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I have a very old HP laser printer that I liberated (legitimately) from an an old school build that I was managing (it was a small school with 30 teachers and each had their own office printer, thats another story) thats given up the ghost and looks expensive to fix. No plans to buy one as the cost per page would be huge.
I seldom print anything off but when I do its a pain not having one, talking the occasional A4 letter, parcel return info etc. no graphics or colour.
What do other non printer owners do/use???
. .
Just bought an HP scanner printer for £27 from Currys.Works perfect.
I have an ancient Canon inkjet printer. It's ok but as it get's used so infrequently, twice a year, it insists on doing a massive self-clean cycle and wastes loads of ink doing that.
Almost tempted to get a cheap laser printer as they can be had for £90 new, probably even cheaper secondhand.
We have two, a 10 year old Brother laser monochrome for day to day stuff and a similar age Epson inkjet colour for occasional use (using generic rather than Epson ink cartridges- £1.50 per cartridge is more acceptable than £18.50)
Me. <br />HP printer thing used only occasionally mainly for kid’s homework. That will be coming to an end in a few years. So, it’ll probably be my last one.
Just bought an HP scanner printer for £27 from Currys.Worksperfect.
Yep, always cheap as chips to buy but if used 6 times a year the cartridges dry/fail or whatever and you end up spending £15 to replace, to print off your single sheet of A4, repeat every 3 months or so...
Nope. I can use one at work if I need to, but I can't even remember the last time that was. Everything which used to have to be printed out - tickets, boarding passes etc - seems to be app/digital wallet based or they just email you a QR code or whatever now. Even the postie will bring you a label now when he picks up a parcel (at no cost as far as I can tell!)
lol. You'd bloody hope it works if you've only just bought it 😂 Won't last though, cheap inkjet printers are built to fail.Just bought an HP scanner printer for £27 from Currys.Works perfect.
What do other non printer owners do/use???
They come into my print-shop at 4.55pm on a Friday demanding their vitally important documents be printed straight away! 🤣
I'm after a cheap wireless one that I can send docs from my phone to print.
In the height of the 2020 WFH revolution I picked up an HP mono laser for about sixty quid.
Gets used once a month at most. Prints a perfect page every time, within a minute of being plugged in.
I am absolutely done with inkjet printers. THere are very few situations where a home inkjet printer does not have an extortinate cost per page printed.
Yeah, and I use the HP Instant Ink thing so pay very little, sometimes nothing per month.
People who don't have a printer at work to misuse.
After years of frustration with various brands of inkjet I gave up and bought a Brother mono lazer for about £100 - it’s been faultless, works from both laptop and mobile devices. The problem with inkjets is that unless they’re used regularly, they clog and waste ink going through head cleaning routines.
Recently had similar issues.
Just decided to make life easy and buy the which? Best buy and be done with it.
Life is easy again. It just works. Wireless print from a phone is brilliant, printed tons of colouring in sheets for the kids.
Similar to above, we have a HP printer/scanner.
OH has it on an instant ink subscription which I objected to on principal but TBH it works and unlike it's predecessor I don't have to battle with it, generic cartridge's, endless pop-up's, just press print (even the wireless printing works from my phone!) and occasionally a box of fresh ink turns up in the post. TBH for £2.99 a month it actually seems like good value purely for the lack of any faff!
Yep, always cheap as chips to buy but if used 6 times a year the cartridges dry/fail or whatever and you end up spending £15 to replace, to print off your single sheet of A4, repeat every 3 months or so…
Again, I was skeptical but with the subscription it all becomes someone else problem.
And build quality seems a big leap ahead from their low point a few years ago when yes they were basically trying to sell you a crap printer and a couple of sets of expensive cartridges before it died.
I have an HP Officejet Pro 9010 with HP Instant ink. It's decent when not having the usual printer connection issues
It's incredible how little ink it uses when you are paying a subscription, compared to when you are buying your own cartridges though... /cynic
Yes, cheap HP from Tesco about 4 years ago with the ink on subscription. Zero problems.
One HP on instant ink, one Samsung mono laser an offspring had at Uni and brought home. Both pretty painless.
HP instant ink here. Zero faff and for 3 quid a month I can print off as much as any normal human needs to. Syncs to home and work computers and phones without issue.
