Multi Function Printers - suggestions & experiences
 

Not sure we have a thread on Multi Function (all in one) type printers. Im looking for recent experiences that folks have had with HP, Canon, Brother and Epson machines, as part of my research to decide which machine to purchase.

Im kind of on the wall about whether to go Ink-Jet or Laser, and while Im open to any of the above brands (and potentially others also), my past purchase experience has mostly been with HP products, so the three models Ive been looking into with more detail are...

HP OfficeJet Pro 8740
HP PageWide Pro 477 DW
HP PageWide Pro 577 DW

My budget is somewhat flexible... Im looking to spend something in the range of $300 to $650, depending on specifications and estimated per page printing costs.

Thanks to all in advance for any info/experience/comments you would care to share !!! :D ^

One of the main things to consider is ink cost. Some companies sell the machines relatively cheaply, but you are forced to use proprietary ink cartridges priced absurdly high.

I've had good luck with Brother all in one machines, but can get generic ink cartridges cheap off Amazon in the US. Not sure what your situation would be in AR.

Brother and Canon are my only two recommendations for inkjets these days. HP is expensive and puts too much crapware on your computer. Epson's ink cost is low, but this is because they use a print head that is subject to clogging if you don't use the printer consistently on a daily basis, and it can easily turn your Epson into a boat anchor.

I currently have an OfficeJet Pro 8500. I don't use it very often though, and that seems to cause all sorts of problems with the quality. I have to clean the printheads frequently, which blasts through the (ridiculously expensive) ink. I've used HP printers for as long as I can remember. Typically they've been high quality, but I've had problems with the last 2 I've had.

Based on reviews & feedback from other users, my next printer will be an Epson. Something in their WorkForce line. Most of the specs seem to be comparable to the HP, while the price is a lot less. Did notice that color print speed for the 3640 is about 50% of the latest HP units.

If you have friends in the PRC, it might be good to ask them what printers are used that have, as an aftermarket accessory, huge refillable ink tanks with hoses feeding them to the printer head. Best idea I've seen if you have the volume.

http://i01.i.aliimg.com/img/pb/790/4...449790_288.jpg

If you print photo or label CD/DVD, then inkjet is a must. Otherwise go laser.

A couple of friends and families have Brother color and mono laser MFCs. They are workhorses. No trouble at all beyond the usual supplies and wear and tear parts.

I noticed some wide format printers listed. Is that a desired feature? They cost a lot more than the equivalent A4/Letter printers.

I've had several Canon all-in-ones that I've been very happy with. However, I've had to replace them almost every time a new version of Windows is released due to lack of new drivers. Other than that, they were easy to set up, printed great, and didn't use an inordinate amount of ink. Their tech support has been pretty good on the rare occasion I've had to call them. I'll keep buying Canons and freecycle the old ones.

I had one HP that printed great but was a royal pain mechanically. It was plagued by paper jams, time-consuming head-cleaning, turning it off to reboot it, etc. The day that I picked it up, carried it out to the garage, and dropped it in the trash barrel was one of the most satisfying days of my life.

i've bought sooo many canons ink jets over the dasy, standalone and multi-function units.

they were all great at the beginning, and in the medium term, but eventually ran into ink issues. comparatively still more appealing than hp equivalents.

but in retrospect, it was silly to have purchased them so many times. if i needed a home printer again - without a question a Brother B&W laser, and standalone scanner.

nothing beats made-for-purpose devices. if i needed any color printing, id just do it at the office

I'm done with ink, after a half-dozen HP ink sponges over the last 15 years.

I purchased a Brother MFC-L2740DW last year and it's rock solid. I don't do a lot of printing; for me that's an argument against inkjets, since the ink gets "used up" even when the printer is idle for long periods. It's nice not to have to worry about it deciding to run a cleaning cycle when I'm trying to make a copy or print something I need to get out the door, though.

2-sided printing is a breeze, and 2-sided scanning is very fast (it scans both sides of the page at the same time). Copies are painless as well.

It's monochrome, but the toner is very cheap compared to ink and you don't have to worry about it drying out. Given your price range, though, you could look into color lasers if B/W isn't enough. I haven't missed color printing, but Mme. DeBoulet has an older Epson for her color output needs.

Re: the CD/DVD comment above . . . I had to burn one a couple of months ago; some wedding pictures for a technophobe friend that didn't understand Google Drive. Brought back memories :D

And regarding single- vs. multi-function: I don't have a dedicated print/copy room, so desk and credenza space is valuable. Multi-function has always worked for me; out of the 6 printing devices I've used over the last decade and a half, only one of them has had the scanner crap out before the print mechanism.

We used HP for years, but decided to get an Epson last year. It was great at first, but now something keeps going wrong. We will get a Brother laser and keep the Epson as a scanner.

I've had an HP CM1312nfi MFP for years that has never given any trouble at all, but then again I usually print maybe a page a month.

