Home printer recommendation?

[Harry Hagan]

Since retiring, I rarely need to print a hard copy for personal use unless something needs to be mailed or handed to someone else. I go the digital PDF route these days.

I’ve saved a bundle on HP ink cartridges, paper, and postage. It’s also a lot easier organize and search for digital files.

[Gordon Eyre]

I have had a HP laser printer for 18 years now and it is still going strong. It is an office model and doesn't do all the things like scan, fax, etc. but it is a great B&W printer.

[Chuck Wintle]

Since retiring, I rarely need to print a hard copy for personal use unless something needs to be mailed or handed to someone else. I go the digital PDF route these days.

I’ve saved a bundle on HP ink cartridges, paper, and postage. It’s also a lot easier organize and search for digital files.

I am all for the digital PDF route but sometimes one needs a paper copy as these do not require batteries, do not break if dropped and can be marked up if changes need to be made. Somehow paper will be here for a long time in my opinion. That said I have an inexpensive brother laser printer that suits my needs. If I need a color print then a trip to the local staples takes care of it. The cartridge that comes with the printer is a "starter" cartridge that will print maybe 500 sheets. For $25 i bought a refill kit with the toner and the parts, plastic gear and a spring, to make it refillable in the future.

[Scott Donley]

I have an HP that I never use and last time I tried it the ink had dried out, that was it, 50 for new ink. I bought a Brother HL-2270DW laser printer about 2 years ago, pluses, it's wireless has never not worked, never needed any "fixing". I tend to not need a printer often, sometimes as long as 3 months between printing, but when I do it seems to be a lot.
The only negative is it has to be connected to the computer to set it up, if I change routers not sure what I am going to do.
If I buy anothe printer, it will be a Brother.

[Jason Roehl]

I'm going to toss out another name I haven't seen here, yet: Samsung. We have a B&W all-in-one that's been going strong for 6ish years. The only hiccups have been external to the printer--my wife tried to print an iron-on transfer (doh!--don't tell her I mention this in public!), which cost us a new drum, and I had to replace the power supply board after a lightning strike. Both required some major surgery, but it wasn't that bad in the end. I think we gave ~$150 or so for the printer, and I would definitely go with a Samsung laser again. We homeschool as well as chair a homeschool cooperative, so my wife does quite a bit of printing, and the toner costs are negligible.

[Rich Enders]

HP Officejet Pro 8600. Multifunction, 2 sided printing and scanning, low ink usage, reasonable footprint, Wi-Fi, user friendly software, automatic software updates, we have 4 in continual office use for years.

Probably all of the manufacturers are getting better, but this design is measurably better than our past experiences with Brother, and Epson, and ....

One added point. If you will be doing a lot of scanning, the new stand alone scanners can take a pocket full of completely different sized receipts and deal with them in seconds.

[Jerome Stanek]

I still use a Panisonic Dot matrix printer for some of my stuff. I know it is old school but it prints my 5 part copies and 3 part tax forms.

[Jim Matthews]

+1 on the Pixma line.

Price per copy isn't cheap, for any of the quality printers.
They're basically giving you the box at cost, so you'll buy their ink.

I've got my older M620 on the home network, wireless.
Setting it up requires a cumbersome hardwire connection, first.

It's quiet, scans 11x14 and prints fast.
3.5 years and counting in a home setting -
so, light use.

FWIW - I suggest printers with few lids and louvers for an office setting.
Staff won't treat your equipment like it's theirs...I'm just sayin'

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[Curt Harms]

I have an HP that I never use and last time I tried it the ink had dried out, that was it, 50 for new ink. I bought a Brother HL-2270DW laser printer about 2 years ago, pluses, it's wireless has never not worked, never needed any "fixing". I tend to not need a printer often, sometimes as long as 3 months between printing, but when I do it seems to be a lot.
The only negative is it has to be connected to the computer to set it up, if I change routers not sure what I am going to do.
If I buy anothe printer, it will be a Brother.

