Inexpensive color printer?

[dennis thompson]

I have a Brother laser black and white printer which works well for 99% of my printing. Every once in a while I would like to print a color page, say once or twice a week. Can anyone recommend a color printer for less than $100, since I will rarely use it, inkjet will be OK. I would want to have both printers connected.
Thanks

[Jim Becker]

Dennis, for incidental use, I'm going to suggest you get together with a friend who has a color printer. Why? While you can buy inexpensive color ink jet printers, it's the ink that costs you dearly. And while you might at first say, "But I'm only going to print a few pages once in awhile so the ink should last a long time", the truth is that even if you don't use it, the ink magically disappears/expires. This drives me bananas, but it's been that way for multiple printers from multiple manufacturers. I've only ever gotten a fraction of the number of pages that the ink was supposed to provide, whether I was printing a lot or not printing much at all. If I didn't have a need/desire to print photos on occasion, I'd bag the color printer all together and just have a lower end black and while laser printer.

If you do decide to buy a color printer, out of all the printers I've owned, I liked the Epson printers the best for photo quality.

[dennis thompson]

Dennis, for incidental use, I'm going to suggest you get together with a friend who has a color printer. Why? While you can buy inexpensive color ink jet printers, it's the ink that costs you dearly. And while you might at first say, "But I'm only going to print a few pages once in awhile so the ink should last a long time", the truth is that even if you don't use it, the ink magically disappears/expires. This drives me bananas, but it's been that way for multiple printers from multiple manufacturers. I've only ever gotten a fraction of the number of pages that the ink was supposed to provide, whether I was printing a lot or not printing much at all. If I didn't have a need/desire to print photos on occasion, I'd bag the color printer all together and just have a lower end black and while laser printer.

If you do decide to buy a color printer, out of all the printers I've owned, I liked the Epson printers the best for photo quality.

Jim
Thanks for the reply ,now that you mention it, I remember having the same problem in the past. I see a Brother color laser printer for $180 at Best Buy, maybe I need to stop being such a cheapskate and just buy it!

[Robert Engel]

If you know someone who would let you, perhaps a neighbor, I suggest you look into Google Cloud print.

Even the most inexpensive printers will work fine, but like Cody said there are issues with cartridge shelf life.

The ink cartridges in my dad's printer (which he rarely uses) just dried up.

[Howard Garner]

If you know someone who would let you, perhaps a neighbor, I suggest you look into Google Cloud print.

Even the most inexpensive printers will work fine, but like Cody said there are issues with cartridge shelf life.

The ink cartridges in my dad's printer (which he rarely uses) just dried up.

Dried up ink is why I got a color laser. Use it only for color work. My B&W laser does most of my printing.

Howard Garner

[Adam Herman]

we have a cannon mg5400 that we have been very happy with. We do not print often. The ink is fairly inexpensive on amazon from Blake printing supply and the printer uses a permanent print head. the ink is just a replaceable tank. we get ink about once a year, I just picked up 3 big black tanks and a 2x set of all the tanks black and color for about 25 bucks, should last us a couple years. Used for regular home stuff and craft projects. we probably average a few pages per week.

between the 2 of us, we had quite a few hp printers, none of these lasted for years with no trouble like the cannon.

[Steve Peterson]

$180 for a color laser is a good price. It probably comes with with partially filled teaser cartridges, but should last a lifetime at 1-2 pages per week. Laser cartridges should not dry up like inkjet cartridges.

You should also be able to find a color inkjet printer in the $30-50 price range that would work fine for an occasional print. Assume that you will need to buy cartridges every few years. It might still be cheaper overall.

[Jerome Stanek]

I see there is a Microcenter in NJ if you are cclose to it check out this one I have it and love it. I did get the open box one. I buy a lot of their open box units they have a very good return policy

http://www.microcenter.com/product/472492/E525w_Color_Multifunction_Laser_Printer?ob=1

[andy bessette]

I paid $200 for my brand new in box Canon Pro 100 large format, 8-color photo printer, off craigslist. So you should be able to come up with a high quality standard color printer for something close to your $100 budget.

[Stan Calow]

Ink-jet works just fine. Its the paper that makes a difference. I think Aldi's was selling an HP for $50 recently. Or you can have FedEx or Office Max print off the ones you really need.

[Tom Stenzel]

At the house we have a HP inkjet color printer. Like everyone else here we've found the inkjets don't last like they should making the total cost of ownership high. Getting the cartridges refilled can help with the cost. Usually after 3 refills the cartridge gives up the ghost.

After buying a new set of cartridges for the HP spending less than $200 for a color laser sounds cheap!

-Tom

[Nike Nihiser]

We have a Canon MG 7520 and like it. It's about 3 years old and trouble free with fairly light use. Amazon has it for $140. There's also a fairly through review on it at Amazon.

[Jerome Stanek]

I have had inkjets and they dry up and have to replace heads.

[Lee Schierer]

I have had inkjets and they dry up and have to replace heads.

We had the same problem and no longer use inkjets. When we need a color print. I go to one of the printing stores at 10 cents per copy your $100 will pay for 1,000 copies. Since color prints are rare, it is far cheaper than buying inkjet ink and print heads.

[Matt Meiser]

If you have a Fedex Office location nearby you might be able to print and pickup. Not sure who else offers that service. One of the problems with cheap printers is that the ink is often more than the printer and the initial cartridges are "starters" that have very little ink. Plus some of them install a bunch of crud on your computer, are difficult to get working on wireless, etc.

