Have You Found Your Favorite Printer?!
Due to the large number of emails that I receive related to printers and ink, I thought it only appropriate to ask all of you to help me out with this topic of discussion. Although my printer works just fine, I am definitely not impressed with it enough to advertise and promote it on Hip2Save. So that brings me to the question at hand…do you have a printer that you absolutely love (or hate..it is always important to know what printers to avoid in the future). Here is an example of one of the emails that I recently received about this topic from reader, Amy…
I would love a post asking people what the best printers are out there. Since we are all frugal on this site, I would love to take into account purchase price, price of toner, and how long toner last. My boss lets me print some at work because we have an amount we are charged for regardless if we hit it (and we never do) but at home is a different story. I only print the ones I DEFINITELY want. This would just be a great way for everyone to help out each other when certain excellent printers go on sale. I love your site and thanks!
Do YOU have a favorite printer?! If so, please share the brand name, model number and about how much you paid for it. What do you like about this printer?
Where do you purchase your ink? Do you have any tips for snagging cheap ink that is not of poor quality?
For all you experienced couponers, how much do you spend on ink each month printing coupons (this is great information for new couponers who often wonder if they will spend more printing the coupons than what they will save using the coupons)?
If you have ideas, suggestions, feedback etc, let us know in the comment section below.
I have two printers; an HP Photosmart 3500 and an HP Photosmart 8150. The 8150 is newer and is the one I use. I kept the 3500 for printing on fabric as the fabric sheets can leave lint inside your printer. I love the HP Photosmart printers for printing photos, fabric, and so much more. The ink is expensive but I am very concervative in my usage. If you want to print photos or flyers, do not use a laser as the ink will not set as well and therefore will not last. (ie the picture will fade) My 8150 also has usb ports and ports for my digital camera’s stick. I can put the stick in the printer and print directly from it or load the pics onto my computer from the printer. I love it!
I HIGHLY suggest a Canon that has 5 ink wells. Then you can refill your own ink and save LOADS of money. I have a “printer guy” and he supplies me with ink. It costs $30 for the kit from him with 5 syringes and 5 bottles of ink. Then when he gives me a new bottle of ink it’s $7 and that lasts me 5-6 refills or more!
I have an HP 5150, I have had it since 2004 and have only replaced the cartridges 3 times, and I print A LOT. Great printer, great price, and Walgreens refills the ink for only 12.00 a cartridge.
I have the same printer & the ink lasts I changed it out about 6 months ago, print outrageous amounts of coupons & still have over half of the ink left. I just had my work get a new HP 8500 all-in-one printer because we had a Dell which I was changing the ink in it 2x’s a month for the color & black ink and we only did about 1/3 of what I print at home! I’ve now had the new printer for 3 months & haven’t changed the ink once.
I have an old HP Laserjet 2100. It uses a large toner. But I can’t remember how long it’s been since I changed toner – maybe 2 years?? Just recently recycled another one from work. The guy at the recycling place commented on how valued they are to the recycling world. He said “do whatever you can to keep the other one running, you’ll save loads on ink”
We have a HP Photosmart C5280 All in One. I bought it a couple years ago when were still living in Hawaii. I had been wanting a new printer since the one we originally bought at a garage sale, did not work w/our operating system at that time (Vista, BLAH!!!!) I think I paid $130ish for it.
Brand new cartridges run about $30 a pop! I have found that the XL ones work just as well and last twice as long (which is good because I am printing coupons and school work). When they run out I take the cartridges into Office Max or Staples and have them refilled or when Earth Day roles around again, take them to Walgreens.
I can print pictures (never have), scan (only used once), copy (use all the time), it will do CD labels (have never used) and of course print. We have never had a problem with our printer, so far so good.
My parents have a wireless one (maybe one day)
Hey, I have a Canon Pixma IP3000; and it’s pretty old, about 5 years, but I LOVE my printer. The ink cartridges last a long time and it prints really great, even awesome photos. In fact, I am getting a new computer but sticking with my Canon printer. Love it! I buy my ink at Staples, hard to find because the printer is older, but I still love my printer.
