All-in-one/Multifunction recommendations?

[navychop]

I have a Canon MX-850, for home use. This model was not on the market long, it was quickly replaced by the MX-860, some of which we use at work for desktop printers. At home, I have it connected to the network via RJ-45. It sometimes works as a printer. I've had sporadic problems, needing to reload s/w, etc, and never succeeding in getting it to work with a Vista laptop. Then the fax machine function decided to answer all the time, regardless of settings. Had to unplug the phone line from it, and replug it in only when in use as a fax. Now, the scanning function is toes up.

Time to send it as a laptop direct connect printer/copier to our RV. I'd consider the MX-860, but I'm feeling a bit burned. Besides, the ones we use at work are only in direct connect mode, none are on the network (so I have no network reliability experience there), and I need to have a printer at home on the network. Wired is fine, even preferred. Besides, there is an MX-870 now, although I suspect the only difference with the MX-860 is that it comes with Windows 7 drivers (required).

I must have printing from the network from multiple PCs, faxing, copying and scanning. But it's light use. On occasion, I do print photos, but superb photo quality is not required. Nor are memory card readers built in, although I guess that's a small plus, as a backup.

I'm also considering HP, perhaps one of the 6500 or 8500 ones, or some other model. I used to be big on buying only HP, but then they kinda dropped the ball on drivers and software, and seem to be having more other problems. We keep our (love it) HP 4200 going at work only by using individual PC drivers. We had to abandon server based drivers due to failures, and consequently no longer have any queue control. That has bitten us a couple of times. We use SBS2003 but will soon move to a new server (08). I have little hope to regain control via the server.

Epson? Mixed feelings. I've looked at the Artisan 810, but have vague feelings of having been burned on one before.

I'm not too concerned about the cost of ink due to low usage. I no longer use third party ink refills.

Any recommendations or other thoughts? Personal experiences, good or bad?

 

[SatelliteGAL]

I have a Canon MX-850, for home use. This model was not on the market long, it was quickly replaced by the MX-860, some of which we use at work for desktop printers. At home, I have it connected to the network via RJ-45. It sometimes works as a printer. I've had sporadic problems, needing to reload s/w, etc, and never succeeding in getting it to work with a Vista laptop. Then the fax machine function decided to answer all the time, regardless of settings. Had to unplug the phone line from it, and replug it in only when in use as a fax. Now, the scanning function is toes up.

Time to send it as a laptop direct connect printer/copier to our RV. I'd consider the MX-860, but I'm feeling a bit burned. Besides, the ones we use at work are only in direct connect mode, none are on the network (so I have no network reliability experience there), and I need to have a printer at home on the network. Wired is fine, even preferred. Besides, there is an MX-870 now, although I suspect the only difference with the MX-860 is that it comes with Windows 7 drivers (required).

I must have printing from the network from multiple PCs, faxing, copying and scanning. But it's light use. On occasion, I do print photos, but superb photo quality is not required. Nor are memory card readers built in, although I guess that's a small plus, as a backup.

I'm also considering HP, perhaps one of the 6500 or 8500 ones, or some other model. I used to be big on buying only HP, but then they kinda dropped the ball on drivers and software, and seem to be having more other problems. We keep our (love it) HP 4200 going at work only by using individual PC drivers. We had to abandon server based drivers due to failures, and consequently no longer have any queue control. That has bitten us a couple of times. We use SBS2003 but will soon move to a new server (08). I have little hope to regain control via the server.

Epson? Mixed feelings. I've looked at the Artisan 810, but have vague feelings of having been burned on one before.

I'm not too concerned about the cost of ink due to low usage. I no longer use third party ink refills.

Any recommendations or other thoughts? Personal experiences, good or bad?

We have an HP 8500 series at work. We have had it about a year. I think I have seen it recently at Office Max for like $200 (wired version) so it is reasonable. So far it has had no problems. It has been very good with ink. I like being able to scan to a jump drive when I want to. We do not have it networked with many computers though (only 3) so I guess our experience in that respect is limited. I have an old HP 2610 at home that just will not quit. It has served me well for many years and believe it or not was not a problem with win 7

 

[iwc5893]

We have two of the HP OfficeJet 6500's with wireless networking at home. Pretty good all in one printer, with the exception that it doesn't want to stay connected to the wireless router. I'm not sure if this is an issue with the router or the printer, and haven't spent the time to figure it out. We've had zero issues with the printers being wired to the network.

 

[TheForce]

I have two basic printers here.

