Which all in one printer?

[Saxlicker]

Hi Guys and Girls,

I'm not a prolific user of any of the features on these things, it could easily go 6 weeks with out being used at all but occasionally I need any of the three functions.
I have decided £100 -£150 price range for a wifi model should do it for me.
Print and scan Quality is generally much better than 8 years ago anyway right or wrong?

Which brands have you tried that have best returns on ink prices?

Thanks for your thoughts

 

[AndyG]

Hi,
I used to have a lexmark which worked perfectly well but £40 a time to replace ink was getting silly, and the cheaper copies never seem to be the same quality.
So I changed to a Kodak ESP 5250 which is perfect. As you would imagine from Kodak, prints photos much better than any printer I have previously had.
Wireless connection, scanner, copier and ink price!!! about £16 for a colour and black and white replacement and they seem to last longer then the lexmark too. One thing it doesn't have is a direct camera to printer port (pictbridge), although it does have a memory card reader, but I didn't need that anyway and maybe some of their other models incorporate this if needed. There is however a Kodak iphone app so if I want I can print photos straight from my phone via wireless network.
I notice Amazon sell these now for about £84 with free delivery....think I paid about £100 for mine some months ago.
Im really happy with it, but no doubt others will have different opinions.
Good Luck

 

[jonf]

Historically, it's always been Canon, but the latest HP Photosmart Premium 309 is supposed to be ace, and was Which best buy. But to be honest, they're all pretty good these days. I use a cheapo Lexmark which cost me the princely sum of a bottle of wine and it does me fine.

However, with infrequent use, the biggest problem is ink clotting at the nozzle and jamming up the ink cartridge, so make sure whatever you choose has a nozzle cleaning utility. Try and use the printer once a week to prevent this.

 

[rhysonsax]

A few months ago I got a Canon Pixmar MP640 from Argos for just slightly above the price range you mention. The print quality and ease of scanning is miles better than my 5 year old Epson and the paper feeding seems better too.

I got it mainly for the WiFi connectivity, but it has some good features that I am using quite a lot.
1. Printing direct onto CDs for a quite professional looking demo disc (or whatever) - miles better than stick-on labels
2. Duplex printing built in so I can use both sides of the paper, in colour or B&W

It has already told me that the ink is running low, but it seems to have printed lots of pages since the message started. Unfortunately the Canon ink cartidges are pretty expensive and I have had bad experiences in the past with cheaper so-called compatible cartridges.

Rhys

 

[Saxlicker]

This is why you gotta love this forum

 

[old git]

Just replace a lovely six ink Epson for a campaign. Near Cartridge World so got an A4 laser and an all the works A3 Brothers, well you did say,give me the fax. The biggie automatically cleans the inkjet heads as long as you leave it plugged in, so no problems there then.

Cartridge World inks and toners have worked well and good savings compared with QE prices.

Just remember all the reasonably priced printers are cleverly engineered lumps of plastic and are not designed to last like those wonderful, deaf making impact printers. I'm still trying to get the stains off my fingers from trying to re-ink the ribbons.

 

[Saxlicker]

And on the other hand....
This is why you gotta love this forum ))

Just remember all the reasonably priced printers are cleverly engineered lumps of plastic and are not designed to last like those wonderful, deaf making impact printers. I'm still trying to get the stains off my fingers from trying to re-ink the ribbons.

 

[colindbelfast]

I've an HP Photosmart C4585 wireless all in one which I'm very happy with. Bought in Currys for about £60. Ink cartridges are not the cheapest but the XL sized ones are reasonable value, containing three times more ink than standard. Print quality is excellent and it's easy to use and setup.

 

[Sue]

I favour Epson and am happy with the SX600FW. Had it a while now so probably a newer model available. I thought it was reasonable priced and is wireless too. Good luck with your choice

 

[Fraser Jarvis]

I use a Canon MP830 that does everything but the Canon ink worked out at around £60 for the set of five cartriges from Viking, which to be fair is used in an office environment so we never use any colour just the black but the colour seems to run out just as fast as the black! you have no option but replace the colour though as the machine just wont work without them.

