Hi all, I'm looking to buy a new printer for my home.
I would like it to print both colour and B&W. No scanning function required. It is mainly to print out some school related tasks for assignments and basic work documents. Please recommend me a printer.
Yes this is the dilemma exactly. Our printer is quite old, we do not use it often but I imagine with school starting next year I will need a more capable printer. Maybe 10-20 pages weekly? Not sure.
Refurbished Epson Ecotank.
https://www.epson.com.au/shoponline/shop/BrowseProducts.asp?…
Your choice would be the EcoTank ET-2811 at $199.50. Its still not cheap, but its a lot cheaper than a new one.
Thank you for this suggestion, I hadn't considered this store was focused on officeworks as I have $100 gift card to use up. But this may work out better even without it.
If you want to buy from Officeworks, your choice would be the Brother DCP-J1200W. It doesn't use ink tanks, but the cartridges that it uses are large capacity, which is the next best thing, and it comes with full size ones that'll do 1500 pages not the usual small ones that quickly run out and you have to spend a lot of money replacing.
https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/brother-in…
$179 - $100 = $79.
Thank you, that's super helpful. I will make sure to look at both of those options :)
Do you have any suggestions for a laser printer?
Sorry, can't contribute any brand or model knowledge in regard to laser printers. Clearly they are better in a number of ways, but they are also expensive toi purchase, and whether they are worth it depends on how much printing you do. They get around the problem all ink jet printers have that if you don't use them for a while the ink in the heads dry up and clog the head. So if you choose an ink jet you need to use it fairly regularly. The ones I referred to have low enough ink cost per page that you can do an all-colour test print every couple of weeks or a month to keep the heads clear, and it doesn't cost much.
Have you had any experience with epson refurbs? Considering a unit from there.
Every one of the OPs threads is a completely endless question. That's called trolling
Can you recommend me a way to find information on the internet without asking stupid questions? If only there was some kind of informational motor to search the world wide web without a human holding a spoon to my mounth.
I think behind the scenes these trolls dare each other to ask the stupidest questions and the winner is the one who gets the most responses, good or bad. ( the prize is a soggy biscuit no doubt)
This OP though must surely hold the gold medal of 'string length' questions in this forum.
Nobody forced you to reply. If its not relevant move along. Bye!
This is not a troll post, I'm wondering what current models people have bought so that I can narrow down my search and not go into endless options.
If you do a lot of prints and want it to last longer and be more reliable than a cheapo consumer grade one, get either a business model oki or a lexmark. You will have to buy oem ink too, i.e not aftermarket.
Lexmark C3326dw can be had for around $400, it comes with some ink, but a full restock of ink should be around $600
I've seen old okis in concrete plants, so covered in dust and worn out that the plastic is permanently stained grey, yet somehow they run more reliably that any brother, hp, etc printer I've ever seen. I think that would be too expensive though.
I've been told Lexmark's are often used on the mine sites too and by governments and hospitals, but again, business model, not home consumer, you'll likely not get them at Officeworks or the like. Have to go to a printer ink place or buy online.
Whichever one you buy, it’s going to tell you you have no yellow, even though you can see the yellow is full. So you cave in and buy another yellow and it STILL tells you you have no yellow.
Brother Colour Laser HL-L3230CDW
Very popular on Ozbargain around the $250 mark, but ATL seems to be $210?
Centrecom $279 + Delivery/Pickup
Aftermarket toner for black about $45 per 2500 pages.
Thank you I will take a look at this option
I'm not an expert. I owned a HP but the quality was horrible and went to bin in 2 yrs. Then I bought an Epson printer, and I like it a lot.
I used it very often, so far I think I've printed several hundreds of A4 papers. It seldom went wrong and when it did, it was easy to fix
Durable and easy to maintain
Brandwise, I prefer Epson
Kyocera P5021CDN Colour Laser Network Printer - $255 (2 year on-site warranty)
https://www.computeralliance.com.au/parts?id=20474
Takes generic toner with no issues - use VIP20 to get an additional 20% off
No more issues with ink drying out and ruining your print heads.
https://www.inkstation.com.au/search?keywords=kyocera%20ecos…
Thank you I will take a look at this option!
I own a Kyocera myself and do a decent amount of printing. Unless you do very little printing I wouldn't recommend this particular model.
The P5021/M5521 series take TK-5224 toner which costs $39/1200 pages. Their new replacement models PA2100/MA2100 are somehow even worse at $45/1250 pages.
To get good value out of Kyocera you need to move up to at least P5026/M5526 (I own this) which take TK-5244 toner at $50/4000 pages. This is a 60+% saving per page - I've printed about 10k pages since purchase and the toner saving vs the lower model is already worth $200.
The only issue is that the P5026 is around $500, so if you were actually spending that much you might as well buy the multifunction at $550, which is an excellent price IMO, but possibly out of OP's use case.
aaah.. the printer dilemma. If you buy a cheap printer, the ink will be expensive. If you want cheaper ink, then the printer itself will be more expensive.
So how often or how much are you going to print?