Pretty basic Brother colour laser, HL-3140CW. Seems to work well. Had it about 8 years. Runs on cheap, non branded toner. Prints wirelessly. Not fantastic print quality for images but ideal for labels, documents, templates, etc
We've got an old HP that I think is over a decade old now. Still functional, I tend to buy cheapo ink when it comes up. It's not in daily use but certainly weekly gets used for postage labels, event tickets, bits for the kids homework, etc.
It's useful enough that if it broke I would replace it...
HP Inkjet printer with a Instant Ink subscription work perfectly for our home needs.
Got a colour laser with work - thankfully as toners are not cheap. Tend to do bigger work mailings (rare) using hybrid mail https://www.cfh.com/ which is cool as they print pack and post for less than a stamp (unless multiple colour sheets). You either use their print driver or build the mailing.
I just use the local print shop. Ideally not at 4:55 in the afternoon just before it closes 🙂
I think I've printed maybe 4 pages of A4 this year? Certainly not worth having a home printer for that.
Yep, we have a Brother colour laser too, bought it about 5 years ago when there were silly cashback deals on them. Had gone through quite a few cheap inkjets that usually cost a fortune in ink and broke after a few years.
Don't have to think about it at all. Spends most of its time in deep sleep (well under 1W) and wakes up when we print. Put some paper in every few hundred sheets, toner every few thousand. Windows, Macs, phones, etc just find it and print with no driver faff.
Local library does printing for 10p/sheet which probably works out better if it's very rare usage. I find most of the parcel services now can do printing the label for you too.
I have HP Laserjet 2015d in my WFH setup, it seems to be only printer that family, in-laws and any other random folk have access to. <br />No idea how old this device is but I saved it from dumpster pile in office move about 10 years ago. Had plenty of driver issues in Win7 ,8 and 10 but Win11 seems OK in that sense. <br />One of these says I have to buy new ink cartridge but so far shaking the cartridge occasionally has been enough.
I've got a Brother (printer that is) in a box under a pile of junk somewhere.
I've got an old printer/scanner.
Mostly used for postage labels. Probably would buy another it it broke. Likely not a scanner though. That function on a phone is good enough now for what I need.
we just bought a xerox colour lazer printer for home use as the old epson scanner/printer was knackered and just a hateful object generally. The build quality on the new one is far nicer, prints fast double-sided, not much more you can ask for
They come into my print-shop at 4.55pm on a Friday demanding their vitally important documents be printed straight away! 🤣
A few months back I had to print some shipping docs for some equipment and our (elderly, rarely used, massively temperamental) printer rolled on its back and died.
I emailed our local print shop and asked them nicely, and lo, by 0845 the next morning the docs were printed ready for me to pick up.
When I got them (3 or 4 sheets of A4) the lady said: "£10.85 please", and I handed over my card and asked for a receipt -- I didn't care about the cost due to how last minute it was and the fact I was planning to expense it anyway. She looked at me funny: it turned out I'd misheard and it was £1.85 😀
OKI network colour laser printer, cheap from Aria years ago, hardly ever used, but saves a lot of hassle when it is.
I have a reasonable Canon thing, it replaced the previous version of the same Canon, i thought it'd use the same ink, apparently not...
But the last one was bought in 07 or 08 on a half price sale, so under 100 quid. Failed after about 8-9 years, bought a pattern head from a reseller in eastern europe somewhere for 20-30 quid. Got another couple of years out of it then gave it to father in law who still uses it now for printing out sudoku, crosswords and general stuff when the quality isn't that critical.
Got the new version and it's been flawless, stays connected to the WiFi, hasn't dried out, occasionally failed to notice that the ink is empty.
Use it every couple of months to print off a picture of the kids, or an official document.
Another one sick of inkjets never working when needed, I got a Samsung laser printer second hand a while back and it's probably paid for itself in dead cartridges averted by now.
Buy an ex-office HP LaserJet on eBay to replace the one you've got. I had an ancient Laserjet 4000 that I replaced with a colour one that looks like this £130 job on eBay
Original toner is expensive, but refilled carts aren't if your'e on a budget.
Another HP instant ink subscription here, with a HP Envy 7100 series printer since 2020 for kids lockdown homework.
After years of crappy devices and horribly expensive print cartridge replacement this set up actually works.
