was talking to a printer repairman yesterday … his recommendation was
A: stay away from ink jets … no if/ands/of buts … stay away
B: Brother was his suggestion
I have a HP ink jet for now … the next time it won't print (a black and white) doc. because it's out of some off the wall color .. it gets the sledgehammer treatment, and I'll get a B/W laser printer
I have a 4 year old HP Photosmart 3700 AIO and it has performed... well enough. I wouldn't say I love it, though it prints pretty damn nice photographs on glossy paper. The software was cack, but now Apple has taken over all drivers and interface software for printers. So it's still cack, just in a different way.
You may be asking a lot expecting more than mediocre reviews in the sub-$100 category. However, we bought a Canon Pixma sometingorother for DD#1 and it seems pretty solid. I will be looking at Canons to replace the HP when I finally get tired of it.
We have had a couple in the home office and they all work well for a year or so then start sucking at something.
The current one is an HP 6300 that has been the best of the lot but I changed the ink cartridge the other day and the freaking top half broke off clean ant the hinge. So... it still prints as long as you set 40lbs of books on it to keep it from falling apart but the scan/fax part is useless.
I will be lugging another POS home from Sam's Club or ordering on Newegg later.
I was looking at the HP Photosmart 6520 but seem to have about a 25% mechanical failure rate within a year.
Another contender, and early front runner (almost bought it last night) is the Epson Expression Home XP-410 Small-in-One the price is great, but it has some pricier ink cartridges, and seems to need a new one about every other page it prints.
After further research, something like the Brother DCP-J140w Wireless Compact Inkjet All-in-One looks to be the better buy.
We've got an ancient Lexmark All-in-One, from '02-ish that was working well, until it got knocked off of the desk a few weeks ago. I need to be shopping for a replacement for me too I guess.
thewirecutter.com has excellent articles on what is the best thing to get in a category. I find that their recommendations often align very closely with what I chose after extensive research and deliberation.
Here's their choice for multifunction printer. Just one more to consider:
http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-best-multifunction-printer-is-the-epson-workforce-wf-3520/
In reply to ryejeff:
Yeah, the Epson Workforce 2450 is/was on my radar, the older/slower version of the one in thewirecutter's article. The Epson ink seems to be liquid gold, and I've read about a class action suit over ink cost per use, or running out of ink way sooner than advertised.
Epson does seem to win out with build quality, reliability, and function over most of the competitors in all the PC/tech test comparisons. Maybe the ink cost is worth it?
I've killed a lot of HP printers in my day, probably time to give someone else a shot.
There is a Brother all in one in the office I work in. It has been reliable for the most part. When something does go wrong, their customer support has always been helpful on the phone.
We have an older Epson that was awesome at first but it drinks ink like my Lab drinks water no matter what setting we have it on.
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