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Yep, HP instant ink printer/scanner, worth the negligible cost for the convenience of needing the odd print.
Very occasional monochrome printing is the classic use case for a cheap laser printer.
Anyone who has ever used an inkjet infrequently will be painfully aware of the clogging issue, but as others have said Instant Ink gets around this problem. The cheapest plan is 99p/month for ten pages and this carries over (up to I think twice your monthly plan) if you don't use it. It seems you can get laser toner on the same scheme these days too, who knew.
Be aware that "starter cartridges" are a thing. A bargain basement printer might well have enough ink to spit out four pages before going "new cartridges please" so may not be the bargain it first appears.
The HP inkjet/scanner thing we have is several years old and was a prick of a thing to set up (because of course it was, it's a printer) but since then it's not missed a beat. It very occasionally shits itself and has to be restarted, but I suspect that's a side-effect of wireless printing through two-foot thick walls rather than any fault of its own.
We do! It’s primarily used as a shelf for a lamp. Mainly because the absolute bag of shit will print a single page in black ink before declaring it can’t continue to print because it has run out of cyan ink. **** you Canon.
As for the other half of the question,
I despise printers to the core of my being. Aside from them just being wilfully obstinate bastards on a good day, this whole mentality of people mindlessly printing shit out needs to change. At the old office they implemented a system where printouts weren't actually printed until the user went to collect them; consumables usage dropped to less than 40% of previous.
But as you say, that one day you need a paragraph on a piece of paper, it's a pain in the arse not to have one. My partner's setting up a business and is currently battering the thing to (see above) fill folders full of unread paper. I have finally got the concept of double-sided printing into her skull so that's something.
Her daughter (who doesn't live with us) has a Vinted habit, half of my usage is her emailing me address labels. We bought them a printer. Her bloke said he'd set up Instant Ink. He didn't. It ran out. She mails me address labels. Imagine my ****ing surprise.
Mind you, this is the same 20-something couple we donated a Dyson to. One day my partner casually mentions that she can't do their vacuuming (why are you even doing their... oh don't get me started) because they don't have a hoover. Wait, what happened to your old Dyson? "Oh, it's broke." Well... get it back here then, I'll take a look at it. I emptied it. It works again. FML.
Wife got into photography, bought a canon a3 photo printer, wife got out of photography. I have an excessively large paperweight next to my desk.
In fairness I bought it, she never said I had to. I've cleaned the jets many times, currently not been used for about 6 months so will need a full clean and flush cycle again next use, takes a while, lots of warm water and alcohol (for it, not me).
I should really get rid of it.
Needed a new printer last summer, was going to go brother colour laser for cheap cartridges. In the end was seduced by an A3+ Epson workforce inkjet scanner. I was going to use refillable cartridge with it, but decided Epson ready print subscription was reasonable value and no hassle. Same price and terms as the HP ink subs it seems. hammering ink usage on A4 photos has no penalty.
When family doing jigsaws, scan and print the box image blown up to A3 is useful.
Easy set up, direct from phone printing all good.
HP printer on less than 15 pages a month plan at £0 a month.
I have an HP printer scanner with HP Instant ink. It's great. However in order to scan (it's a wi-fi only unit) You have to use the HP Smart app. That is without question the worst piece of software I've had to use in the last 20 years. It seems to have been written by somebody who is wilfully ignorant of all IT conventions. Most times you try to scan it says "can't find the printer" while happily displaying "printer online" and showing up to date status and ink levels.
I must be lucky then as I've had the same Canon printer and scanner that's worked perfectly throughout for well over 10 years. Never clogged up, never failed to print and just keeps on trucking. Sits there doing nothing for months then just does it's thing when asked. It's currently doing Sterling work printing out a load of crap for my Dad's Estate and has been in constant use the last few weeks, only requiring a new Black ink cartridge as it had run out.
Maybe I should look after it s I've seemingly got the only good one in existence 🤣
Another vote for Instant Ink, I'm on the original tariff so it's just stupidly good, newer deals aren't as brilliant (I think they just got the economics of it a bit wrong first time round tbh) but it just takes away all the hassles of ink printers.
surfer
Free MemberWhat do other non printer owners do/use???
They mostly email it to me and ask me to print it out I think!
I am stunned to see people recommending HP, their dogshit printers, their dumb app, and their terrible Instant Ink subscription programme. Unreliable, expensive, slow.
politecameraaction
Free Member
I am stunned to see people recommending HP, their dogshit printers, their dumb app, and their terrible Instant Ink subscription programme. Unreliable, expensive, slow.
As a counter point. My experience has been nothing short of perfect.
After 5years of varying usage from a few pages a month to two degrees worth of printing. It lives under the dogs armchair on the floor and regularly gets mauled by the robohooover.
Completely faultlessly reliability from set up to the last print it's been trouble free. If you mean the delivery ink has always arrived well before it's needed.
Cheap. Well cheap enough to not to be noticed.
Slow... It prints kinda slow I guess if it's compared to a laser scanner but will pump out an eBay label faster than I can walk through.
