Hi

I'm looking at buying a new printer for home, something that will do from word documents to photos without costing mega dollars for ink.

Has anybody found a good economical printer, I don't care if its multi function or printer only.

Steve

Steve.. The best choice depends on your need for photos.. I buy a stack of mono lasers (eg Brother) from officeworks and the like.. Never more than $150.00. They are reliable and last a long time.. We deploy them to customer sites so $$ is more important than extra function.. If you only want the occasional photo then I would suggest a mono laser and take your photos to a print shop (eg officeworks etc) on a mem stick

Hi

I will look at the Brother Laser printers. I noticed on the office works sites that drums are $208, how often do they need replacing and how long does the toner last, I know that is like how long is a piece of string?

I have a Lexmark Z35 and the ink cost a bomb and doesn't last very long, I do need to occasionally print colour certificates.

Steve

Mate.. they last at least two 10,000 copy toners before the drum folds.. then you throw them away and get a new one.. However, if you use color a lot, not sure.. I have an old (very old) HP Color laser 5m which is hopper fed with toner bottles.. Bloody slow but good enough for low quality (not photo) prints..

i have dell colour laser, toner cost a heap but lasts and lasts and also have a epson all in one great photo prints ink is cheap would recomend printer cost about $120 ink is about $13 a cartridge at big W

I have been selling photocopiers for over 20 years and it has been my experience that ink jet printers will cost you about 12c per page for a typical black page. A colour page will be between $1 and $2 on average. The same done from a colour laser would be 4c - 7c for black and 30c - 80c for colour. The inkjet machine is a lot cheaper to buy than a laser but if you don't use it a lot, the ink can dry in the nozzles and even if you do use them lots, they waste a lot of ink cleaning their nozzles. It will be a lot cheaper if you can refill the ink cartridges but you need to make sure you have 4 separate colour tanks, not the combined tanks with cyan/magenta/yellow in one and then black in a separate one.

In general, it is better to go to a copy shop or officeworks etc and print it out there. Having said that though, some inkjets are capable of the most stunning colour photo prints but you have to use the special paper that will cost you over a dollar per sheet.

Yogie

I'm a tight arse so I only let my family print out when it was absolutely necessary. So I have stuffed a HP and epson printer with clogged nozzles. So now my employer prints anyhting I have to print. Not always convenient when the kid needs something for the next day of school, but hey, it might teach her to plan better.

Pretty sure all the cheap printers make their money back by expensive cartrdiges so I've never bought one of those. Which is why my 2 stuffed moderately expensive printers are even more dissappointing. Do laser printers have problems when you dont use them enough?

Hi

OK I'm convinced not to try and print photos at home, I still need to do the odd colour print job, so I'm thinking of buying a Samsung CLP-315 colour laser printer. Any thoughts anyone?

Steve

Running a HP color laser.. my suggestion is go OEM toner and inks only, what ever you buy.. after market will just turn shit... we keep a directory on the desktop and drop photos in there we want to print, then when a 10c per photo special comes up at the local harvey norman we had down with plenty of pics to print....

ps, was that you handing out sausage at the boris day???

Hi

I was doing the cooking and serving some of the time, Camo and Big Rudi were as well. I had a Garret hat on and a black AVD shirt.

Steve

all good, thats for the roll, went down very well!....

quote...Running a HP color laser
yes hp have always made very good printers
the cheaper the printer the $$$ the cartridge
lexmark are cheap as chip 38 bux but they make the money back and they not a great printer
a friend got a nice samsung laser cheap
but you carn't beat the old BJ 210 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi

Thanks for everyone's input, I bought the Samsung CLP-315, I've only done a test print so far, very impressed. It looks as good if not better than junk mail.

Steve

Hi

Good score, I hope nobody from Samsung visits here.

Steve