Inkjet for color photo quality work and Laser color for general purpose document printing.

Both are Brother printers purchased at Staples for good bargain prices.

The laser is an MFC- 9840CDW. Does good job for envelopes, 11 at a time in the manual feeder tray and glossy laser printing for label stock as well as regular documents. Photocopy with an auto doc feeder and FAX. Has a scanner but I never use it. It is on my network via 801.11G. It only does 8.5x11 for photocopies but the tray will hold legal size paper. Cost was $450 a couple years ago.

The Inkjet is my favorite for the office here as it has full photo quality at 11x17 with an 11x17 flatbed document feeder scanner. I also use it for FAX with a Magic Jack. Has two trays that I keep filled with 8.5x11 photo glossy paper and 11x17 photo glossy paper. It is a Brother MFC6490CW. It is also network ready for wireless but I use a USB connection on my main computer for scanning. Other computers connect to it for printing via wireless LAN connection. I haven't tried envelops in it yet. Cost was $157 a couple years ago.

Neither printer ever jams. The Inkjet uses separate ink cartridges for lower cost.

The last trouble free printer I had with HP was an HP III back in the 80's. It lasted until 2000 and I just upgraded. Bought another HP and it failed beyond repair after 18 months. Tried Canon, Epson, Samsung, Lexmark and they all broke in one way or another just outside the warranty period.

I also have an old Epson 320 printer here I keep around for the CD printing capability as a backup if my Microboards commercial printers break down. These are DVD/CD only printers and I run them daily on high volume DVD jobs.

 

[mike123abc]

I use a brother 9840CDW I use it all the time. The only real issue is that printing takes about 1 minute for the first page since it is a full color laser and takes a while to warm up all the different toners. It then prints fast and it stays in standby for a while so more print jobs do not take as long.

I also use it as a network scanner. I used to use it as a fax, but discontinued the fax line to the house.

 

[navychop]

We have a color laser at work. About a hundred bucks per color for toner. I can easily get by with an ink jet at home.

 

[avg1joe]

I'm not too concerned about the cost of ink due to low usage.

I became concerned about ink cost because of low usage. I used to have an hp but very rarely used it resulting in the cartridges not working (drying out).

I now have a brother mfc-5460cn and am satisfied with it. It is networkable, wireless capable, but I use it via usb cable. The brother goes through a cleaning cycle periodically to keep the cartridges from drying out. This is a mixed blessing because nothing clogs up but it uses ink. Every now and then it goes OCD and just keeps squirting ink. Read the reviews for your model before you buy one. Mine is an older model and the newer ones may not do this.

 

[yaz96]

Epson is the way to go. Fast. Reliable. Good ink usage. Excellent photo quality.

Brothers are one of the worst printers on the market quality-wise, and very high cost ink replacement. Also, can't compare with photo quality.

 

[TheForce]

Ink cost is a real concern with high volume ink jet printing. My philosophy is that if you rarely print color glossy photo that requires an ink jet printer it is a good buy. Reason is your cost per month is low comparatively speaking. What you are really paying for here is convenience of a local printer.

I mentioned my Microboards commercial printers. It is not uncommon for me to incur ink costs of $150 per day to run these machines. I HAD to find a better way. The solution is when you must use an ink jet printer, find a way and learn to refill your own ink. Fact is ink is low cost but buying the cartridges from the factory is high cost. You actually have 2 choices here- Buy 3rd party refilled cartridges or learn to refill them yourself and buy ink in bulk. I use enough ink here that I had to learn to refill my own. Then the makers of the engines, HP, put chips in the cartridges increasing the cost further and making a feeble attempt at shutting down the refillers. But these chip locks can be fooled. I had to learn how to reprogram the chip to reactivate the cartridge with each refill. It takes about 15 minutes to refill and reprogram a color or B/W cartridge. The cost of a new cartridge is $70 and prints 150 full color prints. The ink to refill is $2 in bulk quantity but the cartridge can only be refilled for about 20 times before the head shows signs of print quality problems so that's a cost of $40 to print 3000 prints. Compare that to a cost of $1400 for the same number of prints.
I don't bother refilling the ink cartridges on my low volume printers since the cost per month is comparatively low. It just doesn't pay. I think you have to consider your use volume as well as what the use will be when buying a printer. Ink jet printers are low cost but if your volume is high, maybe not the wisest choice. If you need photo real then inkjet is your only choice. If you do lots of document printing then laser is the wisest choice. I do barely enough document printing to justify a color laser as in the past 2-3 years I have converted much of my work to paperless files.

