Darbla Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 I have been looking up reviews 'til my eyes are crossing. Most reviews will tell me about one or two of my questions, but not all. Is it possible to find a printer that:Doesn't cost an arm and a legInk cartridges don't cost the other arm and legDoes well with labels as I'd like to start doing somePrints good quality photosWorks well with thicker paper/card stock for printing business cards and greeting cardsThe cartridges are not programmed to "expire" when there's still plenty of ink in them (that seems to be a money-making trend for the manufacturers these days)It would be nice to have an all-in-one type, but they seem to be giving people more trouble than older printersInkjet is fine as long as it meets these other criteria, as it seems from all my reading more people were happier with their old inkjets than they are with newer laser printers.I even don't mind if it's slow, as long as it does the rest of this.I am reading reviews on pcworld.com now, but like I said they will only address some of my questions (they mostly are not mentioning card stock and labels, and those are important to me). I guess I"m hoping a miracle printer has suddenly appeared on the market lately. :undecided Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAgirl89 Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 I personally use an Epson Workforce 520. It's an all in one printer (copy, print and scan). I think it cost me around $100. Ink isn't too bad and the cartridges can be bought in a combo pack or individually. I've also used HP printers in the past and they're pretty good too. I bought an Epson because it had pretty good reviews for it's color printing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovemylabs Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 (edited) We use to have Ink Jet, but the quality just wasn't there. And then we had to keep trying to figure out what to do with our B&B labels as ink jet smeared. So, we did our research for a Laser. We have a HP Laser printer and love it. They are a little more expensive, but the quality is awesome and is perfect for all our needs. Edited February 5, 2011 by lovemylabs To correct wording Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darbla Posted February 5, 2011 Author Share Posted February 5, 2011 We have a HP Laser printer and love it. I have an HP laser all-in-one that is going in the trash. They're one of the ones I was talking about that are programming their ink cartridges to expire even if they are still full of ink. Also, the printer is malfunctioning and displaying errors that the cartridges are empty even when not, and it won't print. I spent hours searching for how to get around that, and then ran into the expiring cartridges crap. There was a class action lawsuit against HP about this and HP lost. They were ordered to pay out some kind of massive amount of money (nothing to them) but it only meted out to a maximum of $6 per plaintiff. Not even worth bothering with considering they already ripped me off for $300.I found that "expiring ink" mentioned in another brand today and now I can't remember which. If a printer sits on the shelf 11 months and then you buy it, you get one month's use out of it before you are forced to buy more cartridges. No matter how full yours are, because you just bought and started using them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wessex Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 (edited) I bought a Canon MX870 (inkjet) about 6 months ago and pretty happy with it. I print cardstock labels everyday with no problems. Never printed a photo, but it has TONS of settings for all kinds of media. Ink is expensive, but I think it all is nowadays. Never had any jams with the glossy peel and stick labels, either. My only issue is sometimes after you hit print, it seems to sit there for about 1-2 minutes "thinking" about life before it starts printing. I belive I paid $119 for it. The only thing about the inkjet printer is it wont print on the shiny silver label stock. Oh, standard print setting is very quick and almost identical too the "high" print setting (that takes longer to print).HTH,SteveIt is an all-in-one - printer, fax, copier, scanner Edited February 5, 2011 by Wessex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GermantownCandles Posted February 6, 2011 Share Posted February 6, 2011 I use the HP CP1215, it's a color laser and you can get it at office depot for $299. It is a great multi purpose printer, it's great for photos, and it works even better for my labels. I'm not sure if anyone else has used the website http://www.suppliesguys.com/ to buy their ink, but it saves me TONS, you can get all the toner cartridges for $159 ( not OEM but I have never had a problem with any of their cartridges), and toner lasts a lot longer than ink jet printers. I print a lot of labels and have to change toner only about 2-3 times a year. So, if you don't do tons of photo printing, one set of toner should last you maybe a year? Compared to ink jet refills that seem to run out pretty quick. An average ink jet will print ~150-200 pages (manufacturer estimates ) compared to ~1500-2000 for laser. So just do some research and see what works best for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TraciS Posted February 6, 2011 Share Posted February 6, 2011 I got in on a sale at Dell online and got a laser a year ago. Still working on the initial ink and I use it a lot. The quality if primo but the printer is the size of a cooler-lol. It is actually about 15x15x15 so it is pretty big. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovemylabs Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 I didn't know about the HP All-in-one printer issues. Sorry you had so much trouble with yours. With the Ink Jet printers we've had in the past, no matter the brand, we always seemed to have issues or they didn't meet our needs. That's why we went with Color Laser. Our Laser printer uses Toner cartridges, not ink jet. It works perfectly, we never have any issues, prints vivid non-bleeding labels. I love too that the Toner Cartridges last sooo much longer then the ink jet cartridges. (Oh...thanks GermantownCandles for the link to suppliesguys.com. I came across that site at one time, but had forgotten about it. I'll have to do some cost comparison with Staples. We get rewards from Staples with all our purchases and when we buy all our cartridges there, the rewards are really nice) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Candybee Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 The only company I know that has addressed the issue of quality photo printing plus cheaper ink refills is Kodak. They came out with a line of new copiers about a year ago.I still have my Dell all in one inkjet that has been working perfectly for me since 2005. I think it was around $149 when I bought it off Dell. Uses the cartridges up until you run out of ink so I save that way. Ink cartridges for my 424 model run me about $27.99 for regular color to $34 for the plus size color cartridge. Black cartridges are about $25 regular and $30 for plus size. I do all my labels on my printer including glossy white, foil, clear, etc. The foil and clear you have to let dry or they will smear. Thats the only complaint I have with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darbla Posted February 7, 2011 Author Share Posted February 7, 2011 After much more weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth I've narrowed it down to an Epson Workforce 325 and Epson Stylus NX305. 325 - excellent reviews, handles card stock well, excellent photo quality, $80305 - excellent reviews except for the few that stated it is an ink hog, but ink is one of the cheaper ones ($10); can get a Continuous Ink Supply System for $35 or order cartridges online; printer is $40 at my local office depotI found many more reviews of the 325 with tips on what did/not work about it and how to get around the problems. So I feel more educated at this point about it. But the CISS available for the 305 plus the cheap initial purchase price makes it very tempting. I did not find a CISS for the 325 but my eyes are crossing again so if I take a break and then go back to searching I might find it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IwantItgreen Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 I have a Canon 700X all-in-one that I like. It has separate color compartments so if you run out of one color, use change just that cartridge. That's really nice if you print a lot of one color. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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