I had been using a Lexmark but when it came time to get new ink, the ink was more then a brand new printer! I started shopping around for a new printer at that point. I noticed that Costco started refilling ink in the photo department so I got on their website and found out which ink cartriges they filled. I went from there! I found a $35 HP Deskjet F2430 on Walmart.com that came with a color and black cartridge plus free ship to store. I can refill my cartridges for about $8-9 at Costco and I do love the printer! It has scan and copy as well. https://www.costcoinkjetrefill.com/
Hope this helps!
I love my Lexmark Pinnacle pro901- I’m sure it must be a different model because the ink cartridges are $5 a piece (and after you take them to office depot or staples to recylce – they give you a $3 in store credit) – so really only $2 per cartridge. The ink lasts forever and I have been quite happy with this purchase!
I was at a blogging event in NYC for HP and they had a printer already loaded with coupons.com! You did not need a computer, the site and the printer were already linked!
http://www.gaynycdad.com
I have an Officejet HP5610 all-in-one: printer fax scanner copier. I love it! Have had it 4 years, no problems. I print all the coupons I want….but usually only use the black ink for coupons since the color ink runs much higher. I paid around $100 for the printer (on sale at OD) I normally buy my ink from HP. They send me coupons all the time, plus they offer next day delivery free. If I order by lunchtime, Fedex is at my door the next morning….can’t beat that.
My second printer is wireless. An HP Officejet J4680 all-in-one. It has the same features as the 5610; uses the same black cartridge as the 5610. I’ve only had it a 1 1/2 years. I ordered it from HP…on sale…with a coupon and FREE next day shipping as well. It too ran about $100.
I would advise anyone buying a new printer to buy an all-in-one. They’re not priced much higher than most good printers and the copy and fax features come in so handy. I love being able to fax documents to my insurance co, Dr’s office, etc. I’ve even had Dr.s office fax me Rx’s! How cool is that?
We recently bought a brother HL2140 for about $100 & I love it! (I’d seen it recommended several times on coupon blogs.) It only prints black & white, but that’s all we need. We had an epson all in one before. I liked the scanner feature, but it was very inefficient with ink. It had the separate ink cartridges & when one ran out you couldn’t print anything…even if the yellow was out & you were printing something that was black & white only. So frustrating. We spent a lot of money in ink with it. The brother prints so much faster & is super quiet. Haven’t had to buy a new cartridge yet, so don’t have a review on that part.
I’d love to be able to tell you which exact printer I have…but I can’t remember. lol. What I can tell you is where I buy cheap ink. I take my cartridges to cartridge world and get a full one in exchange for $9. Cheapest deal I’ve found so far.You should check and see if they have any locations in your area. Not sure if it’s a regional thing or not.
My Canon Pixma 560 is one of the best purchases ever. I wanted a wireless printer and found this one on Amazon for $90. It’s well worth it. It’s a photo printer, so capable of printing pictures, but it does great and is fast for all of my coupons.
I buy my ink on Amazon- I can get 3 sets of all 5 colors for $28, and if I need additional black- I can buy3 for $12. Im using non-canon specific ink and havent had any problems at all with it.
In addition to printing, it’s also a copier and scanner. I’d highly recommend this printer.
I have a brother MFC-495cw I bought a few months ago at staples for about 75.00 using the 25.00 coupon. It has fax scanner, copier and is wireless.The 3.3″ widescreen color LCD display enables you to edit or enhance your photos. It was easy to set up and now I have all the features I need. No more running to fedex for copies . I buy the L61 aftermarket cartridges from ebay which are about 8.00 for all 4 colors. I am so happy with this printer. I tell everyone about it.
Oh and I also print tons of coupons. I buy new cartridges about once every 1 1/2 months but if you are not printing insane amounts like I do then it will last longer. My savings with coupons are so substantial that the measly 8.00 I spend is nothing.
