buying printer help please?

[liquidmonkey]

hello all printer users!!!
i have NEVER owned a printer but think its time to get one
what i'd like...

fairly tiny
wireless (thats possible right???)
fairly cheap
DO NOT NEED one of those ALL-IN-ONE scanner-thinger-bopers.

i'll be using it mostly to print out documents for uni so high quality photo output is NOT needed, afterall, who prints out photos anymore

do u think i should even get a color printer? do they do JUST black and white printers these days?

any help to point me in the right direction is appreciated!!

 

[darroll]

I"m happy with a Brother printer.
it prints black and white only.
One toner card will last for years.

 

[winslow33]

Invest in a good quality color printer that can do a few more things than you need NOW, so u have it when you need it down the road. I invested in an all-in-one printer/scanner back when i had no need for scanning stuff, now I couldnt imagine life without one.

 

[liquidmonkey]

Invest in a good quality color printer that can do a few more things than you need NOW, so u have it when you need it down the road. I invested in an all-in-one printer/scanner back when i had no need for scanning stuff, now I couldnt imagine life without one.

amazing how fast i've changed my mind now, haha! was over at a mates place last night and they had an AIO printer scanner and it was pretty good!!!!

i'll go with what your advise too and look out for a AIO. nothing too fancy as i'm for sure not going to print color photos or anything but something mid range would be good.

any suggestions?

 

[berry120]

who prints out photos anymore

I do! I quite like having photos up and around the house

Why do you want wireless? This tends to add a fair bit to the price (unless things have changed significantly since I last looked) and it'll never be as solid and reliable as a cabled connection... just my opinion, but personally I wouldn't go with wireless unless there's a distinct and definite advantage to doing so beyond "I can't be bothered to plug it in"

My advice would be to go with a fairly cheap laser. You can pick up a black and white laser (yes they still make them!) for around £50 these days, if you want colour as well then expect to look at double that price. But if you're printing off a lot of documents then it'll quickly pay for itself rather than getting a £20 dirt cheap inkjet and paying the same in cartridges each time.

All in one units? Yes, they're nice, but the budget ones again tend to be little more than cheap inkjets (that'll shoot through cartridges) with cheap scanners on top.

It really depends how much you're printing, perhaps I've overestimated your usage there (When I need to print off stuff it's not unusual for it to be hundreds of pages of code!) but as a general rule the more you print, the more you'll save by spending more on a printer such as a laserjet that won't shoot through £30 cartridges.

 

[liquidmonkey]

I do! I quite like having photos up and around the house

fair enough personally i like the digiphotoframes which granted, are quite a bit of cash but you can also fit hundreds of pics on them which i really like
each to their own i suppose.

Why do you want wireless? This tends to add a fair bit to the price (unless things have changed significantly since I last looked) and it'll never be as solid and reliable as a cabled connection... just my opinion, but personally I wouldn't go with wireless unless there's a distinct and definite advantage to doing so beyond "I can't be bothered to plug it in"

fair enough. i thought wireless would have been easier but your right, its just one cable, who cares. printers r connected via USB these days right?

My advice would be to go with a fairly cheap laser. You can pick up a black and white laser (yes they still make them!) for around £50 these days, if you want colour as well then expect to look at double that price. But if you're printing off a lot of documents then it'll quickly pay for itself rather than getting a £20 dirt cheap inkjet and paying the same in cartridges each time.

i'm actually quite torn between laser and inkjet with me leaning slightly towards laser, although they r more expensive, no?

All in one units? Yes, they're nice, but the budget ones again tend to be little more than cheap inkjets (that'll shoot through cartridges) with cheap scanners on top.

do they make a laser AIO unit? more i think about it the more it would be nice to have that scanning function.

It really depends how much you're printing, perhaps I've overestimated your usage there (When I need to print off stuff it's not unusual for it to be hundreds of pages of code!) but as a general rule the more you print, the more you'll save by spending more on a printer such as a laserjet that won't shoot through £30 cartridges.

at the moment i don't print out very much but will need to print out a few reports in the next years for uni (masters course) but its more of a matter of convenience i suppose. hundreds of pages is most likely NOT going to happen. maybe, just maybe once a year.

ink catridges seem to be soooooooooo expensive, but how do they compare to laser cartridges? how many cartridges do u need for a laser color printer?

 

[berry120]

fair enough personally i like the digiphotoframes which granted, are quite a bit of cash but you can also fit hundreds of pics on them which i really like
each to their own i suppose.

They're quite nice but when it comes to photo frames I've never been a huge fan of them... but as you said it just comes down to preference! Anyway...

fair enough. i thought wireless would have been easier but your right, its just one cable, who cares. printers r connected via USB these days right?

Yup. Been a while since they used the big ol' parallel port More expensive varieties can link via ethernet straight into a switch / hub / whatever, but for the most part it's USB, correct.

i'm actually quite torn between laser and inkjet with me leaning slightly towards laser, although they r more expensive, no?

Yes, especially in the budget area they're more expensive. The saving comes when you're printing lots and if you're not then it'll take a long time to make that saving back!

do they make a laser AIO unit? more i think about it the more it would be nice to have that scanning function.

They do, but as above they will be a lot more expensive.

at the moment i don't print out very much but will need to print out a few reports in the next years for uni (masters course) but its more of a matter of convenience i suppose. hundreds of pages is most likely NOT going to happen. maybe, just maybe once a year.

In terms of costs, this is what it boils down to. Laser cartridges are generally more expensive than inkjets - but you get a heck of a lot more pages from them.

My advice would be to look around at different (laser and inkjet) models, look at the price of cartridges and how many pages they do on average, estimate how many pages you'll be printing a year, and from that work out if you went with a laser printer instead of an inkjet, how long it'd roughly take for you to make that initial investment back because of cheaper prints.

If you work out that you'll do it in a couple of years or so, fantastic. Clear cut win, go for the laser. If it's more like 20-30... the printer will most likely give up before then so it's probably not worth it!

 

[liquidmonkey]

great advice, thanks!!
will google and cnet for a few hours now