Recommend a printer

[luke duke 6413]

Must do the following:

Print 11"x17"

Print double-sided

Auto-feed multi-page scans

Airprint compatible

Not suck

[Celery Man 20949]

Need color? What volume do you print? Can it be big?

[Irish Wrist Watch 1359]

If you just need it for business, inkjet is a bad idea. Most fire up every day or two whether you're using it or not. They will "clear" the jets, i.e., use ink. It is possible to go without printing a color document for a month or two, only to discover that you're out of yellow ink. Not a problem, you think. I'll just print B&W documents. Not so fast. The printer won't work unless you replace the yellow cartridge. That's why they sell them dirt cheap, because they rape you on the cartridges, complete with their own chip (often) making the use of after market ink riskier. 

I bought a canon D530 Laser Printer/Scanner (B&W only) maybe eight years ago. Supposedly, it only came with half a cartridge of toner, so I bought an off-market cartridge for $18 bucks of so. That original cartridge finally ran out of toner a few months ago. (Probably got a 1-2,000 pages out of it.) At that point I was wondering if the replacement cartridge would even work after sitting in a closet for eight years. Popped it in an it picked right up where the old one left off. The scanner probably cost about $150 back then. The price has gone up. They're now $340. The scanner is excellent. When I think of all the time I wasted fucking around with ink cartridges...

https://www.amazon.com/Canon-imageCLASS-D530-Monochrome-Printer/dp/B008YD1V08

PS. you might find one for less if you get it without a wireless feature. Hook it up to your desktop and designate it as your network printer and you can print from anywhere in the house.

Edited April 5, 2020 by Irish Wrist Watch

[Poolflood 845]

Epson wf7710 I think.  May be 7720.  Bought when opened business 3 years ago.   Don't do heavy volume but need color and have to be able to print and scan 11x17.

Buy extra ink because running out can be a bitch.  

[Hagbard Celine 10864]

Is there such a thing as a wireless, compact printer that can switch back and forth between color and black that doesn't waste consumables when it's printing black. 8 1/2 x 11, no scanner.

[Celery Man 20949]

Sorry I did a drive by response and meant to come back.

If I was living alone, I would have the cheapest black laser that prints over the network.  That would probably be... $150 or something, I think there's a really cheap Brother b/w laser printer and then a slightly more expensive one with wifi.  I don't print all that often, when I do it's just some document or paper, black is fine.

I do not live alone.

We had a really cheap Epson color printer and the aggravation of having to drive to Best Buy to get cartridges every time I needed to print something (it's never something that can wait), which seeped into the aggravation of seeing some big stupid colorful printout laying around that could have been black and white, etc... goddammit.

I would have bought a black laser printer like I said, but our requirements were - wifi, color, scan/copy, has to fit in (insert dimensions of some medium sized space), can't be out of ink all of the goddamn time.

The space requirement nixed the color laser all in ones.  They are huge.  I bought a Canon tank printer.  Epson makes similar printers.  It has bigass tanks that you fill full of ink.  If I worked out a price per page thing, given the up front cost of the printer (probably $350 or something) it will probably still take a long time to actually save me any money.  But it fits in the thing and does the things I need it to do.  I bought it in July and it still has a fuckton of ink in it.  I may never refill it.

That FUCKING yellow ink cartridge.

[52-80 19158]

14 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

Is there such a thing as a wireless, compact printer that can switch back and forth between color and black that doesn't waste consumables when it's printing black. 8 1/2 x 11, no scanner.

i have a brother 23xx series black and white laser.  its sized perfectly as a box.  its wireless, so it sits hidden in a shelf/cabinet in my office.  even prints from a cell phone.  prints fast as fuck.  does duplex.  never ever jammed on me.  and ive only replaced the toner once with an amazon generic, completely plug and play. 

 

if i needed color capabilities, id just get the brother 3xxx series that adds color capabilities.  for example the 3230 https://www.brother-usa.com/home/printers-fax/laser#sort=%40productlaunchdatetime descending&f:technology=