Hey Karen, I have the same Brother printer as you do and I also LOVE mine! I also get my ink from Ebay and pay between 8-11 bucks for 3 colors and 2 black cartridges. I paid around 80 bucks for the printer from Staples.com. I love that it can fax and copy too.
I also have this printer and love it, thanks for the e-bay tip for the ink!
I love my Kodak ($89.00) because I never go into shock when picking up replacement ink, $ 9.99 for black and I believe around $14.00 for color. I own 5 printers but only allow the kids to print on the Kodak.
I have a HP Photosmart Premium (print, scan, copy). I hate it. My computer crashed when I installed the printer. I had to uninstall and reinstall it twice to get it and the computer to work. That was late Nov. I’m still having problems. I have to keep downloading something from HP to fix it. The ink is very expensive (and I thought Epson was bad, at least I could buy generic for $5 for the Epson). I can not get the HP cartridges refilled and generic are almost as much as HP. I have gone through ten of the big black cartridges in 7 months. One the plus side, I can print in black even if one of the color cartridges is empty. I had and Epson CX544 for years and printed thousands and thousands of pages (ad booklets for our club) before one day it quit. But with the Epson I couldn’t print in black if out of colored ink. I would buy Epson again, but not HP.
I just bought an older HP Laserjet off Craigslist for $20 and it works great! The toner is really cheap through Tonerboss, and they are on Ebates with 10% back. The 123inkjets price on toner was $39.99, theirs is $27.99 with 1000 more pages of toner in it! Our local Cartridge World was more than double that for a refurbished toner.
We have the HP Color LaserJet 2600n and love it! Print quality is great…the only bad thing about it is buying toner. We replace toner usually every year and a half.
I have a Canon, the ink is very High so I refil it myself, it’s not as messy as I heard it was going to be and when I have RR, I buy the refil kit at WalGreens, the black ink is $16 and the color is $17 and it’s good for about 5 refils.
that is a good idea is it hard to do?
I have an HP C6380 Photosmart which I love but i has Vivera ink and for some reason our specific cartridges cant get refilled very cheap. My recommendation would be to find an HP All-In-One that prints photos, scans, copys, and faxes ( if you need faxes) that uses the HP 02 Vivera cartridges. Find one that gets very good reviews and then buy it on sale. These can be refilled at Costco, very good quality refills, for around $9.99, and sometimes they put them on sale in their coupon books. That way even if you do print a lot of ink you have a great printer with good refills for cheap.
I turn my print quality down to Fast Draft which cuts my ink usage in half….
How did you do this? I know how to do it when I’m just printing a normal document, but when I print coupons it bypasses the manual prompt (where I can choose options like that) and just sends straight to the printer. It seems like there must be a way to change the settings for ALL print jobs, but I don’t know how. Can someone help?
You should be able to go into your Printers folder and change the Default settings… And then if you want to print something (not coupons) at regular mode you just have to go in the Properties and change it.
I have finally found the perfect printer, in my opinion, I have a Kodak I bought at walmart and paid $99.00. the best part is the refill cartridges are only about $10.00 each, it makes excellent copies, it is the best printer copier i have ever had, it scans, copies and prints beautifully.
Right on Joyce and Lisa! We have the same Kodak printer and we LOVE IT! I’d say I spend less than $5.00 a month on ink and I buy paper at Sam’s Club for around $20 a box. Kodak cartridge refills are also super cheap to buy at Sam’s Club, cheaper than Office Max. The print quality is great! It’s easy to use the scanner, print coupons and phots, and it’s wireless. Ours is the Kodak model ESP 5250. I’d highly recommend it! We can print from anywhere in the house and it is also super fast. My fiancee bargain shopped for this around Christmas and are very happy with our printer!!
what is the model on this? I’m really wanting a wireless that scans and copies, I do use those 2 features quite a bit.
I have an HP 2100 All in one printer which I am very happy with. I have replaced the toner cartridges once since I started printing coupons at home. I generally print a lot at work because I had dial up at home until recently. Anyway, my printer is very good and seems cheap to operate, especially when you take advantage of Walgreens toner cartridge refills. Usually they are only $9.99, but sometimes they are only $1!!
