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[Steve B]

Probably inkjet but will depend on needs. For heavy usage a laser may be cheaper.

Home, occasional use - inks seem to dry out quickly.

The one I own at the minute is an HP inkjet all in one.

Run a quick draft sheet of text once a week if its left standing for long periods of time..i do that with my HP 8050.. never do pics just text every now and then 

[Rods2]

I gave up many years a go with gapjet inkjet printers as you spend all of your time cleaning dried cartridges! I have an Epson C1100 colour laser at about £150 for the unit and would never go back to gapjet printers. Photograph reproduction is excellent and the pages are also much more reslient where the ink is waterproof.

IME gapjet printers are fatally flawed, but do have their place. In the bottom of a skip.

[Broomies Mate]

I gave up many years a go with gapjet inkjet printers as you spend all of your time cleaning dried cartridges! I have an Epson C1100 colour laser at about £150 for the unit and would never go back to gapjet printers. Photograph reproduction is excellent and the pages are also much more reslient where the ink is waterproof.

IME gapjet printers are fatally flawed, but do have their place. In the bottom of a skip.

I don't follow - What's the point in waterproof 'toner' when the paper is absolutely not waterproof?  Also, should you require, an Inkjet printer can use Solvent Inks.

You'll not find a Laser printer to reproduce colours in the same way an Inkjet can, especially a CMYK Inkjet.  For this reason, printing photographs, be it on Paper, Acetate or even Canvas is done by InkJet.

For B&W or simple Headed Paper (Company Logo etc), the Laser would be preferential, as it's much faster, cheaper and more reliable than the Inket.



In terms of cost of consumables - There are always other options than the 'branded' products at PC World etc.  eBay or Amazon will provide many suppliers of either Toner or Cartridges to suit your needs without ANY loss of quality.  Even the printers which use identity chips are being fooled by the cheaper stuff.  My Mono Laser (an Epson) is around £48 for a 1,200page Toner.  Amazon, £4.99 for TWO, delivered).  They work just as well as the originals.  As for my Inkjet (Epson also) I use oversize cartridges which drip-feed the standard cartridges as and when required.

[TD]

What worries me with the instant ink is what happens when you have a problem, but the printer doesnt know - like bad output quality.
Sory of thing you'd historically change the cartridge for, but you cant as its a rented high capacity tank.....

I suppose if you kept doing a 'head cleaning' cycle that will 'prompt' for a new cartridge to be sent, as the printer will use shed loads of ink each cycle 

[TheBoy]

I personally have the following 2 printers:

HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP476dw
Epson Stylus Photo PX730WD

Both are all in one devices, wireless and wired Ethernet, support all the usual you'd expect like Apple AirPrint, network scanning (the LaserJet does 1 pass duplex scanning as well), duplex printing.


Which is best?

Well, if I didn't have a need to print on CDs, I think I'd get rid of the Epson, mostly due to age old inkjet problems, made worse on the Epson by the fact it uses non replacable heads.

Using the right paper, both produce decent A4 photos, with the Epson (a 6 cartridge photo printer) having an edge.  That said, laser photo paper is harder to just walk down the shops and buy...  ...and seems to be more expensive.

For general colour printing, the Color LaserJet is hard to beat for convenience, speed and quality.  Mono letters, as with any laser, come out crisp and professional - something no inkjet can manage.

The downside is that rather than paying £20 every couple of months for ink, all of a sudden you have to blow £50 on a toner cartridge...  ...or more if it needs more than 1.  Another thing worth considering is ideally the Laser needs to be left on (it'll drop to standby), so it can stir the toners every couple of days.


If buying HP, remember that both their inkjets and lasers come with half filled cartridges in the box

[Bigron]

TB, talking about leaving printers on, certainly my HP 5552 and probably most other inkjets purge the cartridges every time they are swiched on, thereby wasting loads of ink clearing the heads for you.
I therefore always leave mine on and have never had a clogging ptoblem, despite my refilling them with pikey ink many, many times over!

Ron.

[Kevin Wood]

Given that you print occasionally, and aren't fussed about photos, I'd say a laser is a complete no-brainer.

It really isn't worth faffing around trying to make an inkjet work any more. I've given up on them even though I have a requirement to print photos, because the only time they'd ever do a decent job of that was when new out of the box. Online photo printing services take that headache away and the laser is perfect for printing the odd letter, etc. at home. It just wakes up and works when you need it to.

We have a little Samsung colour laser (C510, IIRC). Couple of years old and still using the "demo" cartridges it came with. Couldn't be happier.

[LC0112G]

I agree with Kevin. I've got both a black and white Laser Printer (HP LaserJet 5) and a colour inkjet (Canon Pixma 9500). The Canon is great at printing photos (up to A4), but, it takes 8 ink cartridges and one of them always seems to be running low. It doesn't clog, but takes ages to 'warm up' and you're lucky to get more than a few hundred pages of normal print before it runs out of one ink or other. And worse - the print isn't water proof - if you get the paper wet the ink runs. And you have to use decent paper because ordinary 80gm white paper gets 'damp' and distorts if you print any pictures/photos/diagrams on it.

The Laser on the other hand - 5000-10000 pages per toner cartridge, fast, 'ink' doesn't run, paper doesn't get damp etc.

So if you want to print photos - ink jet. Everything else I'd use a Laser.
 

[Steve B]

TB, talking about leaving printers on, certainly my HP 5552 and probably most other inkjets purge the cartridges every time they are swiched on, thereby wasting loads of ink clearing the heads for you.
I therefore always leave mine on and have never had a clogging ptoblem, despite my refilling them with pikey ink many, many times over!

Ron.

Do you mean by injecting ink back into the cartridge 

[Bigron]

Yes, exactly that, BIGtime. With HP 56, 57 and 58 cartridges it's SO simple - peel the label off to uncoever the holes at the top of the sponge and use a syringe (a cheapo kit from ebay includes this and inks, etc) to inject ink SLOWLY until it oozes and suck a little back to avoid over-filling, replace the label and you are all set. You can get all colours, including photo colours, very cheaply in bottles on the bay!

Ron.

[Steve B]

Yes, exactly that, BIGtime. With HP 56, 57 and 58 cartridges it's SO simple - peel the label off to uncoever the holes at the top of the sponge and use a syringe (a cheapo kit from ebay includes this and inks, etc) to inject ink SLOWLY until it oozes and suck a little back to avoid over-filling, replace the label and you are all set. You can get all colours, including photo colours, very cheaply in bottles on the bay!

Ron.

Ive done this but never have much luck. Only use the black ink side of the printer...Do you do it when its ran out or keep it topped up ?

[Bigron]

It's best not to let it run dry completely, but being human I do leave it too late sometimes! It doesn't seem to mind.
A couple of points: if you do have a cartridge that has run dry, don't stand the print head in a pool of water, it will suck up the water and dilute the ink/saturate the sponge. Instead, place the printhead on dampened filter paper (from the coffee maker?) and let it soften the dried ink. Then rub it over some tissue to clean it and check for ink flow.
When replacing the label over the filling holes, either position it accurately so as not to cover the "air-input" channels, or pin-prick over the filling holes. If the air input is blocked, you won't get much ink out of the printhead!

Ron.