Printers...

[carlbrainiac]

Really need some advise please people.
What with the market being absolutely flooded with printers it gives so much choice and price points and makes it very difficult to choose. Would really appreciate some help.

In terms of our printer needs. So ideally I don't want to spend the earth on a printer. I guess an all in one would be nice for the odd scanning job but to fair taking a picture of a document on a smart phone these days is usually adequate so I guess the main focus should be on the printer. Budget wise was hoping for maybe £50 or £60 ish but please advise if this is not realistic with our requirements.

I would like the most cost effective ink option possible as no point having a cheap printer if I'm then paying £40 every month on bloody cartridges. I have seen some ink tank printers but then heard that if you don't use very expensive paper the ink runs.

So in terms of printers use. It will likely be mostly used and probably very frequently used by my young son who would like to print off his characters pictures. I was then also looking at getting a laminator so he can laminate them as he gets upset when they get damaged being that they are only printed on paper. (He's autistic so it's challenging) I was also wondering if it is still possible to get that transfer paper which you print on and then iron the design onto a shirt as my son would love to do that.

In terms of the mine and partners use for the printer. Occasional text document printing. And occasional photo printing. Would be nice to have nice quality photo prints but then we aren't going to be printing massive pictures. Just the standard photo frame and album size photos. Would also be handy if it could do ID size photos for when we need to update our driving license etc.

Did consider laser printers as guessing they are pretty efficient but then not great at photos I have heard and when it does come time to replace the cartridge they can be expensive and guessing if you get non genuine ones then it affects the warranty of the printer. But then if I haven't spent too much on the printer then I won't be too worried about that.

In terms of brands. Canon keeps coming up as being good. Maybe HP.... Any brands to avoid like Covid 19?

Thoughts.... Suggestions.... Recommendations?

All very much appreciated.
Thank you

 

[SpyderTracks]

We used Epson for a long time, but I found their inks dried within the system and caused blockages often, leading to flat out useless printers once the warranty was out, wouldn’t recommend.

I actually worked at Canon on their business solutions team, and really fell in love with their stuff, it’s much easier to use, inks are better and we’ve had the current one running sporadically (only use it once or twice every other month) and no problems with blockages. Plus inks are easy to get hold of.

The model we’ve got is the TS6251 and it’s fantastic, but disconinued now. Before that we had a pixma which was also great.

You’ll need to up the budget though, around £100 would get you something half decent for images.

 

[Gavras]

I still have a Canon Pixma MG6150, it has been a life saver since lockdown and sorting out a house move.

don’t think I have scanned so many documents.

I bought my daughter a new multi function canon in February.

I rate Canon.

my main gripe with printers is the cartridges cost more than the printers lol.

 

[carlbrainiac]

Yeah I hate forking out all the time for printer cartridges. I just know my son is going to be printing a lot. And being that it's cartoon style characters he's going to be printing there's going to be lots of bright bold colours. Going to eat the ink alive. There just has to be a more cost effective way of doing it. But yes I agree I have been this whole time swaying towards Canon. And the pixma range does seem good but that's as far as I get. Canon Pixma. Then there are so many different numbers if front of those 2 words my brain fogs over and I have no idea what one to choose. lol Why can't each manufacturer just have 3 models. Cheap for text documents only. Mid Range for basic colour photo prints. And High end for Photographer quality level prints and office use. Would be so much easier lol.

 

[carlbrainiac]

Think I may have found the ideal printer to suit our needs. Canon so the brand that everyone seems to agree is the best. Along with the ecotank idea so most cost effective. It is the Canon Pixma G2501

 

[carlbrainiac]

Actually for not much more this one might be better

Canon G3501​

 

[carlbrainiac]

I've taken a chance on the Canon G3501. Hopefully I've made a good decision.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I've taken a chance on the Canon G3501. Hopefully I've made a good decision.

Oooo, that’s quite Primo, looks good!

 

[carlbrainiac]

Oooo, that’s quite Primo, looks good!