My parents have a Brother MFC that gets fairly heavy use (it's the home office printer for my mom, who is an analogue girl living in a digital world, as my dad says) and hasn't had any trouble in the 5+ years my parents have had it.

I'd avoid the inkjets for the reasons outlined above. We bought my mother in law an Epson inkjet a couple years ago and its ink jets are perpetually clogged.

Thanks to all for the feedback.... Ive been using an OfficeJet Pro 8500 for 5+ years and have never had any issues with printheads or clogs. I use only original HP ink... have to say Im surprised with the mentioned problems with the inkjet technology. The printer gets moderate use, and does not go for longer than 3 or 4 days without use, perhaps that is the reason...??

Would welcome other suggestions, feedback & experiences.

Thanks !!! ^

I have used HP printers from a basic single function all he way up to multi-function "for the longest time" and when my last printer finally died, I switched to the Espon WorkForce WF3640 and I've never looked back. It's not an ink hog, the print quality is great (even in fast draft mode), set up was a snap and the 500 sheet tray capacity (250x2) is nice as well. The rear feed slot printing is a little funky but other than that, Ive had no complaints. I picked it up at OfficeMax for $99 and the prices run between $119-$99 (just have to catch it at the right time ;))

I also dumped ink based printers about 3 years ago, mainly due to the fact that I don't print a lot and every time I went to use the inkjet, it was either out of ink, gummed up or just didn't print consistently well.

I now have a Laserjet 1302n for mono printing. The 1320n is a solid workhouse in the old-style HP design, i.e solid and well made. I recently changed the rollers and paper pickup/ transfers for $10.

I also have a 4-in-one HP Laserjet Pro 200 Color MFP M276NW (yes, that is what is written on it!), which is a color scanner, printer, fax and copier. It is a newer HP so a lot more plastic and it gets through toner cartridges seemingly a little too quickly mainly because they are small @ ~600 sheets and expensive @$65. It is fast though.

I've got multiple pieces of Brother equipment, all of it has been well behaved and the consumables costs are reasonable.

Inkjets are good if you use them frequently but they tend to dry out if you don't--a decent inkjet will expend some ink into an internal tank to avoid drying out but this makes them a very bad deal for light printing. Inkjets are still superior for photo printing and they can print onto things that lasers can't but otherwise I wouldn't consider them these days.

HP used to be very good, albeit pricey, gear. These days I say HP stands for Huge Problem. My last personal experience with HP gear was a printer that used the system CPU to do much of the workload--and had buggy drivers. If anything went wrong with the printout you had to reboot the computer to get your printer back. That was the last straw for my employer at the time but since then I've heard plenty of gripes about HP, I see no reason to think they've shaped up since.

I had a Brother color laser MFC for a long time and when I decided to replace / upgrade it, I bought another one. I have an MFC-9340CDW and I couldn't be happier with it. Good print quality, wireless connectivity, scans well, faxes well, etc.

The Brother laser MFCs are my go to machine for individual/small office printing. They are inexpensive to buy and inexpensive to operate if you use generic supplies. Unless you REALLY need color, I avoid inkjets due to the cost/page for ink and the nuisance of the maintenance.

Brother has real solid Linux support. I had nothing but trouble with HPLIP when I had two HP devices. Brother is much easier.

Another Brother laser vote. Estimate that I've bought about 15 of them in the last five years, for small offices in my company.

I've avoided the least expensive lines, which used to be machines in the 7xxx series. The paper feeders tend to be flakey. However we've had good luck with those in the 8xxx and 9xxx series. Decent quality non-OEM toner is available on Amazon, and its cheap.

Only thing about Brothers that bother me is that the "Replace Toner" messages come on too soon. Googling the issue reveals hacks which trick the cartridges. On some models all it takes is a half inch piece of black electrical tape, and you can get another 500-700 copies from a cartridge after it goes into "Replace Toner" mode.

They will all be more or less similar so check the cost (and availability) of consumables. You can also make sure the driver UI isn't particularly annoying, some have a lot of bloatware. Personally I have good experience with Brother devices. If you have the choice, try to get a black or dark gray one -- white plastic doesn't age well.

Another thing you might want to consider is the noise they make when printing. HP provides that detail in their specs, not sure about the others.

For color laser, isn't the cost per page significantly higher than for inkjet?

I have an HP Officejet 8610 which gets limited use and now suffers from a blocked printhead. It may have been the 3rd party inks, either way, the printer cost £10 nett and will now be junked as it's used mainly by the kids. I'll look at cheap colour lasers to replace it.

Elsewhere in the house, I have a Dell Colour Laser C1765 which has been a great workhorse - even though the toner is ruinously expensive.

Yes, if you print enough that you don't have ink drying issues. If you rarely print color the laser is the better deal, though, as you actually use up a toner cartridge rather than waste it like you do with a low-use ink cartridge.

