All printers junk?: ask the throbbing brain

[Russ Jerome]

OK we are a very wide and diverse group of people, quick
question. Are all computer printers pieces of crap?????

I mean I have spent a LOT of money over the years, tried
high end print/fax/scanners, cheapo office max ones and
a hand full from best Buy and others. Its not that mine
fail and break, they just seam to get pissed and go F-U
Im on strike or simply have some gawd daym issue with the computer they have recongnized for the last year!

A computer will work for years in my house, maybe a vid
card here or a CD drive there but they rarely just say F-U
to me and go on strike with no mechanical issue. When
they work they are photo quality, otherwise useless!!

[wikked]

I just bought a $50 canon photo printer last year, prints great, never failed me yet.
If and when it does fail, I'll just buy another $50 printer.

Works for me!

[SSDude]

I just bought a $50 canon photo printer last year, prints great, never failed me yet.
If and when it does fail, I'll just buy another $50 printer.

Works for me!

Same here.
For the price of ink refills you can get a new printer. I've had good luck with Epson refurbs. Around $50 or less w/free shipping.
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/BuyEpson/ccProductCategory.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=-13267

[Yeehaw]

at work we went threw 6 lexmarks in a year

[ND4SPD]

I have a HP Color LaserJet 2500l that I bought 3 years ago at an auction for $35. Had 4 brand new toners but had something wrong with it. Spent $95 to fix it... had a broken tab or something in the paper path and it's been running great ever since. When the toners run out it'll probably be just as cheap to buy a new printer as it'll be to replace the toners since it uses 3 color and one black.

If you only need Black and white... see if you can find a used HP Laserjet 4 or a Laserjet 2220. You still should be able to find toners for them and they last damn near forever. Actually, I have an OLD IBM laserjet (back from the old IBM PS/2 days) in the basement... the damn thing is probably 20 years old and still works great.

Looks something like this one...
http://www.recycledgoods.com/images/s_p_7796_1.jpg

[Slow Joe]

I've had my share of printers, but few have failed... My current printer is on it's second year and it's a cheapo all in one... Normally I pass printers on... I can't think of one that died...

[Russ Jerome]

Ok must be that dark electronic cloud that hangs over this house,
just making sure it is my dumb luck! This place eats light bulbs
and printers at record levels....dam.

[Russ Jerome]

kvBiSW5QFKY

[Waver]

Lets see...Hp and cannon have always had the best printers, followed by brother, epson and then at the bottom of the heap crapmark.......hell their ink costs as much as the damn printer.

Lazer printers last the longest, but the cost of a color aio lazer is a lot more than the top of the line ink machine.......

[animal]

Printers are useless technology. Think about it though. We've spent trillions of dollars as a society to turn everything electronic... to get rid of all the papers and books and crap laying around. Then we go put it all back on paper with a ******* printer. Lame.

[Al]

You need to get a dot-matrix printer. If not for the limitations of paper and ink, those things could work under water.

[xxsn0blindxx]

Russ, to answer your question, yes, all consumer printers are junk. Ever since the late 90s consumer oriented computer products keep pushing to lower and lower price points and in turn have also taken a dive in quality. I haven't come across any brand that makes impressively reliable printers. Your best bet is to get an entry level laser printer for document printing and a decent consumer color printer that is only used for photos and color documents. Stick to Canon, HP and Epson for the color printer and HP for the laser printer. If you can find a used laser printer from an office, even better.

[WhatsADSM]

Russ, to answer your question, yes, all consumer printers are junk. Ever since the late 90s consumer oriented computer products keep pushing to lower and lower price points and in turn have also taken a dive in quality. I haven't come across any brand that makes impressively reliable printers. Your best bet is to get an entry level laser printer for document printing and a decent consumer color printer that is only used for photos and color documents. Stick to Canon, HP and Epson for the color printer and HP for the laser printer. If you can find a used laser printer from an office, even better.

Basically couldn't agree more. The quality quite simply isn't what it used to be, simply because the printers these days cost a tiny fraction of what they used to.

If you are looking to print regular documents I would recommend a decent entry-mid level laser (should be able to pick a decent quality one for around $300) as they will likely have a longer shelf life than your ink jets and if you print a lot will have a lower overall cost of ownership.

If you are printing photos or something stick with a middle of the road ink jet. Just keep replacing once it dies.

[ND4SPD]

Forget dot matrix... daisy wheel is where it's at!

If you're wondering between inkjet and laser... I did a chart up for a customer recently showing the cost differences per page between a Canon inkjet printer, and few color laser printers.