Staples were a bit better on ink prices but the cartridges you had to replace the chip with the one on the old cartridge were just crap, i now use nondescript ones i buy on ebay for £7.00 a set, thats £7.00 for a set of five with chips! work just fine and i'm sure you can get them for other makes as well.

 

[kevgermany]

A lot of these printers use all the colours at the same time to make up the black output. You may need to print in BW mode to prevent the colour carts from being used this way.

The comments are right about running costs. The business model is sellt eh kit really cheap and recover the costs on the consumables, especially ink.

May be worth looking at getting a laser based one, if they exist, but check out the toner cost/life carefully. One thing in favour of the lasers is that there's a lot less risk of damage from no-name refills. Another point in favour of lasers is that you don't get head clogging problems from occasional/infrequent use.

If wireless lan is a necessity, and you can't get the device you want in a wireless verison, consider installing a wireless repeater that also has ethernet ports and make sure the unit at least have a cable lan connection. Another altenative would be one of the lan kits that runs through the mains.

 

[Saxlicker]

I bought an Epson PX810FW in the end.
It's a wifi version.

I have had a torrid time setting it up and I actually thought I was good at that stuff.

New question is,

Are wifi all in ones just wifi on the printer or should the scanner work wirelessly as well?
Mine is prompting for a USB cable to be plugged in when I choose to scan from all in one to PC.

Thanks in advance

 

[MandyH]

we have a wired HP printer/scanner/copier which we later bought a WiFi unit for, so that all PCs in the house could use it remotely.
The scanner part also works via the WiFi, but you must connect to the printer first (via WiFi)
If you print via WiFi, the PC seems to "grab" the printer and start printing, but if you want to scan to your PC you need to "grab" it manually - we have a WiFi printer manager type icon in the system tray - just right click and connect.
I guess other makes might be similar?

 

[Pete Thomas]

Are wifi all in ones just wifi on the printer or should the scanner work wirelessly as well?
Mine is prompting for a USB cable to be plugged in when I choose to scan from all in one to PC.

It should do I believe, I just got an Epson.

First you have to get the printer on the network, which with mine (Epson PX720WD) you do from the printer control panel setup.

Somewhere on there gives you an IP address for the printer.

Then you find the scanner setup software that should have got installed, and add the scanner, giving it the IP address from the scanner control panel (unless it finds it automatically).

 

[Saxlicker]

Mandy, Pete,
Thank you for your help...
Now I know, I will try to set it up as per your suggestions that the scanner software comes after the printer and should be on the pC somewhere (I installed everything)...

 

[Pete Thomas]

Mandy, Pete,
Thank you for your help...
Now I know, I will try to set it up as per your suggestions that the scanner software comes after the printer and should be on the pC somewhere (I installed everything)...

BTW there is more than one scanner software, one is to do the scanning, the one you need is called Epson Scan Settings (well that is what it's called on a Mac).

One thing to note is that the IP address on the printer sometimes changes and you need to re do it. Very annoying.

Good luck.

 

[Filton]

You should be able to reserve the ip for the printer on your router so it doesn't change

You may find that if you find the printer in Windows>Start>(Control Panel)Devices and Printers that you can activate a scan direct from the printer properties by double clicking (or right-clicking) on the printer icon.

 

[Saxlicker]

I have partial success which I will probably run with so thanks all


Although the touch screen still shows only a USB to PC connection offering, I now have now located a scanner application in.............wait for it!
The applications folder.... now that's smart! ;}
One click opens this and all the print settings/sizes are there, after selection just hit scan and it saves to a file type and location of your choice via the wifi.

 

[gladsaxisme]

We've just bought an advent wifi printer scanner copier from pc world for £30 .mainly for the wifi we've still got a hp photo smart 2610 which we've used without trouble for many years will have to see how the advent compares best of luck with yours...john