Yaz- So what's your basis for your claim?- I use both and Epson is equal to the Brother in photo quality but the Brother never jams while the Epson jams often wasting a print or 2 before one good one makes it. Ink is about equal as both use individual color carts. I don't refill either one since the cost to refill is not justied by my low volume. Both my Epson and my Brother cost me the same but the Brother has more capability / features.

 

[yaz96]

Ink cost is a real concern with high volume ink jet printing. My philosophy is that if you rarely print color glossy photo that requires an ink jet printer it is a good buy. Reason is your cost per month is low comparatively speaking. What you are really paying for here is convenience of a local printer.

I mentioned my Microboards commercial printers. It is not uncommon for me to incur ink costs of $150 per day to run these machines. I HAD to find a better way. The solution is when you must use an ink jet printer, find a way and learn to refill your own ink. Fact is ink is low cost but buying the cartridges from the factory is high cost. You actually have 2 choices here- Buy 3rd party refilled cartridges or learn to refill them yourself and buy ink in bulk. I use enough ink here that I had to learn to refill my own. Then the makers of the engines, HP, put chips in the cartridges increasing the cost further and making a feeble attempt at shutting down the refillers. But these chip locks can be fooled. I had to learn how to reprogram the chip to reactivate the cartridge with each refill. It takes about 15 minutes to refill and reprogram a color or B/W cartridge. The cost of a new cartridge is $70 and prints 150 full color prints. The ink to refill is $2 in bulk quantity but the cartridge can only be refilled for about 20 times before the head shows signs of print quality problems so that's a cost of $40 to print 3000 prints. Compare that to a cost of $1400 for the same number of prints.
I don't bother refilling the ink cartridges on my low volume printers since the cost per month is comparatively low. It just doesn't pay. I think you have to consider your use volume as well as what the use will be when buying a printer. Ink jet printers are low cost but if your volume is high, maybe not the wisest choice. If you need photo real then inkjet is your only choice. If you do lots of document printing then laser is the wisest choice. I do barely enough document printing to justify a color laser as in the past 2-3 years I have converted much of my work to paperless files.

Bad idea, unless you want crappy quality photos and poor print quality on documents.

 

[mike123abc]

I use a laser printer because toner is a lot cheaper than inkjet. I do a moderate amount of printing. I do think inkjet produces a higher quality photo, but laser does better business documents, especially when you have a 10, 20 page packets to print. The laser can crank out 200 pages of color docs in 15 minutes.

 

[yaz96]

I use a laser printer because toner is a lot cheaper than inkjet. I do a moderate amount of printing. I do think inkjet produces a higher quality photo, but laser does better business documents, especially when you have a 10, 20 page packets to print. The laser can crank out 200 pages of color docs in 15 minutes.

If you are doing docs, and no need for photos, this is definitely the way to go.

 

[navychop]

For my home use, color laser makes no sense. Besides, it needs to print, fax, copy and scan.

I really need to pick and move on this.

 

[TheForce]

Navychop-

If you do mostly document printing then the Brother 9840 is a good trouble free color laser printer that is multifunction ( Fax Scan photocopy network etc.) It is NOT adequate for photographs. Using either pearl or glossy paper you can get magazine quality color prints. It will reproduce a color photograph in a document to that quality. When I do color photograph, I'm looking for a reproduction good enough to frame and hang on my wall. For this I would recommend the Brother 6490 inkjet. It is low cost, does 11x17 scanning on a flatbed document feeder ( but is slow) and Fax as well as photocopy ( but is slow) Price is about $150-$179 depending on sales. The Brother color Laser is much faster and does all the multifunction you requested too, but is NOT photograph quality.
Decide what your needs are and make your move. For me, I needed both and I bought both at one time. Total cost was under $600 with taxes and sales coupons and I've never been happier with having the choice of tools for what I needed.

 

[TheForce]

Bad idea, unless you want crappy quality photos and poor print quality on documents.

You don't understand the business do you? Granted, if you don't know what you are doing, you'll probably get crappy results. I don't recommend the business for everyone. And especially don't recommend casual printers refill their cartridges. The refill kits sold at the office supply houses use substandard ink. It dries slower than normal and tends to spread, reducing the sharpness. The Yellow is also low saturation compared to HP's factory grade ink. I know as I tested it just because I was curious. Probably what you were thinking. I use same ink as is used in the factory cartridges and buy it from the same manufacturer.