Yeah I'm hopeful it should be pretty good. Only negative I have read about it is the ink sits in some kind of sponge dispenser or something and that sponge will eventually need replacement and it's a consumable so not covered under any kind of warranty. And it isn't something you can do at home you have to take it to an authorised service centre which some people have said is £85. But to be for how often that is likely to need changing and the cost saving in ink far outweighs that occasional service cost. So I'm prepared to accept that. At the end of the day if you read enough reviews you'll find negatives on everything and you'll be so put off all the time you'll never buy anything

 

[SpyderTracks]

Yeah I'm hopeful it should be pretty good. Only negative I have read about it is the ink sits in some kind of sponge dispenser or something and that sponge will eventually need replacement and it's a consumable so not covered under any kind of warranty. And it isn't something you can do at home you have to take it to an authorised service centre which some people have said is £85. But to be for how often that is likely to need changing and the cost saving in ink far outweighs that occasional service cost. So I'm prepared to accept that. At the end of the day if you read enough reviews you'll find negatives on everything and you'll be so put off all the time you'll never buy anything

Absolutely. Canon are really good, I would always recommend them, they’re pretty much the pinnacle for both photography, image recognition, printing, almost anything image related, they know their stuff.

 

[ubuysa]

Regarding the Ink Tank printers and ink running, I have seen no evidence of that personally. Have had an Epson ET-2710 Ink Tank printer for 6 weeks or so and I use cheap Tesco printer paper and it prints absolutely fine. In fact, I found the printer to be so good, that my Mum got the same one as well.

Not cheap initially at £230 or so for the printer but the ink last a long time (black ink bottle lasts I think 5-7,000 pages and colour about 4,000 if memory serves). Also the ink doesn't dry on the nozzles if not used for a few weeks like my previous Inkjet printer. Haven't used the scanner yet so no idea if it's good. Wi-Fi was easy to set up and can even has an app for a smartphone to print from. Printing photos is surprisingly good given it's not a Photo printer

I would definitely recommend that Ink Tank printer as it's a lot more environmentally friendly than a normal Inkjet given that the ink comes in bottles rather than packets and lasts much longer between refills

Many thanks for the recommendation here @Nursemorph!

I've been looking at printers for some time, my current printer is a tiny Canon Pixma IP100. I got it some years ago only because it's small and didn't take up much space when we lived on the boat. The printing quality has been excellent and it's never put a foot wrong - it's still going strong too - but boy does it gobble ink! The two ink cartridges cost me close to €50 here too and I'll get through at least 3, possibly 4, sets a year.

On top of that my old Canon Lide flatbed scanner that I've had for many years isn't naively supported by Windows 10, so I've been using VuScan from Hamrick to drive it. I don't have the desk space to have it out all the time so it's also a bit of a fiddle getting it out and plugging it in and then waiting whilst it does it's POST thing.

For printing I was thinking of making the jump to a colour laser but I've been put off by the cost of a decent one and the cost of the toner - even though it lasts a while. I'd not heard of ink tank printers before so based on your post here I did some research. It seems that the photo quality is not as good as a standard inkjet but I don't usually print photos, just coloured documents. The massive ink life claimed by these printers is very attractive compared to the Canon cartridges and some have a built in scanner - so no more fiddling. I don't need photo quality scanning in any case, it's mostly documents I'm scanning.

After spending a few days comparing all the reviews I can find of the various multifunction ink tank printers, and comparing the different feature sets of the various printers available here, I've just ordered an Epson L3160 multifunction copy/scan/printer (no reviews mentioned ink drying so hopefully that issue is sorted). Not only was the L3160 the best featured device for my needs but a Greek electronics/computer chain (with a local store in town) had an offer on it of €199 (about £180) down from €225 and that looked like a steal to me, so I just ordered it online (the store itself is closed until the end of the month in the strict lockdown we have here). I've no idea whether they can deliver it during lockdown but there's no mad rush, the Canon IP100 is still going strong...

So thanks again @Nursemorph for educating me on the merits of ink tank printers.

BTW. It looks like Epson only do certain model ranges in certain countries, I couldn't find the L3160 at all on the UK or USA websites but it's quite popular on Middle East and Asia websites (and Greece obviously).