I have the same printer! 🙂 I love it. I say Laserjet all the way. Forget the inkjets and photo printers. WAAAAAyyyyyy too expensive.
Love my laserjet. And super cheap to get toner. $25 for toner about every six months for me, as opposed to $56 every four weeks for my inkjet!!
Hmmm, $50 a year or $600 a year. Yep, pays for itself Fast!
I have an HP Laserjet 1022. I hardly ever change the toner, and it works really well. I don’t believe that getting the fancy laser printer paper really makes my printer work better (maybe I’m just cheap), so I use the recycled paper copy paper, and it works just fine. I aways buy toner when it’s on sale at Office Depot, and often get an iTunes gift card with my purchase. I have a full cartridge sitting beside my printer, waiting for my toner to give up the ghost. Hasn’t happened yet!
Walgreens usually runs a GREAT ink refill sale now and then… somewhere along the range of $1 (earth day!) to $6.99 (40% off!!)… or some other deal.. costco sounds great too.
as for the printer, ive never had trouble with any HP printer. I’ve had some problems with canon printers. I own a HP OfficeJet 5600 all-in-one (got it for free from my aunt who got a new free printer with computer purchase – progably retails around $200). I print all my coupons on this printer…. I also have a regular “school” type printer HP 940C that is now over 10 years old and still works like it was bought yesterday. Can’t go wrong with HP!!!!
Also, as im sure you know. PAPER is also something that is used a lot when printing coupons… but i always have scrap paper from work to bring home, and i print back and front when printing on coupons.com. One pet peeve is TARGET. if you only print one coupon, it prints smack in the middle of hte page… which is a waste of paper because it cannot be reused!! Someone needs to school them on that… hahaha
I’m with you on printing one Target coupon. It so gets on my nerves.
We purchased a HP 1200 Laserjet printer at Staples on Clearance. The ink lasts a long time and we get our ink from Rapid Refill at a discounted cost.
I just wish they’d quit with the one page ads on the single coupons.
I get past the ads by cutting my paper into 4 inch sections. That way the coupon prints at the top and then stops. Of course, sometimes you get a coupon that prints at the bottom. I try to only use the cut paper on coupons that I know will print at the top. If I am printing a coupon and I can see there is an ad below it, once the coupon prints, I hit stop on my printer.
I use this trick all the time – “cancel print” after the coupon is printed is my friend. 🙂
When I bought my last printer I made sure I could buy either a CIS (continuous ink supply) system or refillable cartridges for it first. I tried the CIS and had trouble and have since moved on to using refillable cartidges. My HP has 6 separate ink cartridges and I purchased both the CIS system, my refillable cartrides and extra ink from https://www.cisinks.com When one of my cartridges is low I just refill it – it is very simple and MUCH cheaper than buying a new cartridge everytime. You can just google “refillable cartridges” or “continuous ink supply system” to come up with websites. I would guess amazon may have similar items, although I haven’t checked. Do note that using these systems or cartridges will likely void your printer’s warranty but I have had no trouble with my printer since switching. Here is another website I found https://www.inksupply.com
I agree with those who said choose fast draft for picture quality and print in B&W to save money on ink. I usually buy ink off ebay for well below the price of ink at office supply stores. I sometimes get the “low quality” HP ink at Target for $10 (black cartridge) and that lasts me a few months. I sometimes get it cheaper with coupon overage 🙂
You can also refill your ink cartridges yourself with a cheap ink refill kit, which would save money.