If you're going to use this as your main equipment in a home office or for a small business, think about the functions you want/need. When there machines first appeared, it seemed that they all did everything (phone, answering machine, fax, printer, scanner) but now the ones advertised in the USA tend not to include all these features.

BTW, if you're using the same landline for voice and fax, I assume that the recognition of dialing tones and fax noises works with Argentina's phone system, especially if you're thinking of purchasing one outside of the country.

I have a b&w Brother multi-function (with wireless and duplex) that I use, on average, 30 pages per month--and that's being generous. I use the copier and color scanner options much more often. Replacement toner cartridges are about $15. I also have a very simple wireless HP color laser printer that I use even less; I have been on the same starter toner cartridges for almost two years now.

In short, given how little I print/copy, there's no way I will go back to inkjet printers.

I've had Brother and Canon recently and am very happy with both for fairly low volume printing (get through a ream of paper every other month). The key is that it will continue to work even when the colour cartridge is showing empty.

Yeah. In my case it's a B&W laser + a color multifunction. I print a few pages/year to the multifunction, although the copier and scanner functions gets used considerably more. The b&w probably gets a ream every month or two. I also have a thermal label printer (load rolls of the desired labels) and a thermal label tape printer (load cassettes with a supply of tape, cut to length.) Both would be on the expensive side for heavy use but for one label now the convenience is wonderful.

Also have had blocked printheads with HP printers with HP ink. Very low quantity user but never have problems with Canon printers.

I've long since given up on inkjets. Lasers are just no more expensive for B&W and they last longer and have vastly lower cost per page. If you need color, color lasers are still rather pricy, but no longer awful.

For multifunctions, Brother and Canon have had much better scanners in my experience than Dell or HP. One nice thing is these days the scanners tend to be able to scan to email/dropbox/google drive or a local file share without having to have any drivers on the computer.

One thing to look for is single-pass duplex scanning. I need to get both sides of things far too often for "scan the pile twice" to be acceptable, and automatic two-pass duplex scanning chokes far too often.

I can't recommend a specific multifunction device, as I use a separate Brother scanner and Dell color laser printer, and the go-to models from Brother and Canon I used to recommend have been superceded.

Specs-wise, these seem to be pretty good:
Brother MFC-L2740DW
Canon MF229dw
Canon D550

All right around $200. If your budget is higher, you can spend more on the printer being faster, on color, or on large format printing.

I mentioned the MFC-L2740DW upthread. I love the thing; reliable, quiet, and plenty fast enough for my home office needs.

Thanks, missed that. Glad to get some direct confirmation that newer model is pretty good.

And speaking of which:
I've never seen the scanner crap out first, either, although to get one with a good scanner you are still paying a bit of a premium for the scanner.

There are pretty good scanners which are small enough to keep in a drawer when not in use; one of these days I want a really good higher-volume document scanner, but for now this one does really well:
Brother ADS1500W Compact Color Desktop Scanner with Duplex and Web Connectivity
I paid a little less for it than it goes for now, but it was still pricier than the B&W multifunctions so it really only makes sense in combination with already having two perfectly good laser printers.

Glad I'm not alone. Printer now junked and replaced with a Samsun 430. Does what we need and works with Google Cloud Print.

I have one of this model too and have been very happy with it. Agree on the colour printing expense, but as I seldom need colour printing I turn it off and just print in B&W for almost all daily use. I don't need receipts/boarding passes etc in colour! You can get a larger black toner, as well as printing in reduced ink mode.

It is wifi and airprint compatible so I can print on my network as well as from my phone and ipad etc.

Another vote for the Brother MFC-9340CDW. It's amazing.

Thanks again to all for contributing to this thread. Brother seems to have quite a following around here. I will go over to the Brother website and check out what they have.

It does make me a little sad that HP seems to have flushed a good portion of their brand down the drain.....

Yeah, Carly Fiorina was a disastrous CEO...but HP had problems before her too. My parents have a Brother MFP that has never given them any trouble in 6+ years.

The trouble with beancounters started long before Fiorina.

The thing is beancounter damage is slow--the company coasts on it's good reputation for a while so they think it's working.

From a laser-printer-quality perspective, the trouble started under her. The last really good series of laser printers they came out with (the original laserjet 4000/8000 series) were one of the first to come out with under her tenure, and based on the costcutting their immediate successors had (e.g the 4100s) it seems likely they were in response to her changes.

Their PC division was already producing cr*ppy machines before Fiorina, as was the consumer half of Compaq's before the merger.

I wasn't blaming Carly or anyone else..... I remember HP being more expensive than anything comparable, but the historic quality and service was the difference. I was always happy to pay more because back then, you got what you paid for.

I guess the recent industrial paradigm has, to a certain extent, a build in concept of less durability to "force" consumers to upgrade their stuff in shorter periods of time....?

I think what's happened is consumers have become so price-conscious that it's the cheap stuff that sells.