Decent but affordable home printer

[TorqueDirty]

Folks,

Our home Ink Jet printer has finally decided to transition from being virtually useless to utterly useless and so I'm now looking for a replacement.

We won't be using the new printer a great deal but there are some things we need.

1). Wireless connection - that actually works
2). Ability to scan documents
3). Basic printing (colour and B/W)
4). Ink cartridges that do not cost more than the printer each time.
5). Double sided is nice but not essential.
6). Auto fed scanning nice but not essential

Most of all I just need a printer that actually prints what I want it to print when I ask it to, rather than refusing to come online, or refusing to print because it has decided there are other prehistoric print jobs in the queue that it will not allow me to delete etc.

We don't need to print photos or CDs etc - just good old A4.

Budget ideally less then £175

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

[Fittster]

Would the Epson EcoTank range be of use? They don't use cartridges.

https://www.epson.co.uk/for-home/ecotank

[FA57 VWT]

I’ve had loads over the past 25 years, currently got a Canon Pixma that we can all wirelessly print directly from our phones and laptops etc.

A full set of cartridges with XL capacity are £40ish, I used it loads when home schooling and it’s been faultless, even when left unused for 5 or 6 months.

Edit - This appears to have replaced my one - https://cpc.farnell.com/canon/2232c008/printer-tr7...

[xtruss]

+1 for the Canon - I have a Canon Pixma MG5750 - does almost all you want except no sheet feeder for scanner.
Ink costs around £8 to fill it up with 5 XL cartridges from Amazon.
Can print from my phone even when out.
Nearly 2 years old now and no issues at all with it.

[TorqueDirty]

Thanks guys,

The Canon looks promising. It was on my short list already so good to hear that it actually works as advertised.

[dhutch]

I've got an old Pixma 4000i or whatever it is, three colour plus two blacks, and it's been great for over ten years.

Not wi-fi, or available, but it they make them like that still happy days. Epson before it was fine too.

The canon Lide scanners work fine too.

[anonymous-user]

I recently purchased HP Envy, for under £100
Also gone the subscription route on ink
Free trial..
Then £1.99 a month for 50 pages
Can be carried over
Other amounts available
They send ink when it’s running out
So no more mega expensive genuine / rubbish fake cartridges!

[vaud]

xtruss said:

+1 for the Canon - I have a Canon Pixma MG5750 - does almost all you want except no sheet feeder for scanner.
Ink costs around £8 to fill it up with 5 XL cartridges from Amazon.
Can print from my phone even when out.
Nearly 2 years old now and no issues at all with it.

Ditto. No cartridge failures, takes 3rd party cartridges. Scanner and print works for OSX and Windows. Not the fastest printer but fine for home duty.

[Austin_Metro]

I was faced with the same thing. Ended up with a Brother J1100dw. It has supposedly 3 years worth of ink in it. We’ve used it a lot, work, kids etc. Loads of ink left.

It scans, it air prints really easily, has a feeder, will happily print 50 page docs. Decent quality. Bit above budget you set, 250 ish, but I’m really pleased with it.

[2 GKC]

If you’re only scanning the odd page, you can do it on you me phone. HP app allows camera to scan to pdf.

[Pyrolysis]

I have an HP Envy, it was less than 100 and does all that I need. It can even print remotely if I'm somewhere else in the world and have the weird desire to print something off back at the house. I signed up to the HP instant ink option and it orders new cartridges automatically before the current ones run out which is pretty useful, especially with a memory as bad as mine.

[benz0]

I got a Brother inkjet last year.

Looked at Epson eco tank in store but it was flimsy plastic, was not impressed.

Brother is built like a tank in comparison.

V. Cheap XL inks if you buy third party.

Works fine for network printing when it'sconnected to router via ethernet. Consumer printers connected by WiFi are a bit of a nightmare.

Only thing I haven't figured out is scanning using the document feeder.

[TorqueDirty]

Well a quick update.

In the end I found a Canon PIXMA MX475 for sale at Argos for a ridiculous £40.

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/2813824

For that amount it was worth a punt. £3.95 for next day delivery and after a bit of a fight getting it up and running I'm amazed to say that it seems to do everything it should.

I'm sure there is a huge catch - most likely the cost of the ink cartridges, but it won't get much use so I can live with that.

I assume it is an older model and the drivers were a bit of a drag to install but really who cares if it prints in colour and scans on demand all for £40.

Pointlessly it even has a fax! I think the last time I sent a fax was in 2001

[The Mad Monk]

TorqueDirty said:

Budget ideally less then £175

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Canon Pixma MG3650 £68

Edit

TL:DR

I see that it is now a fait accompli.

[FA57 VWT]

TorqueDirty said:

Well a quick update.

In the end I found a Canon PIXMA MX475 for sale at Argos for a ridiculous £40.

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/2813824

For that amount it was worth a punt. £3.95 for next day delivery and after a bit of a fight getting it up and running I'm amazed to say that it seems to do everything it should.

I'm sure there is a huge catch - most likely the cost of the ink cartridges, but it won't get much use so I can live with that.

I assume it is an older model and the drivers were a bit of a drag to install but really who cares if it prints in colour and scans on demand all for £40.

Pointlessly it even has a fax! I think the last time I sent a fax was in 2001

Good choice, that's exactly the same as mine, literally cheap as chips and does everything you could ask of it.

[mikeiow]

TorqueDirty said:

Well a quick update.

In the end I found a Canon PIXMA MX475 for sale at Argos for a ridiculous £40.

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/2813824

For that amount it was worth a punt. £3.95 for next day delivery and after a bit of a fight getting it up and running I'm amazed to say that it seems to do everything it should.

I'm sure there is a huge catch - most likely the cost of the ink cartridges, but it won't get much use so I can live with that.

I assume it is an older model and the drivers were a bit of a drag to install but really who cares if it prints in colour and scans on demand all for £40.

Pointlessly it even has a fax! I think the last time I sent a fax was in 2001

Fax? ha!

Good choice. We went with a Canon 3600 a few years back. A couple of disconnects from wifi (hard reboot always sorts that) but generally better than Epson/HP units we've had int he past. Ours has no sheet feed, but otherwise is a cracker. We've used OEM carts along the way: you have to be a little careful clicking through to confirm they are okay, but otherwise all good.

Printers. Screwing people up for over 30 years

[james_TW]

Do you even need a scanner? I have found that just using my phone to do documents is pretty good...

[andygo]

james_TW said:

Do you even need a scanner? I have found that just using my phone to do documents is pretty good...

I use the adobe pdf scan app. Works well, and 'airdrops' from my iphgone to mac.