I prent off tons of coupons, and was using an Hp color Lazar printer, and an hp deskjet, network printer for my lap top, then I wanted a scanner so i bought on of those kodak all in one’s from walmart, I think it was around 90 bucks and love it! the ink is already cheep, i can get a new color, and black cartage for around 40 bucks at target, not a bad deal. I have tried re refilling my hp cartilages but noticed thin ink never lasted as long. Here’s a little side note on re-filling cartridges. they only do water base inks! At least every place i’ve checked in Turlock.So my vote is with the kodak printer from Walmart it’s cheep and works great! and it doesn’t hurt to spend a little more money on a heavier paper, I’ve noticed the coupons scan better, and the cashier doesn’t get “as” irritated with ya
I have an HP Deskjet 3843. I would not recommend it because it is kind of a pain to use. It is constantly telling me “printer jam” even when there is no jam whatsoever, and I have to manually press the button to restart the print job. Annoying. That said, it has lasted me a very long time (over five years now) and it does still print just fine. 🙂
I buy ink wherever I can get it cheapest, although we do not choose to refill cartridges. I wouldn’t mind trying it, but my husband is a computer geek and he feels strongly about not doing that for some reason. I think he thinks it could ruin the printer. Oh well.
The best deal I ever found on ink was this one: https://laundryandlullabies.blogspot.com/2010/05/good-deal-on-hp-ink.html
🙂 I Have an HP Officejet 6210 All-in-One Fax, Scanner,Printer and it is AWESOME!!!! The print quality is Great, i probably print off an average of 15 coupons a DAY and my ink lasts me approx. 6 months. Thats alot of coupons……PLUS…. i get my ink refills @ CARTRIDGE WORLD for only $8.00 Black or $10.00 for Color. YOU cant beat that!!!! And if you tell them your a first time cartridge buyer they will give you half off plus a pretty reusable bag.Dont forget to ask for the frequent buyers card because they will stamp it every time you buy a cartridge and when you get the card filled up you recieve the next cartridge FREE… AND WE ALL love FREE STUFF!!!! 🙂
I have been couponing for over two years and print a TON! When I was using a color inkjet, I was spending $56 a month or more on ink. I bought a used HP laserjet 2100 on eBay for $100 and it came with a toner cartridge. That cartridge lasted SIX MONTHS! I print about 200 or more coupons a month. I just bought a replacement cartridge for $25 on eBay. So I went from paying $56 a month on ink to $25 several times a year.
Now THAT is more like it.
Mine is an Epson Stylus CX7400 printer/copier/scanner. My parents bought it for me at Target, it was on sale around $30, got it 2 years ago. I love finally having a copier in my home, its so convenient. Printer cartridges are more than I’d expected ($12 for a black cartridge and $27 for 3 color cartirdges) but I get them at Office Depot when there’s a $10 coupon and I also earn 10% back on my ink purchases and I get $3 back when I bring in empty cartridges for recycling. I print everything in black ink only and on draft quality to save ink. The only things I dont like about it is that it uses all of the colors of ink (black, pink, yellow and blue) even if you always print in black, and you cant use refilled cartridges. I havent tried the scanner part of it yet.
My favorite printer is the three-in-one HP1210v I got for free through membership in Freecycle.org. I get my ink refilled at Costco for $7.99 and $9.99 in the Photo Dept. Not all Costcos can do this, so call first. They will refill HP. Dell and Lexmark cartridges. I don’t think I could do any better than this.
My husband and I went to an office closing bank auction and scored an almost brand new HP4000 for $10 ! Now the toner cartridge is about $150 for 10,000 prints but we purchase cheap ink cartridges either on Ebay or also at auctions and turn them into Staples for $30/month Staples rewards….we had $60 in rewards to turn in along with 2 unopened Staples toners (also purchased at auction for $5) so we ended up paying about $20 for the HP4000 toner or $30 for both the printer and new toner that will run 10,000 prints!!! I love auctions!!! I used an HP4000 at work for 3 years and replaced the toner twice in that amount of time but you should know that I printed alot of documents daily so I’m absolutely sold on this unit!! Oh and almost never jams….and when/if it does, easy squeezy to clear. My apologies to the Lexmark lovers but I’ve owned 3 and cursed all of them.
I have an HP PSC 1510, and it’s great! It cost $99 5 years ago and it’s still running. I get refill cartridges from Amazon.com for ~$6 each. With the shipping it works out to 3 cartridges for $20, and I change them every few months.