 

[yaz96]

You don't understand the business do you? Granted, if you don't know what you are doing, you'll probably get crappy results. I don't recommend the business for everyone. And especially don't recommend casual printers refill their cartridges. The refill kits sold at the office supply houses use substandard ink. It dries slower than normal and tends to spread, reducing the sharpness. The Yellow is also low saturation compared to HP's factory grade ink. I know as I tested it just because I was curious. Probably what you were thinking. I use same ink as is used in the factory cartridges and buy it from the same manufacturer.

I do understand the business, I was a printer salesman. Nice try though, with the "I know better than you do" smugness, as usual, Don.

Most people will not and do not, get their ink from the same original manufacturer. They get the cheap refill stuff or go to Cartridge World and then run crap through their printers, and wonder why they only print red now, or the jets have clogged.

Of course, we all know you know better than that, BUT you never mentioned in your previous monologue that you recommend refilling with manufacturers ink, you just recommended refilling the cartridges.

And if you can't see the difference in a photo between the Epson and the Brother, I guess you just don't understand the business, do you?

 

[TheForce]

I do understand the business, I was a printer salesman. Nice try though, with the "I know better than you do" smugness, as usual, Don.

Yes, I believe I do know the business of printing better than you, unless you are withholding the secrets to success from your customers.
But, you know the business of selling the printers and high profit margin ink cartridges. Just because you know how to sell a printer and sell the high profit margin ink cartridges doesn't mean everyone else in the business of printing turns out a lousy product unless they buy your expensive cartridges. So who's being smug?

Of course, we all know you know better than that, BUT you never mentioned in your previous monologue that you recommend refilling with manufacturers ink, you just recommended refilling the cartridges.

While using proper ink is the most important thing in refilling there are quite a few other things that you need to do or it will fail. I didn't mention those either because my purpose was to bring up the simple point that inkjet cartridges are expensive and refilling them can save you thousands depending on your volume. My post ( you called it a monologue) was simply to point out the economics, not the how to on refilling.

And if you can't see the difference in a photo between the Epson and the Brother, I guess you just don't understand the business, do you?

Let me guess- You sell Epson and you got your butt kicked by the competitor- Brother.

Hey, I have no special incentive of Brother over Epson or vice versa. I just am able to use the Brother 10 times harder and it never fails. I've been through 4 Epson R300 series and frankly they don't last. Yes, when brand new, the additional ink tones adds some subtle detail improvement, but when it wrinkles up paper, or fails to feed a CD and takes me 45 minutes and 7 sheets of paper to get one print from it, I don't see the advantage. Sorry but that's not the experience of a printer salesman but from one who makes a living using the products. I have yet to get a tip for improving my business profits from a printer salesman except for one. He is the one who turned me on to how to refill the cartridges, and get same as factory results. He knew the business of printing, not just selling the printers. He knew that as a business, buying the expensive cartridges for production work is like buying a new gas tank full of gas for your car everytime the gauge is on E. Why not buy just the gas? He knew that nobody lasts allowing their profits to go to HP by purchasing the factory cartridges.
And, just so we're clear on this I only refill my high volume printers. It's just not worth it to waste time refilling and storing ink for the low volume printers.

But heres one for you- Do you know that the cost of replacing cartridges in a R-320 Epson is 2/3 the cost of a new machine with cartridges? Better to just throw the whole machine away after your second round of carts and buy a new machine since they break so quickly anyway. You probably knew that as a salesman.

Am I smug? I don't think so but I do admit to being cynical about this industry. What I do I do well. But I don't know everything about every printer. I just try to get the best quality and profit from the stuff I have here.

 

[navychop]

Forgot to add: Automatic duplexing is highly desired, almost an absolute requirement. And separate ink carts for each color.

 

[TheForce]

The Brother 9840 CDW I told you about does auto duplex but is a color laser MFC.

It's expensive compared to inkjet MFC's unless you can get sales and coupons.


BTW- the Brother Laser is one of the easiest machines I have ever changed toner on. The Samsung was the most difficult and time consuming.

I looked for duplex on my ink jet 6490 and I don't believe it will do that.

generally speaking most printers will be individual color carts except for HP. So avoid HP. Brother and Epson uses separate cartridges.

I'm not familiar with multi function Epsons. Check with yaz96 on those as he claims to know Epson. I do believe Epson has some sort of duplex conversion kit but not sure how that works.

 

[navychop]

I had forgotten we had an HP8500 at the office, mixed in the herd. Users were happy with it, each ink cart seems to last OK (this one uses sep carts for each color), so I got one for myself.

Thanks to all.