Replacement cartridges arrive in the post shortly BEFORE required, and have also received a replacement cartridge when the half full one got sticky and started leaving stripes.
i buy what ever is cheap b+w laser jet so i dont have the inkjet dried up ink issue.
my last one i bought when i started uni (20 years ago! ) and we only replaced it last year as it got knocked off the desk and the papertrays got mangled.
Moved to an HP with wifi and can print from phone its a revelation.
We don't use the printer often but when we do its invaluable.
have just taken delivery of an EPSON EcoTank ET-2810 - £140 with load of ink. The missus ordered it, so i've no idea if it's going to be any good, but will certainly be better than my 20year old Cannon MP492 that went through ink cartridges every 5 mins.
This Epson thing is wifi and that appears to work quie well having set up apps on phones and registered it on the wifi network to appear as anpother printer. It scans, prints (slowly i might add).
This printer comes with ink bottles that you use to re-fill, i thought that quite neat. anyway that's what i;ve got, i was going to get a lazer but apparantly i procrastinated too much (i call it research and waiting for the sales)
Similar to most - tired of failing inkjets as they would dry out due to lack of use.
Bought a Brother Laser printer (mono, scans, lives on the wifi, connects to every device in the house).
I think it's about £10/printout so far given how much use we give it....but i expect it to just tick along for a few years...
I hurled ours out of the back door in a bout of entirely justified rage. As it arced gracefully through the air it slowly opened up its vulnerable centre parts to reveal an unknown (to me) scanning facility with an A4 sized sheet of non-tempered glass.
Took hours to clean up. There may have been regret.
Still use one. Mostly print map extracts which can be heavy on yellow so switched from HP to Epsom so I only need redo one colour.
Who still has a home printer?
Nope, had 3 over the years but they always clogged up as I only used them for printing a few returns labels per year. Why don't the printer companies include a isopropyl alcohol cleaning mechanism to clear the print heads after occasional use?.
^ Rhetorical question btw, that would kill their business model.
Brother wireless laser b&w printer.
£150 from Amazon a year or so back.
Prints from any device from which you'd want to print in the house either direct or via Mopria print app.
Still on the starter toner.
Worth every penny imo for sporadic use. We print the odd set of entry/instructions documents for events, entry forms and other odds and ends.
Another happy Brother HL-3140CW Colour Laser Printer user here. Bought it back in Jan '19 as I changed jobs and my previous home printer was going back to my previous company with the rest of my IT stuff.
Still going strong, doesn't get loads of use, just 'works'. I only paid £113 from Mr Bezos back in the day, like everything it's doubled in price since. I'd still recommend it, pattern toner works and it's a reliable old thing.
No.
If I can, I use the printer at work.
If not, the local library does printing for 10p per sheet.
The only thing I’ve used it for is printing return labels and a lot of places have now gone to a system that you don’t need them.
Can’t see me buying one anytime soon.
Cheap wireless mono laser that does apple print from phones.
We use it so infrequently that inkjets just dry up. It's used primarily for parcel labels. Given most places can now bring a label or print them on demand in the shop, I suspect this will be the last one we have.
Yep, HP instant ink printer/scanner, worth the negligible cost for the convenience of needing the odd print.
Very occasional monochrome printing is the classic use case for a cheap laser printer.
Anyone who has ever used an inkjet infrequently will be painfully aware of the clogging issue, but as others have said Instant Ink gets around this problem. The cheapest plan is 99p/month for ten pages and this carries over (up to I think twice your monthly plan) if you don't use it. It seems you can get laser toner on the same scheme these days too, who knew.
Be aware that "starter cartridges" are a thing. A bargain basement printer might well have enough ink to spit out four pages before going "new cartridges please" so may not be the bargain it first appears.
The HP inkjet/scanner thing we have is several years old and was a prick of a thing to set up (because of course it was, it's a printer) but since then it's not missed a beat. It very occasionally shits itself and has to be restarted, but I suspect that's a side-effect of wireless printing through two-foot thick walls rather than any fault of its own.
We do! It’s primarily used as a shelf for a lamp. Mainly because the absolute bag of shit will print a single page in black ink before declaring it can’t continue to print because it has run out of cyan ink. **** you Canon.
As for the other half of the question,
I despise printers to the core of my being. Aside from them just being wilfully obstinate bastards on a good day, this whole mentality of people mindlessly printing shit out needs to change. At the old office they implemented a system where printouts weren't actually printed until the user went to collect them; consumables usage dropped to less than 40% of previous.