Thanks for the info. I have epson that uses #69 ink. The ink is expensive. Then it only lasts 3-4 weeks. I am can make the changes about how I print but really need a printer with cheap ink. I have Office Depot rewards to spend. Thanks for this post/question. This is the information I needed. I will be buying a new printer soon.
If you would have ask this question last week, I would have said I love my printer! Its a HP Deskjet F340 All-in-one. I bought it 3 yrs ago. But just this week, the printer light started flashing and a E light is flashing as well. I’m not sure if it has something to do w/ me trying Walgreens refill ink. My computer/printer never recognize the Walgreen ink refill. (I got my first refill w/ Walgreen in April 2010. And I just got another one this week). Has anyone else experience this kind of problem using other brand ink refill?
My husband and I both do a lot of printing and had been spending ungodly amounts of money each month feeding our former printers’ ink habits. When one of our printers broke, we did some serious research looking for a reliable printer that would not send us to the poorhouse trying to pay for the ink. We bought a Lexmark Prestige Pro 805. It was more expensive than the printers that we had bought in the past, but the black ink is so inexpensive that we have more than made up our initial investment many, many times over. It only costs $5 for a black refill!!!!!! I print my coupons on the draft setting using only black ink. The quality on both “normal” and “best” is great. We love our Lexmark Prestige Pro 805!
PS: I no longer feel bad if I print out a coupon that I don’t get to use. It cost me almost nothing for ink, and my paper costs have become negligible since taking advantage of some of the wonderful paper deals at Office Max.
A couple months ago I bought Kodak ESP3250 at Walmart for $99. Ink is really cheap. 2 pack of black at Sams for $18!! It prints great quality pictures too. I was replacing a 6 year old Lexmark that had $30 print cartridges.
I have an Epson all-in-one that I snagged on Black Friday for like $60. It has the individual ink cartridges so when I run out of one color I don’t have to replace 3 colors (in one cartridge). I haven’t paid anything for ink in about a year, I started doing the Staples Ink Rewards where you can recycle empty ink cartridges (up to 10 a month, any brand) and they give you $3 per cartridge at the end of the month in way of something like a Gift Certificate (I have it emailed to me). So I save my $30 a month, they usually don’t expire for 2 months, until I have about $90 and then go and buy the 3 packs of color or black, and sometimes I have to throw in a 99¢ pen or 2 to hit the $90 mark. I collect the ink from people at work and home and family members. They just recently cut their reward to $2 per cartridge recycled, so I may check into Office Max’s program in the future. Good luck!
We have a Cannon MP530 all in one printer/fax/scanner. I love it because we can use our wireless with it. But even when I have it set to fast print grey scale it some how uses some of the color ink, because I have to change the color cartridges with out ever using them, which I HATE becuse to get all 4, it is about $55! I am looking for something cheap just to print b/w coupons. I will check out some of the good ones listed above and see if they are on Amazon Prime.
Thanks for printer post Collin, it came just in time for me not to buy more colored ink!! 🙂
I have an epson cx5000 and I had a different epson prior (that epson replaced under a warranty with my current printer). I’m not loving the epson. The ink is expensive. My version OS on the mac I have doesn’t let me change the default print so when I automatically print coupons I can’t change that.
I’m in the market for a wireless, print, scan and copy. those are my requirements.
As far as filling ink – I LOVE cartridge world. I was sad to learn that a lot of new printers are making their chips on the ink cartridges near impossible to reset. But cartridge world has a generic ink they sell for $10/cartridge that is compatible with my epson. They will recycle my old cartridge for me. The ink never seems to last too long. And if one of the colors or black runs out it won’t print at all….HATE that about epson.
I have a brother printer. For anyone out there who has toner cartridges- when it states toner is low take the cartridge out and look for a little “window” on the side. Cover it with a piece of black electrical tape and you’ll get MANY more pages of ink out of it. The window lets light in and tells the owner to buy a new cartridge but in reality there is still plenty of toner in the cartridge.
Great tip!!!! Thanks!
