is empty. That is to say, if his black ink cartridge is empty but his color cartridge is full, the printer will not print.

I would only consider a laser printer if you were printing out a lot of documents at once. As in, you were printing out 30 copies of sheet music for a class or something on a weekly basis. If you do want to go the laser route though, my friends swear by brother.
 
Ryun said:
The problem with laser printers is that they take a crazy amount of energy while printing to keep the drum hot. This issue can range from being a measurable increase in your electric bill to not being able to run the printer at all (if your outlet isn't up to the task -- though this would be a problem in older homes, I think).
Click to expand...

This isn't 1995 anymore....

I would only consider a laser printer if you were printing out a lot of documents at once. As in, you were printing out 30 copies of sheet music for a class or something on a weekly basis. If you do want to go the laser route though, my friends swear by brother.
Click to expand...

The only good printers hp makes are the laser printers. Their ink jets are crap, their lasers are pretty good. Also with a laser you don't have to worry about the ink drying out if you don't print every so often. Lasers have come along way and are alot better than inkjets in just about everything except photo printing and they really don't consume all that much electricity any more. Not nearly as much as you make it out to be, maybe 5 to 10 years ago yes but not now.
 
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You can get Samsung monochrome lasers for around $60, colors for around $120. Got my samsung wifi color laser around BF last year for $90, IIRC. You can find HP monochrome lasers for around $80-$100. I haven't replaced my Samsung toners yet, but my HP toners cost around $12.

Epson also does that stupid "no printing with a single empty color cartridge," despite your black and white document not needing that particular color of ink.
 
munkle said:
This isn't 1995 anymore....
Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean?

If you look at the spec sheets for some of the laser printers out there a lot of them have a max power draw of 400W while printing. Ink jets, from what I've seen from spec sheets, use a fraction of that; around 20W max while printing.

Another shot against laser printers is the cheapest ones start at around $60-$70. For that amount you can buy a solid ink jet that can print color, doubles as a scanner/copier, and possibly fax. Further, there are several ways to obtain cheap ink (from buying the right printer model to buying 3rd party solutions).

If the OP is anything like me, then I don't print that often, maybe once or twice a month. I've probably kept my current black cartridge for at least 6 months to a year, and I've had my color cartridge for over a year (I haven't had any problems with my ink drying out also).

Obviously ink jets have their own set of problems (higher cost of ownership per page per ink cartridge, highly toxic ink to name a few), and laser printers are fantastic for what they do. However, if the OP doesn't print that often I'm not convinced a laser printer is the right choice. That's all.
 
Ryun said:
Not sure what you mean?

If you look at the spec sheets for some of the laser printers out there a lot of them have a max power draw of 400W while printing. Ink jets, from what I've seen from spec sheets, use a fraction of that; around 20W max while printing.
Click to expand...

400w is a whole lot less than what you were saying before. Before you said they used so much your outlet might not be able to power them. Most outlets can deliver 10 amps or 1200watts, so you were implying that lasers used around that much. Which is why I said this isn't 1995 any more meaning lasers aren't giant ugly energy sucking boxes. And max rating doesn't mean it uses that much either. If you want I'll plug my laser printer into my watt meter and I bet it doesn't use anywhere near 400w.

Electricity usage is the last thing I would be concerned about in a home printer. Newer lasers turn on, print pages, and turn off, they don't suck down juice like they once did. But it is more than an inkjet.
 
I gotcha. Yeah, in college I lived in some pretty crappy places so it was certainly a concern for me, hah. :D
 
I am almost ready to buy now...I have two in mind, completely different animals...the Brother HL-2240 laser at $60 or the HP 3050 wireless/scanner/printer for $50 (even considered going ultra cheap with the Deskjet 1000 for $30).
Right now my main thing will be printing music sheets to practice piano and violin. Also lyrics for when I am singing a song that I just cant get into my head lol
I do have an old HP printer around that has scanner so while I dont want to have to things , one for printing and one scanner...in reality if I ever need to scan something (which has not happen in 2 years) then I can just use that one.
So my main thing is getting the most pages per ink.
Now, it seems the laser one says 1200 pages for the regular toner and 2400 for the other one.
But i read at HP that the 2240 does 192 pages for the black ink...so yeah 192 vs 1200...even at $44 it seems the price difference is half (about $88 to match the 1200 pages of the laser).
The HP black ink is about $14 at walmart while the toner is about $45 ( I did saw a refurbished one for $16 at ink grabber .com)
So basically, I want to make sure that if I go print crazy with some manuals for my vst instruments (samples) for example, I am using the printer that is giving me the most pages for my money. Right now it seems the laser is the ONE to choose unless I am messing up my information. :D
 
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The ultimate deciding factor should be how often you print. If you're printing music sheets and lyrics at least twice a week, then you should be fine with an inkjet. If your printing habits are more sporadic -- as in, there may be times where you don't print anything for months -- you should consider a cheap monochrome laser printer.

Those print numbers are under "ideal" conditions, which can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. Though toner cartridges are more expensive than ink cartridges, more often than not, they can print more pages per cartridge(s).
 
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True....now if that $16 refurbished toner is good and wont kill my printer then I would jump on the laser but last time I used non oem ink on an old Epson (many years ago though) it ended up with my printer in the trash can.
 
That will work. Brother printers have recently been lauded for excellent performance and customer service.

Make sure that you buy an extra toner cartridge soon. The "starter" cartridges are normally good for less than 1000 pages.
 
Yeah I think it says 700 or so. That should keep me busy for a while.
My only concern is that I have seen some "refurbished" replacement toners for cheap but I also read some comments at CNET about somebody buying some 3rd party toners and the Printer didnt take it and after calling Brother he was told that the printer had a chip to reject non brother toners?! IN any case, a refurbished Brother toner sohuld still be good I guess.
It also depends on how long this 700 page toner lasts me...if I see that I can go a long time with that, then I may just buy the original toner and not risk damaging the printer. :)
 
The problem is that unless you try the third-party/refurbished toner cartridges yourself, there's really no way of determining whether or not the cartridge that you're considering is any good.
 
Very true so when the time comes it would take a lot of research indeed. I do hope that the low toner mode is good for a long time though based on my printing needs.
We shall see. I am happy though that I got a pretty decent price for laser and wireless I think. :)
Well Newegg seems to have a good price for the extended toner so I may just get it from there.
 
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