Washington Post: Americans waste $10 billion each year on name-brand ink. So we tested low-cost options including remanufactured cartridges, ink injection kits — and even making our own.
My advice: get a mono laser printer. Printing is handy but relatively infrequent for a lot of people these days. If that’s your use case, mono laser is the way to go. Toner does not dry out or go bad.
If you have a small space and don’t print a lot, I love my thermal printer. It’s the size of a sturdy, old-fashioned 3-hole-punch. Portable and battery-operated. There is no ink. The special paper’s kind of expensive, but it doesn’t dry out or send you codes saying you can’t print when it obviously can. And they make BPA-free thermal paper now.
Absolutely, I got inkjet printers for years between ~1990 and ~2010, ink is expensive, dry, smear, etc. I bought a Samsung color laser wifi printer in 2012, more than 10 years ago, I changed toners a few times, it still work perfectly fine. I’ll never again go to inkjet.
IMHO, inkjet printers as a whole are a scam. That is, unless you buy a really high end one for professional photo printing.
I love my mono laser printer. It’s an older Canon I got from a retired lawyer, so it has probably printed a million pages already for all I know. Haven’t had to futz with it since I popped in a new toner cartridge that was ~$40. If I need to print color, I go to the local copy store, but that’s rare anyways. Been recommending the same for all my friends and family.
Maybe I’m naive, but what’s holding everyone back from living a paperless life or at least attempt to? Other than printing out the occasional return labels for Amazon stuff I return (they offer label free drop offs now), I can’t think of anything else I would use it for as most things have gone digital.
I get wanting to go paper free, but I like to have paper copies of important docs in my file cabinet.
Also i have an eight year old, so its fun to be able to print out papercrafts, patterns etc, exercises … having a printer is a good thing to have for a kid.
We use it mainly to print coloring pages for our kids :)
Kids in school was the primary reason for a printer, but the need has definitely decreased over the years. Our family is at about 5 prints per year at this point, which is exactly why a laser printer is so valuable. The same Brother printer ($150 in 2012) has worked for us for going on 11 years now with minimal expense on replacement toner. It just works when needed and never dries up or has issues.
But as much as you would like to be paperless, things come up. Some companies insist on wet signatures, other things need to be mailed in, etc. It’s certainly becoming less and less necessary year by year, though.
I’m not sure if I would replace this printer if it fails, but it sure is nice to have around when I need it, without the hassle of going out to print something at a shop.
Signatures, people not wanting to rely on phones, paper requires essentially only literacy while phones require more, more privacy with paper, honestly the list is pretty long.
Student here, journal articles are a lot easier to read on paper than on screen. After the first hour or so of screen reading my eyes get drier than the Sahara and I feel dizzy. I tried reading on my e-reader, but journals like to cram as much text on a page as possible, which doesn’t work well on a 6" reader.
It’s been a while since I’ve used an e-reader, but don’t they let you change the font size? It’s kind of like zooming in, but actually readjusts the words to fit the screen. Again, I might be making this up.
I’ve got a Canon Pixima 5000 series. My family tends to print a good percentage in color (because thankfully I don’t have to print many documents in this day and age). It uses individual color cartridges (C, M, Y, K and a second large K), so if one goes out you just replace that color. I generally pick up the off brand refills on Amazon for fairly cheap. Last time I got a 5 pack of sets for $20. It’s lasted us 2 years at this point. The ink carts are literally JUST ink and a foam block. No electronics or drm like HP. Highly recommend.
Print at work.
If you can’t, print at an office supply store.
Seriously, how much do you need to print?
Printing on a printer that isn’t yours is a privacy risk.
Print. At. Your. Local. Library.
Not. Everyone. Has. Easy. Access. To. A. Local. Library.
😞
You can also print at a library in the US
I bought a cheap Canon inkjet and have started refilling it with cheap off-brand ink. It’s not particularly as good as the original ink, but for my purposes it works great.
Lasers are definitely a great option, but we got a printer with liquid ink and it’s been great. Much cheaper than proprietary cartridges and they don’t go stale if you don’t print anything for a few weeks.
I have been using laser for so long, while so many people use ink. I could always understand it if you needed to print photos on photo paper genuine photo quality, but laser - both monochrome and color, has always served me well. I could never understand why people went with ink, except maybe people so tech illiterate they just went to the store and bought what they were recommended (by a sales representative who knows they make a much higher markup in the long nrun by selling inkjets).
There are also lots of knock off cartridges for most laser printers too.
I have a brother laser printer copier - it works with budget cartridges that cost around $25.
Some of you should try ink tank printers. Low ink prices and lots of ink in each refill. They come out of the box with thousands of pages worth if ink! Only problem is they sometimes get clogged.
Some of you should try
I think by “some of you” you mean “heavy printer users”, and if so I agree.
The typical use case for most folks is infrequent (maybe print 100 pages 1 month and 1 page each month otherwise or less) and works when you want to use it.
The two features you describe do add value, but are anti features when an in
- lots of ink paying for more than you need
- sometimes gets clogged
lots of ink paying for more than you need
You pay less for an ink refil on an ink tank printer than you do a toner refil for a laser printer. This is despite the fact that the ink refil lasts longer.
I agree with the idea that infrequent users should consider laser printers. The main issue I have with them though is the cost. A colour laser printer is more expensive than even a tank printer which is expensive to begin with. It also can’t do photos very well which is something a lot of people use printers for. Greyscale laser printers are only good for text.
Glad someone made this point. My next printer will definitely be a tank printer. It’s basically flipping the business proposal back to “pay for the printer up front” instead of “pay for the printer whenever you buy ink”. My current printer was cheap enough that I basically spend enough on ink to buy a new printer every few years, given degradation of cartridges when they’re left after opening.
I bought an used color laser printer meant for business. Drivers made by manufacturer for Linux and Windows are bad as always, but CUPS for Linux works really well.
I wish there was a right-to-repair and privacy friendly printer, which required only Creative Commons drivers in Windows, and no bs, poorly made drivers + control software as always. Luckily rgb is becoming standardised.
From 15 years of experience in IT, and with home printing:
Many inkjet printer manufacturers will refuse to print if you insert non-oem cartridges. Just because one model will allow you to dismiss a warning doesn’t mean they all will. I’ve seen people waste a lot of money doing this.
The ink injections are also tricky. What I’ve seen is that the ink ends up leaking all over the inside of your printer, or worse, the printer will refuse to print it because it knows it’s been tampered with.
Also, unless you have a specific use case for an inkjet (design work, photo prints, etc), just get a cheap laser. Or if you don’t print that much, just throw your documents on a flash drive and go to your local office supply store. Or library.
As for re-manufactured cartridges, especially for laser: stay away. I’ve seen them time and time and time and time again burst in the printer and spill toner all over the place. This kills the machine. So the $50 you might save on a cartridge will end up costing you hundreds or thousands in the long run.
The whole damned industry is predatory, built for lock-in, and designed to fuck you over. It really sucks. But there’s no reliable way around it.
What are your thoughts on ink tank printers?
I haven’t had much experience with them. Seems like they never got very popular
Been on the laser printer bandwagon for almost 10 years. Bought a mono Samsung and it’s been my ride or die ever since. I think I’ve gone through two toners in that time, maybe 3. My only regret is not getting a color one but that’ll be my upgrade if this one ever dies.
HP bought the Samsung printing business and kinda ruined it FYI. If it ever breaks, you have my condolences.