[Chuck Ellis]

Dennis,
I have an EPSON XP430 ink jet printer... I'm partial to EPSON printers anyway, but this one is an all in one, printer, copier and scanner for under $100.... Ink for the printer runs about $10 per cartridge and uses 4 cartridges.... black, blue, red and yellow. I find it to be an excellent and economical printer... plus it's actually a wireless printer if it's set up to be one... both mine and my wife's are wired only because I haven't set it up wireless and my desktop doesn't have wireless capability, though the wife's lap top does.

[Curt Harms]

Jim
Thanks for the reply ,now that you mention it, I remember having the same problem in the past. I see a Brother color laser printer for $180 at Best Buy, maybe I need to stop being such a cheapskate and just buy it!

$180 for a Brother HL-3170CDW is a nice price. If you're willing to take a bit of a risk, Walmart sells the same machine refurbished for $158.50. We just bought one. It was a bit of a hassle, it came with a black toner/drum assembly in place of one of the color assemblies. Brother sent the correct assembly no problem. Ink Jets are a problem if used infrequently like Jim says, the ink may dry in the print head and require one or more cleaning cycles which can use up quite a bit of ink. The only downside to color lasers over inkjets besides $$$ is photo quality; lasers generally aren't as good as a good inkjet. Color graphics are not bad by any means but the colors tend toward a little dark.

Max memory on the Brother is 128 MB, A comparable Canon machine can support up to 1 GB. I wonder if that has something to do with the graphics quality. As far as connections with the Brother, it supports USB, wired ethernet and wifi. You can have USB and one of the networking connections in use at the same time. 3rd party toner and drums are readily available. The Brother laser is not small if that matters.

[dennis thompson]

$180 for a Brother HL-3170CDW is a nice price. If you're willing to take a bit of a risk, Walmart sells the same machine refurbished for $158.50. We just bought one. It was a bit of a hassle, it came with a black toner/drum assembly in place of one of the color assemblies. Brother sent the correct assembly no problem. Ink Jets are a problem if used infrequently like Jim says, the ink may dry in the print head and require one or more cleaning cycles which can use up quite a bit of ink. The only downside to color lasers over inkjets besides $$$ is photo quality; lasers generally aren't as good as a good inkjet. Color graphics are not bad by any means but the colors tend toward a little dark.

Max memory on the Brother is 128 MB, A comparable Canon machine can support up to 1 GB. I wonder if that has something to do with the graphics quality. As far as connections with the Brother, it supports USB, wired ethernet and wifi. You can have USB and one of the networking connections in use at the same time. 3rd party toner and drums are readily available. The Brother laser is not small if that matters.

Curt ,thanks for your reply,given your experience I plan to buy a new one.
I found the Brother printer,new, for $160 at Amazon, I plan to go to Best Buy today and hope to get them to match the price, even if they don't I'll buy it for $180.
One thing I like about Best Buy is, if for some reason you don't like it, you can return it for 15 days, no questions asked. That being said, I'm very happy with the Brother black and white laser printer I have.

[Chuck Wintle]

I have a Brother laser black and white printer which works well for 99% of my printing. Every once in a while I would like to print a color page, say once or twice a week. Can anyone recommend a color printer for less than $100, since I will rarely use it, inkjet will be OK. I would want to have both printers connected.
Thanks

If I need color printing (rarely) I usually go to staples or some such store and have them print it for me.:D

[Jerome Stanek]

For me to go to staples or some other store costs to much as they are 20 miles away

[Michael Weber]

I have an old HP black only commercial laser printer that is built like a Sherman tank. It has the old parallel printer port. Is there an effective way to adapt this to act as a wireless or wired network printer?

[Adam Herman]

I have an old HP black only commercial laser printer that is built like a Sherman tank. It has the old parallel printer port. Is there an effective way to adapt this to act as a wireless or wired network printer?

you would need to add a device such as a D-Link DP-G321 print server.

[Steve Peterson]

One thing I like about Best Buy is, if for some reason you don't like it, you can return it for 15 days, no questions asked. That being said, I'm very happy with the Brother black and white laser printer I have.

The generous return policy probably assumes that the item is still in new condition. If you plug in the cartridges to print a few sheets, they may deduct the cost of the toner cartridges. $180 seems like a good price.

Steve

[Howard Garner]

I have that Brother HL3170CDW and am well satisfied with it.
Use it for color only and a different Brother for B&W.

Howard Garner

[Curt Harms]

I have an old HP black only commercial laser printer that is built like a Sherman tank. It has the old parallel printer port. Is there an effective way to adapt this to act as a wireless or wired network printer?

Yup, like Adam says, print server. I have a Netgear ethernet - parallel port device I used with an HP Ink Jet but haven't used it in years. If you're interested, I could see if I can find it.

[roger wiegand]

Not the same situation because we do a fair amount of printing, but price per page is what counts for me. I was going broke on ink cartridges. What ended up delivering the lowest cost in our house was a low end HP office laser printer that I found marked down to about $600. Our cost for mixed color and b&w is between 9 and 10 cents a page. There's not enough difference between the cost of color and b&w to worry about it, relieving one source of contention with the kids etc. It's painful spending $350 every couple of years on new cartridges (three color and two black), but they are good for thousands of pages. The cost per page in the small consumer laser printers was, when last I checked, much higher, like 30 cents a page. The quality of the printer is high, it's fast (about 20 ppm), and it seems to be quite efficient in its use of toner. I may be facing a crisis at some point because it's now about 14 years old and HP has not been updating the Mac drivers for it.

[dennis thompson]

I bought the Brother 3170CDW and plan to use it for color and use my black and white Brother for all other printing. I got it from Best Buy and I have to say for a company I used to hate,they have made a renarkable turn around. The last few times there the customer service has been excellent and the prices were also competitive. If you bring an Amazon price with you they will match it. Also the printer wasn't in stock and they shipped it to me for free.
Thanks everyone for you help with this decision.