But as you say, that one day you need a paragraph on a piece of paper, it's a pain in the arse not to have one. My partner's setting up a business and is currently battering the thing to (see above) fill folders full of unread paper. I have finally got the concept of double-sided printing into her skull so that's something.
Her daughter (who doesn't live with us) has a Vinted habit, half of my usage is her emailing me address labels. We bought them a printer. Her bloke said he'd set up Instant Ink. He didn't. It ran out. She mails me address labels. Imagine my ****ing surprise.
Mind you, this is the same 20-something couple we donated a Dyson to. One day my partner casually mentions that she can't do their vacuuming (why are you even doing their... oh don't get me started) because they don't have a hoover. Wait, what happened to your old Dyson? "Oh, it's broke." Well... get it back here then, I'll take a look at it. I emptied it. It works again. FML.
Wife got into photography, bought a canon a3 photo printer, wife got out of photography. I have an excessively large paperweight next to my desk.
In fairness I bought it, she never said I had to. I've cleaned the jets many times, currently not been used for about 6 months so will need a full clean and flush cycle again next use, takes a while, lots of warm water and alcohol (for it, not me).
I should really get rid of it.
Needed a new printer last summer, was going to go brother colour laser for cheap cartridges. In the end was seduced by an A3+ Epson workforce inkjet scanner. I was going to use refillable cartridge with it, but decided Epson ready print subscription was reasonable value and no hassle. Same price and terms as the HP ink subs it seems. hammering ink usage on A4 photos has no penalty.
When family doing jigsaws, scan and print the box image blown up to A3 is useful.
Easy set up, direct from phone printing all good.
HP printer on less than 15 pages a month plan at £0 a month.
I have an HP printer scanner with HP Instant ink. It's great. However in order to scan (it's a wi-fi only unit) You have to use the HP Smart app. That is without question the worst piece of software I've had to use in the last 20 years. It seems to have been written by somebody who is wilfully ignorant of all IT conventions. Most times you try to scan it says "can't find the printer" while happily displaying "printer online" and showing up to date status and ink levels.
I must be lucky then as I've had the same Canon printer and scanner that's worked perfectly throughout for well over 10 years. Never clogged up, never failed to print and just keeps on trucking. Sits there doing nothing for months then just does it's thing when asked. It's currently doing Sterling work printing out a load of crap for my Dad's Estate and has been in constant use the last few weeks, only requiring a new Black ink cartridge as it had run out.
Maybe I should look after it s I've seemingly got the only good one in existence 🤣
Another vote for Instant Ink, I'm on the original tariff so it's just stupidly good, newer deals aren't as brilliant (I think they just got the economics of it a bit wrong first time round tbh) but it just takes away all the hassles of ink printers.
surfer
Free MemberWhat do other non printer owners do/use???
They mostly email it to me and ask me to print it out I think!
I am stunned to see people recommending HP, their dogshit printers, their dumb app, and their terrible Instant Ink subscription programme. Unreliable, expensive, slow.
politecameraaction
Free Member
I am stunned to see people recommending HP, their dogshit printers, their dumb app, and their terrible Instant Ink subscription programme. Unreliable, expensive, slow.
As a counter point. My experience has been nothing short of perfect.
After 5years of varying usage from a few pages a month to two degrees worth of printing. It lives under the dogs armchair on the floor and regularly gets mauled by the robohooover.
Completely faultlessly reliability from set up to the last print it's been trouble free. If you mean the delivery ink has always arrived well before it's needed.
Cheap. Well cheap enough to not to be noticed.
Slow... It prints kinda slow I guess if it's compared to a laser scanner but will pump out an eBay label faster than I can walk through.
I recommend HP because their inkjet printers, IMO, are the best on the market. I can't comment on how their software comperes to other makes as I don't know enough about that. I've never had a problem with the hardware, and the instant print option makes keeping it running easy.
Not sure what prompts the comment above about instant ink being terrible. Before it was an option everyone complained about the cost of ink. Instant ink eliminates that.
Regarding the cost of ink, obviously, the business plan of HP is to sell the hardware cheap and make money from the consumables, which is no different from many other companies. People don't seem to understand how difficult ink jet printing is: all inkjet printers have more tech in them then most other items of IT. Look at how many patents HP have related to ink jet. All that R+D has to be paid for.
As others. Wireless Brother B&W laser it just works from everything. Use it often.