 

[ubuysa]

@ubuysa Glad you found my review helpful. Judging by the prices involved, I'd say the L3160 is a geogrpahical; variant of the one I have, just with a different button/display thing (on mine the buttons are confined to a small area on top rather than the big area at the front) as the rest of the printer looks identical (size, shape, placement of the tanks(. Hopefully, you'll be as happy with it as I am with mine

I suspect yours is sold here as the L3156? The only differences between that and the 3160 (apart from the offer on the 3160 of course!) was that the 3160 uses WPA2 WiFi security whilst the 3156 is only WPA and the 3160 can scan into more image formats than the 3156. The 3160 is a tad quieter too, 6.3 dbA compared to 6.5 dbA for the 3156 - no idea why because everything else is identical between the two - apart from the LCD screen and button locations on the 3160, but that's no big deal.

 

[ubuysa]

I thought I'd report back on here now I've had the Epson L3160 ink tank printer for a few days in case it helps anyone else.

I'm absolutely delighted with it, obviously I have no idea yet about the ink life, but adding ink to the tank is as simple as they make it sound. You just upend the bottle on to the appropriate valve (they're coded so you can't plug the wrong bottle in) and it empties in less than a minute. No drips, no spills, no mess at all in fact. I noticed that there is a small amount of ink left in each bottle when the full tank shuts the valve off. I don't know yet whether this can be added in later as the tank level drops or whether that ink can never be extracted. I got an extra black ink bottle in the box which will be handy (I think that's standard).

Setup is a doddle using the LCD screen and the printed instructions supplied are easier to follow than IKEA instructions!

It's very nicely put together, it looks neat, solid and well constructed. It's not heavy but it feels solid and robust. The fold out control panel at the front is easy to use, although it took a while for me to figure out how to input the WiFi password! The four ink tanks have opaque windows so that you can see the ink level in them, the mobile app also shows the ink levels graphically.

Printing is about as noisy as you'd expect for an inkjet (or any printer really), it's not excessive. The page margins are pretty small too, about 3mm. Printing pictures produces good results, the graining reported elsewhere isn't really obvious to me and the colours look good, if a tad pastel shaded (see later)

The scanner is fast, quiet and produces good results. The included Epson scan utility has enough options for me and is simple to use. Other TWAIN scanning tools work with it too, I used Corel Draw! to scan in an image with no problems. Copying is a breeze too, just press and go - just like a regular photocopier really.

I like that it has an auto-sleep function to save power, but it wakes up fast enough when you print. The slide out output tray catches the paper well (no more spraying sheets onto the floor) and although it looks well made and robust it sticks out a fair way and I'm a tad worried it could get damaged, so I slide it back in when not in use.

I have the printer connected via WiFi but USB 2.0 connection is also possible. WiFi connection makes it a network printer and with the appropriate (free) software we can print from any device; laptops, mobile phone, tablets etc. The printer even has its own email address and anything you send to it as an email, including (and especially) attachments is printed.

There are really only two negative things I've discovered....

The colours are a tad pastel for my tastes, I prefer really bold colours, I don't know whether that's because it's new of whether that's just how it is. It's not a huge deal, the colours are fine - printed photos look really good. It's probably my old eyes needs a lot of stimulation!

My biggest gripe is the input paper support. It's too narrow and only supports the paper in the centre, so the edges of the paper gradually drop down. It's not been a problem printing yet (or possibly at all) the paper feeds in easily, but it doesn't look nice - or professional. A couple of fold out arms to support the (near) full width of the paper would have been so much better.

Overall it's a great printer/scanner that works well, has lots of good features (like email printing), and it looks good on the desk. So far I'd give it 8 out of 10, the two points I'm dropping are for the input paper support and the less than vibrant colours. If the ink lasts as long as they claim then it really will have been a good buy.

 

[Gavras]

Good review.

as mentioned earlier I am still using my Canon Pixma MG6150, which I have had from 2010.

it has been a great workhorse and the amount of scanning lately has been crazy lol.

I personally think Printer manufacturers have concentrated too much on making new printers them cheap.

I hate to think of the markup on inks against their accompanying printer.

There seems to be a common trend with modern printers losing some mechanical functionality over older ones, paper feeds, doors that you need to manually drop down etc.

Having a Printer / Scanner / Copier networked is great, definitely a big bonus in the current climate.

I really like Canon inks but the Dick Turpin prices can be silly.