Printing from Android Devices
 

Over the last year or so my long retired parents computing habits have changed a fair bit, my father has gone from using a Surface Pro and my mother from using an iMac to them both overwhelmingly using Android tablets almost exclusively.

My mother has an 8" Galaxy Tab 4 and my father has a 9.7" Galaxy Tab A.

An issue that has become a significant source of frustration in this transition is printing, Cloud Print using their ancient laser printer (I don't remember when exactly they bought it, but it has a "Certified for Windows Vista" sticker on it) only works until it doesn't with no rhyme or reason to when Cloud Print decides the printer is offline. Using the iMac or an old PC makes no difference, using Chrome or the Google Cloud Print Service for Windows makes no difference, hours, days or weeks later Cloud Print will decide the printer is offline. They just get frustrated, complain they're wasting enough electricity to power a small city keeping the computer turned on and email things to their real computers and print them from there.

Their print volume is insignificant enough that an Inkjet might not be economically unreasonable, but they also have no need for printing in color.

So I am curious what hardware or strategies are providing people with satisfactory outcomes for printing from Android.

At work our Cloud Print and AirPrint printing is done through PaperCut NG but people still complain about printing from Android being flaky.

I'm using an HP printer so I chose to use the HP Print Service Plugin that was pre-loaded on my Android phone. The first time using it, I did have to upgrade to the then current version that was on Play Store.

I primarily print from a PC but when I need to print from the Android, it's worked fine for me.

I have a cheapo Samsung wireless printer that's approaching it's 6th year. I installed a Samsung print app to my Android devices and everything's worked seamlessly.

As far as wifi enabled printers go, I've had far-and-away more luck with Cannon than any other brand. I've never had any issues with built-in Google Cloud Print either. You can often get their lower-end three-color+black models for less than $40 or sometimes free after rebate... as you move up the line, you add more colors like photo black, grey, etc but it sounds like this wouldn't be of any benefit to your parents. I've also had better luck with inexpensive third-party ink on Canon printers than any other brand, which makes them particularly economical. Something like the MG2920 should do everything they need.

Purchase an inexpensive Brother laser printer. They have an Android app for printing. Given they seldom print, inkjets risk drying out between printings. Compatible Brother toner cartridges are very inexpensive when toner has run out.

Thanks for all the input, I looked at some printers and decided I like the HP approach the best and was planning on picking up an HP 1102W until I discovered it doesn't have Ethernet, just Wi-Fi. (this honestly never occurred to me until I was looking at the floor model at Best Buy.) Their house is huge so I wasn't going to take for granted that the end-result here was going to be tremendously less frustrating.

However as luck would have it I was able to buy a new HP LaserJet M604 for spectacularly little and just plugged it in place of their old Lexmark monstrosity. My parents could live another thirty years and I don't think they will print 10,500 pages.