Have an A3 HP printer that I got when I started new job 3 years ago which was WFH. The plan was to use it to print the building plans out in a half readable size that I need for site visits but I then discovered drop box has an offline feature so I now download what I need to view and use either my phone or a tablet to view them which is far easier and saves lugging an A3 folder round site.
Barely use the printer now.
I have an HP printer scanner with HP Instant ink. It’s great. However in order to scan (it’s a wi-fi only unit) You have to use the HP Smart app.
The inbuilt Windows 10 "Scan" app works just fine with mine.
Currently waiting for my wife to get home with a Brother ink tank thing. Need to print a quiz question sheet for this afternoon’s beer tasting. Hopefully the ink replacement is more cost effective than the old printer
In the olden days I had a liberated laser jet II that printer mono perfectly despite being low on toner for years
More recently we’ve got an HP something or other on instant ink that just works. Ink comes in the post, it cost pennies
Per month and all is well with the world.
The inbuilt Windows 10 “Scan” app works just fine with mine
Well I didn't know that. I just tried it out and it works. Thanks Cougar.
Every day's a school U3A day
Yeah. The HP Smart thing has its place but the scanning part is an asshole (because as previously mentioned, of course it is). The W10 app is basic but it isn't actively user-hostile.
We have a decent Brother laser printer, a bit more expensive than inkjets but not hugely and doesn't have the same problem of drying up/failing regularly. It actually gets used quite frequently nowadays for various charity things we are involved in (my wife mostly).
No workplace to sponge off here - or rather, our home was our workplace anyway, until we stopped!
Just checked, HL-3150CDW, obviously discontinued but still going strong and toner available.
Doesn't everyone just "scan" with their phone these days? Much easier and better than a flatbed scanner ever was IME. Maybe not if you need professional ultra-high-quality but for general use...
Another Epson Ecotank owner here. Had it for about 18 months, hardly use it but when I do it just fires up 1st time witno need to clean the print heads. Just works perfectly over the WiFi, which was easy to set up in computers and phones.
If it ever dies I'll probably just revert to using my colour laser at work.
I use the local library. 15p per sheet.
Another HP printer with instant ink. Just printed Wiggle return labels for a wetsuit that was too snall.
Doesn’t everyone just “scan” with their phone these days?
No, because there doesn't seem to be a single spot in my house where you can take an overhead photo without there being a shadow across it.
I use my inkless HP scanner, without the smart bit (there's another program in the suite that works fine).
I’m ‘living the dream’ and it appears probably the first Spanish purchase you need to make is a scanner/printer 🙂
so another Epson tank owner.
Local library user here. 15p per sheet and a nice place to go to boot. Helps that it’s near the post office, as it’s almost always return slips.
Another hp instant ink user here it is a pita but less of a pita than the alternatives which is using the local library
We have no need for a colour printer, so have a simple wireless B+W HP laser.
Cost about £100 iirc and just works. Can leave it months, send a page from my phone and it prints.
Gave up on inkjet many years ago, such a pain in the backside if you don't print often.
Also have a flatbed scanner although can't remember the last time it was used.
I have 2 HP laser printers (I will sell one of them shortly) and an Epson Scanner/Printer, all get used but only occasionally.
We run our small business from home. In order of use, our Brother inkjet wireless thingy gets used for
- Scanning: we still seem to have to do this a lot
- Printing A3 for stuff I need
- Printing for all our friends who have long decided it's easier to use our central print service 😉
I still print out insurance docs for when I'm away riding and boarding passes in case phone dies.
Printer is a few years old now, use cheap ink, doesn't seem to get blocked, occasionally loses connection to network, the touch interface is hateful, but all we every do is turn it off and on!
I always used to print stuff at work, but that became impossible/impractical during the pandemic, so I got a slightly battered but perfectly working Epson printer/scanner off Freecycle. When the ink ran out I bought a kit of refillable cartridge and ink off eBay for about £20.
Although you almost never need to print anything these days, sometimes it's handy to be able to, and it's nice to not have to wait til I'm in the office and remember.
Also makes me feel more like an adult 😄
Just replaced a HP with an Epson so that I dont get done everytime the yellow runs down. Mostly print map extracts - not going to faff about with touch screens on a wet hill or when paddling if I can help it. Still got pages and pages of paper with one blank side from my old job to get through.