Suggestion for a new printer

[user062]

Hi everyone!,

I'm looking for a printer for home use, I print regularly (for 2 to 20 pages per week) about 1600 pages/year mostly documents, I've had the Canon G2420 for about 2 years and half now, it works great except that it has the infamous air in tubes issue, and I have to manually pull ink with syringes about every 4 months. I simply got fed up with this. I read that Epson ecotanks suffer from the same issue but to lesser extent, and according to that thread, Brother printers seem to be the most well designed regarding this problem, I couldn't find much info about HP printers.

What I want from a printer:
- to print color
- to be aio (print, scan, copy)
- for ink to be cheap or for the included ink to last a long time (that's why I think ink tanks are the most suitable for my use case)
- for it to not be designed with planned obsolescence (I want to be able to replace the ink absorber myself, to be able to reset its counter with no special software or having to reflash the firmware)

Budget is around 150$. I'm considering Brother DCP-T420W it seems to tick all the boxes (except that replacing the ink absorber require removing the chassis but it's not so difficult so I can live with that), but I'm not entirely sure.

I appreciate all suggestions and corrections.

Thanks a lot

 

[Artur5]

Honestly, nowadays I wouldn't know which printer to recommend, based on your needs AND within a budget of $150. I'm talking about Canon, knowing little or nothing about Epson, Brother or HP models.

It occurs to me though, that if you print around 1600 pages/year ( mostly documents ) replacing the ink absorbers won't be much of a problem, because it will take a good number of years before you need to do it.
In fact, I never replaced the absorbers on any of my Canon printers and I never had ink spilling even after printing many thousands of pages after the ink absorber counter reached full the first time. I just resetted the counter. No messy and tiresome disassembly for me.
As a general rule, ink goes cheaper as the price of the printer goes up. Low cost machines have tiny cartridges and the cost/ml of the ink is higher than middle range printers.
My current set up is a Canon Maxify MB5150 and I refill the carts ( which are quite big ) with pigment ink extracted from Canon OEM GI-53 bottles, for the color inks, and Inktec pigment for the black cartridge. This way ink cost is very reasonable.
Maxifys are sturdy and reliable machines ,but they behave quite different from Canon Pixmas. You have to become acquainted with their quirks and fancies, so to speak. Several people on this forum have Maxifys and we love them ( well, most of the time.. .) but definitively not everybody’s cup of tea.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

The Epson models of Ecotank printers with ink tanks vary between different business regions - particular models may be available here or there or not - the T-2860 is an entry level combo running at 175€ in Germany. The waste ink box is available behind a plastic cover, and waste ink boxes are available at low prices via China/Aliexpress. And a counter reset can be done via WicReset at a small charge.
I rarely see ink bubbles in the tubes - it is a matter of some kind of somewhat regular use , and a power clean via the driver helps in most cases. These Epson printers run with a pigment black ink and dye CMY color inks.

 

[user062]

Honestly, nowadays I wouldn't know which printer to recommend, based on your needs AND within a budget of $150. I'm talking about Canon, knowing little or nothing about Epson, Brother or HP models.

It occurs to me though, that if you print around 1600 pages/year ( mostly documents ) replacing the ink absorbers won't be much of a problem, because it will take a good number of years before you need to do it.
In fact, I never replaced the absorbers on any of my Canon printers and I never had ink spilling even after printing many thousands of pages after the ink absorber counter reached full the first time. I just resetted the counter. No messy and tiresome disassembly for me.
As a general rule, ink goes cheaper as the price of the printer goes up. Low cost machines have tiny cartridges and the cost/ml of the ink is higher than middle range printers.
My current set up is a Canon Maxify MB5150 and I refill the carts ( which are quite big ) with pigment ink extracted from Canon OEM GI-53 bottles, for the color inks, and Inktec pigment for the black cartridge. This way ink cost is very reasonable.
Maxifys are sturdy and reliable machines ,but they behave quite different from Canon Pixmas. You have to become acquainted with their quirks and fancies, so to speak. Several people on this forum have Maxifys and we love them ( well, most of the time.. .) but definitively not everybody’s cup of tea.

Unfortunately the Maxify series is much more expensive here.