I'm not really up to speed on Windows networking and Brother - I use Linux 99% of the time - but the I.P. address of the printer shouldn't change assuming the printer's I.P. address is static. Would changing routers make a difference? Maybe note the I.P. address of your current router and assign that I.P. address to any new routers if needed? One reason I prefer Brother is their support for Linux. Brother & HP are very good there.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I'm going to toss out another name I haven't seen here, yet: Samsung

I used to repair those a long time ago!
AFAIK, they were the only manufacturer that still did component level replacement.
Thankfully, there weren't that many of them around.
The one laser printer I worked on had a bad transistor on the mother board & it took the better part of two days to find out which one it was.
Heck, it took nearly half a day just to find the leads to the o-scope in the shop!!!
I finally tracked it down, ordered it ( a whopping $.25 part) and soldered a new one in place.

Samsung paid us a whole $20.00 for the warranty claim.

I told the owner he should drop Samsung since it cost us so much money for one small repair.
He just shrugged his shoulders and gave me a funny look.

[Gerold Griffin]

Had to get a new printer last week. I had a large amount of paperwork that had to be scanned into PDF and sent out. Looked around on line at the various printer scanner copier combo's. Found a Brother at Office Max that looked good and a couple of others. Only problem is Office Max is about 2 Hours away and no one else locally carried it. Went to Best Buy and told the sales clerk what I wanted the machine to do. She took me to my number 2 choice, a Epson Workforce 3540. It prints copies scans and faxes. It can be used wifi. After getting it set up we scanned in over a ream of paper with no problems. This may not be the best in class but it works and I am very happy with it. Best Buy had it for $140 and another 30 for the extended warranty.
Hope this helps.

[Len Henkel]

Had to get a new printer last week. I had a large amount of paperwork that had to be scanned into PDF and sent out. Looked around on line at the various printer scanner copier combo's. Found a Brother at Office Max that looked good and a couple of others. Only problem is Office Max is about 2 Hours away and no one else locally carried it. Went to Best Buy and told the sales clerk what I wanted the machine to do. She took me to my number 2 choice, a Epson Workforce 3540. It prints copies scans and faxes. It can be used wifi. After getting it set up we scanned in over a ream of paper with no problems. This may not be the best in class but it works and I am very happy with it. Best Buy had it for $140 and another 30 for the extended warranty.
Hope this helps.

I also found a Brother DCP-7085DN laser at Office Max on sale for $149. It's a printer/copier/ scanner with duplex printing. I've only had it for about 3 weeks. Since I do not need color very often black and white is fine with me. Everything works fine. the only issue I have is that it was manufactured/assembled in North Viet Nam. So I will deep six it at the first sign of malfunction.

[Dave Atkinson]

We're happy with our Epson Workforce 3540. Duplex printing and duplex copy/scan/fax. Print quality is quite good (except for draft-mode which is rather lumpy). Wifi works well. I've been impressed that scanning can be initiated either at the printer or at any network computer - older all-in-one we had could only scan to a locally-attached computer. Only potential drawback is that it's a pretty large unit.

[Marty Gulseth]

Wow! A lot of info, thanks to all.

Someone asked what was wrong with the one I had - well, ultimately I broke it. It had taken to not feeding on regular printing, I had cleaned, as best I could get to them, all the paper pick-up drums, etc. Several times, each time, it worked for a little shorter time. Then the copy/scan feeder started not picking up the paper in the in-tray. I cleaned those parts, same game - worked shorter time each cleaning. Then the watershed event - our daughter was home for the weekend, had a single sheet she needed scanned (some sort of document for some of her grad school work.) We put it in the scanner, pressed "GO", and the sheet jammed in the mechanism. Not wrinkled, just locked up tight. In the process of trying to extract the paper, something gave way and the entire copy/scan drive mechanism came out in pieces. Oops...

Right now, I'm kinda leaning toward a laser multifunction, if I can find one on sale. They ain't cheap.

Thanks for all the insights! Regards,

Marty

[Matt Meiser]

Last I looked Costco had the latest version of the Brother I have and the price wasn't bad (for a laser multifunction.)