Cheap printer recommendation

My daughter is away at Uni and working hard (well so she tells us!) with
lots of essays to do at the moment and her old printer has been working
hard. Unfortunately it is now caput... and she urgently needs a new one.
Black and white would do but would consider colour if not too expensive to
use.

~~Linda~~...

Hiya stranger :-) Thanks but that nudges the price up a wee bit more and I
think the Pixma will do her fine. Plus no delivery charge from Argos as its
just round the corner from her... she can lug it up the hill lol.

Smokey...

Or how about

Rabbit...

Pricewise is this any good
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000BH3Y2I/discounts-21/026-1262387-6124463?%5Fencoding=UTF8&camp=1634&link%5Fcode=xm2

Flying Rat...

ight

I have had a look online but as usual, personal recent buys that can be
recommended are a great help. Obviously in a student house, space is tight
so it also needs to be fairly compact if possible.
Any ideas?

Steve...

Hi Linda,

get her to join Freecycle in her local area:

people are giving away printers all of the time, you could maybe join
your own local group and look out for her.

~~Linda~~...

Looks interesting, I'll look more later, thanks Steve.

MCC...

Hi ~~Linda~~,

If black and white will do, I would suggest a cheap laser printer. I have
had a Samsung ML1210 for 3 years now. I use it for printing camera-ready
copy of books ready to go to the printers and it is excellent value.
I think I paid about Ł80 for it from Asda, it has printed nearly 6,000
pages, and it has only cost me about Ł40 in all that time for a new drum
and toner.

~~Linda~~...

Hi Mike :-)

Must admit I hadn't really thought of a laser, I still tend to think of
them as being rather pricey but that seems reasonable. I know I said cheap
but what I really meant was good value/reliable/reasonable quality :-)

MCC...

Have a look at

They are not objects of great beauty but they do the job.

~~Linda~~...

Hmm, they look pretty chunky. I've more or less decided to get a Canon
Pixma. A friend has one and I've seen the quality of printing, it's
perfectly acceptable for what she needs and robust enough. Thanks though
Mike, for your suggestions.

John the R-T...

I've got a Pixma 3000. It's great but the Pixma 4000 is better.

John the R-T...

Pixma 4200 even.

Dabs are selling at Ł61.98 inc vat plus Ł6.00 for delivery.

If you but from them don't select the next day service. The printer
will come next day anyway. Or so I have found on several occasions.

I also have an HP PhotoSmart 7760 colour inkjet printer which is an amazing
piece of kit but it is very expensive to buy replacement cartridges for,
even re-cycled ones. A colour cartridge costs between Ł15 and Ł25,
depending on the source, while a black one costs between Ł10 and Ł15. You

~~Linda~~...

I myself have a Canon i865 which is excellent but a bit on the big side and
I was hoping for something a little cheaper, to buy and to keep running.

andon...

So how about this one?
Canon Pixma MP150 All-In-One Printer. 60 quid at Argos

One other point - is it likely to get nicked or is it in a secure
house? Halls can lose gear very easily unfortunately.

don't need to buy too many of those to make a hole in a student loan :-( I
reckon a colour cartridge will only last for about 120 A4 pages.

Frederick Williams...

For black and white: HP LaserJet 1300. Colour laser printers are hugely
expensive. Why does she need colour for essays?

Flying Rat...

avoid Lexmark. Cheap to buy but extremely expensive for cartridges.

I've always found Epsons ot be better value for inks. Lexmark cartridges

andon...

Epson and HP are using cart that have chips in them these days.
Canon ink tanks don't hold as much ink but they are very cheap.
Genuine Canon for a fiver, clones for 99p per colour.
The sales of basic printers these days is based on "giving away" the
printer and locking the customer in to spending out on inks.
Canon still uses the easily cloned cartridge system but the
print-head is built-in to the printer instead.
For the type of use you state I would consider a Canon.

~~Linda~~...

Yes, I'm definitely looking at Canon now.

Students find it hard to feed themselves let alone a printer :-)

~~Linda~~...

Tell me about it... we visit with regular 'food parcels' so she'll not
starve. Strange how they can still manage to go out though, isn't it? :-)
Actually, she *is* working hard and she does manage on very little money,
I'm pretty impressed... just don't tell her!

Thanks for your input.

are also extremely hard (if not impossible) to refill. They come with
the print head attached so cost even more to buy.

~~Linda~~...

Noted... thanks Ratty :-)

Flying Rat...

ith=20

Flying Rat...

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Flying Rat...

it.=20

Flying Rat...

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Flying Rat...

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donut...

Hi Linda I have recently bought a HP Deskjet 5940 and am very pleased with
it. It has only 2 cartridges a black and a colour. My friend who has
recently bought an Epson for approx. same price finds his cartridges run out
very quickly ( it has 4 cartridges) and he is wishing he had not chosen it.
I had an HP Deskjet 880C which gave good service for 6 years and I have
passed it on to a young friend together with the old PC. The new printer
is much lighter than the old one and is nmore compact. Hope whatever you
choose gives you good service.

Flying Rat...

Don't know if they still do them, but ASDA used to stock the Apollo
brand in bigger stores.

Apollo is actually just rebranded HP sold at a discount, they take HP
and compatible inks. The only difference is the badge and often just the
colour of the plastics used to build them.

Flying Rat...

~~Linda~~...

Derek F...

Its not a cheap printer that you should look for but one that has cheap
replacemebt cartridges.
Derek.

I'll have a look at those. I used to have an Epson and found the same with
the cartridges, although once the guarantee had run out, i used compatibles
anyway, which were ok. Someone else has just recommended the same printer

Flying Rat...

here's a good one to look at

replacement cartridges under six quid, and it's only =A334 to buy the=20
printer.

~~Linda~~...

I did thanks. Feeding the student is of course, another problem but she'll
be home for a few weeks soon, so Mummy can make sure she gets her vitamins
:-)

~~Linda~~...

Faculty prices for printing are also prohibitively high, although there are
always a few enterprising youngsters undercutting that by allowing others
to use their printers (no doubt with the poor old parents footing the
bill!) The other thing they're fond of is ringing up late at night and
*needing* ink/paper/special size envelopes/loo roll lol, whatever, and of
course needing it *now* to get on with that important project.

Aries...

a useful tip about making ink last longer in printers Linda. You could

~~Linda~~...

Lol, it'll be good ole Mum and Dad forking out for it, her student budget
is already blown for this term. Hence the 'cheap', cos I know it won't get
terribly well looked after, you know what students are like... everything
gets used by everybody.

remind your daughter to use the draft option when printing notes or stuff
that doesn't need the full print option. Makes ink go a lot further that
way :)

by mail, funnily enough. Thanks Donut.