I recommend HP because their inkjet printers, IMO, are the best on the market. I can't comment on how their software comperes to other makes as I don't know enough about that. I've never had a problem with the hardware, and the instant print option makes keeping it running easy.
Not sure what prompts the comment above about instant ink being terrible. Before it was an option everyone complained about the cost of ink. Instant ink eliminates that.
Regarding the cost of ink, obviously, the business plan of HP is to sell the hardware cheap and make money from the consumables, which is no different from many other companies. People don't seem to understand how difficult ink jet printing is: all inkjet printers have more tech in them then most other items of IT. Look at how many patents HP have related to ink jet. All that R+D has to be paid for.
As others. Wireless Brother B&W laser it just works from everything. Use it often.
Have an A3 HP printer that I got when I started new job 3 years ago which was WFH. The plan was to use it to print the building plans out in a half readable size that I need for site visits but I then discovered drop box has an offline feature so I now download what I need to view and use either my phone or a tablet to view them which is far easier and saves lugging an A3 folder round site.
Barely use the printer now.
I have an HP printer scanner with HP Instant ink. It’s great. However in order to scan (it’s a wi-fi only unit) You have to use the HP Smart app.
The inbuilt Windows 10 "Scan" app works just fine with mine.
Currently waiting for my wife to get home with a Brother ink tank thing. Need to print a quiz question sheet for this afternoon’s beer tasting. Hopefully the ink replacement is more cost effective than the old printer
In the olden days I had a liberated laser jet II that printer mono perfectly despite being low on toner for years
More recently we’ve got an HP something or other on instant ink that just works. Ink comes in the post, it cost pennies
Per month and all is well with the world.
The inbuilt Windows 10 “Scan” app works just fine with mine
Well I didn't know that. I just tried it out and it works. Thanks Cougar.
Every day's a school U3A day
Yeah. The HP Smart thing has its place but the scanning part is an asshole (because as previously mentioned, of course it is). The W10 app is basic but it isn't actively user-hostile.
We have a decent Brother laser printer, a bit more expensive than inkjets but not hugely and doesn't have the same problem of drying up/failing regularly. It actually gets used quite frequently nowadays for various charity things we are involved in (my wife mostly).
No workplace to sponge off here - or rather, our home was our workplace anyway, until we stopped!
Just checked, HL-3150CDW, obviously discontinued but still going strong and toner available.
Doesn't everyone just "scan" with their phone these days? Much easier and better than a flatbed scanner ever was IME. Maybe not if you need professional ultra-high-quality but for general use...
Another Epson Ecotank owner here. Had it for about 18 months, hardly use it but when I do it just fires up 1st time witno need to clean the print heads. Just works perfectly over the WiFi, which was easy to set up in computers and phones.
If it ever dies I'll probably just revert to using my colour laser at work.
I use the local library. 15p per sheet.
Another HP printer with instant ink. Just printed Wiggle return labels for a wetsuit that was too snall.
Doesn’t everyone just “scan” with their phone these days?
No, because there doesn't seem to be a single spot in my house where you can take an overhead photo without there being a shadow across it.
I use my inkless HP scanner, without the smart bit (there's another program in the suite that works fine).
I’m ‘living the dream’ and it appears probably the first Spanish purchase you need to make is a scanner/printer 🙂
so another Epson tank owner.
Local library user here. 15p per sheet and a nice place to go to boot. Helps that it’s near the post office, as it’s almost always return slips.
Another hp instant ink user here it is a pita but less of a pita than the alternatives which is using the local library
We have no need for a colour printer, so have a simple wireless B+W HP laser.
Cost about £100 iirc and just works. Can leave it months, send a page from my phone and it prints.
Gave up on inkjet many years ago, such a pain in the backside if you don't print often.
Also have a flatbed scanner although can't remember the last time it was used.
I have 2 HP laser printers (I will sell one of them shortly) and an Epson Scanner/Printer, all get used but only occasionally.
We run our small business from home. In order of use, our Brother inkjet wireless thingy gets used for
- Scanning: we still seem to have to do this a lot
- Printing A3 for stuff I need
- Printing for all our friends who have long decided it's easier to use our central print service 😉
I still print out insurance docs for when I'm away riding and boarding passes in case phone dies.
Printer is a few years old now, use cheap ink, doesn't seem to get blocked, occasionally loses connection to network, the touch interface is hateful, but all we every do is turn it off and on!
I always used to print stuff at work, but that became impossible/impractical during the pandemic, so I got a slightly battered but perfectly working Epson printer/scanner off Freecycle. When the ink ran out I bought a kit of refillable cartridge and ink off eBay for about £20.
Although you almost never need to print anything these days, sometimes it's handy to be able to, and it's nice to not have to wait til I'm in the office and remember.
Also makes me feel more like an adult 😄
Just replaced a HP with an Epson so that I dont get done everytime the yellow runs down. Mostly print map extracts - not going to faff about with touch screens on a wet hill or when paddling if I can help it. Still got pages and pages of paper with one blank side from my old job to get through.