This works…I tried it about a year ago…the “low toner” message that appears on display, from what I understand, is just another ploy to make you buy more toner….it tells you toner is low, but in reality, they only want you to have toner in printer for max.6 months and then they want you to buy more…after putting electrical tape on sides I’ve easily printed over 300 more pages-what scam….lol
Brother MFC-7420 All-In-One Fax / Printer / Copier
Printer was about $150, and the toner is around $40…I know it sounds like a lot for printer/toner, but compared to how much money we use to spend using our color Canon printer, we are saving a lot! This printer prints super fast, and has great print quality! Only downside to this printer takes up more space than the typical printer.
Just a heads up, cheapest place to buy toner for Brother monochrome (prints black only), I’ve found is off amazon.com. At staples, for my Brother MFC-7420 All-In-One Fax / Printer / Copier is almost $75 (without coupon at staples), can get the same thing shipped to my door from amazon.com for about $40. Toner lasts a very very long time…..prints about 3000 black and white pages (that’s a ton of coupons)… also prints super fast!!!!
We have a Canon – don’t know the model, but every cartridge color is separate and you cannot print just in black – you cannot adjust how much ink it uses and the catridges are 16.50 at Staples. The only thing that made me feel better about how much ink I used was the 3.00 recycling rebate staples use to give – now it is changing to 2.00 – I was sad about this. Anyway, my experience has been that most places do not refill canon brand ink cartridges. I would not buy another canon and want to say I appreciate all the comments and am inspired to once again see if I can do something to improve the cost of printing. Thanks.
I have a canon and can print in just black and use fast grayscale printing. Try digging a little deeper into the programs. Hopefully, you can find how to change the settings.
We have an HP Laser Jet 1020. We got it for free from my husband’s office. They upgraded the computer system, or something, and the printers no longer worked with their system. The toner is about $70, but it lasts forever. I bought the last toner in November, and it is still going strong. I actually got a free DVD player for buying 2 boxes of toner from Office Max, so not a bad deal.
HP Laserjet 1200. A cartridge costs about $25 on ebay (geniune HP with shipping) and lasts through about 5000 pages! Thats a whole case of paper. I got the printer for $25 at an auction.
Have a Canon MP210 and love it! Printer/scanner, can easily turn the color off to only print b&w, can only put in partial sheets of paper to print the top only of coupons that have ads & very seldom have jams. Also can turn it to quiet/silent mode so it prints very quietly. 🙂 Actually I got my printer for either free after rebates, etc. or for only $20, don’t remember for sure @ Staples probably 7 or so years ago. I think it retails for about $70+. I price check my ink cartridges on the internet by doing a search for the cartridge number, and have found them for as little as under $20 sometimes. Or watch your sales & recycle those cartridges to get your money back.
Watch the sales & rebates. I am a true Canon fan. Had a Canon Multipass before this one that I had for years and loved it. In all the years working, I realized that Canon was my preferance, and had the least problems and was the most user friendly. Perhaps more money, but how often do you get a printer?
1) Buy a quality printer – I recommend Cannon or HP. We had an HP last for 10 years, and we got rid of it only because I wanted a color printer.
2) Buy one that ONLY prints, because then if something else fouls up, you aren’t stuck with a non-working machine.
3) Laser printers are known through IT as being the cheapest per page for ink, though they do have a higher upfront cost for the machine.
4) Change the default printer settings to use less ink — usually known as “fast draft”.
Do those four things, and that will reduce your printing cost greatly.
I have a laser printer that my husband fished out of the GARBAGE at our apartment complex about 3 years ago. We worked in the office when new management took over. Instead of trying to use the current office equipment, they just tossed it out. We saw it that night and grabbed it out. Granted, it’s not in perfect shape, but it works perfectly for us. We have not even replaced the toner one time and it took us through the last year of law school and two years since. We print a lot. It’s an old Canon PC 1200/iC D700 laser printer.
We have a DELL laser printer and works great, only replaced the toner once in ~3-4 years. Also love it because it prints very fast. We use it for coupons, ebay labels and anything that doesnt need to be color.