printer-buying help, please?

[kattahj]

For once, I have a decent sum of money, what with both the Christmas money from my parents and my salary for having worked full time three weeks. I have already burned some of the Christmas money buying films. (Both Narnia films and Dårfinkar & Dönickar, the gender-bendy TV show I adored as a kid. The show is up on YouTube as well, for those of you

Comments

[lilacsigil]

The main expense with printers is no longer the printer itself but the consumables, the inks and papers. Get a printer that can print on any kind of paper - the dye sublimation ones really add up because you have to buy the expensive paper.

Scanners divide into super-cheap, which are fine if you're only scanning flat things, and slightly more expensive with 3D capabilities. After that there are really costly ones which you would only need if you were scanning old negatives or high-quality artworks.

[kattahj]

The main expense with printers is no longer the printer itself but the consumables

Which are all the more difficult to figure out pricewise. *sighs*

Get a printer that can print on any kind of paper

Wow, that didn't even register as an issue for me. *mind boggles* Printers don't print on regular white paper anymore?

Scanners divide into super-cheap, which are fine if you're only scanning flat things, and slightly more expensive with 3D capabilities.

I was thinking of a all-in-one solution; I don't need a scanner badly enough to buy one as a separate machine.

Thanks for the help!

[utopian_sky]

I LOVED Dårfinkar & Dönickar!

I don’t know much about printers but I would go for an all-in-one model. Make sure to check how much new ink cartridges cost (and maybe if you can buy cheeper non brand cartridges for it, I got some at NetonNet for my Brother printer). I basically only print black text, but I still have to have all colours, even though they’re in seperate cartridges. A bit annoying, so that might be someting to check out. It all depends on what you’re going to use it for… Good luck!

[kattahj]

I LOVED Dårfinkar & Dönickar!

It's such a very charming tale, both in book and on TV. I have a treat to look forward to! :-)

Thanks for the tips about the printer!

[cdybedahl]

One thing to ponder is how often you'll actually print stuff. If it's not often enough, the ink cartridges in an inkjet will dry out and become unusable. That used to happen to us a lot. And when you need to buy new cartridges every time you want to print, it gets expensive fast... It may be a good idea in the long run to spend a few hundred more to get a laser printer instead of an inkjet.

[kattahj]

Eek! I hadn't thought of that either. How often is often enough? I don't really care if it's ink or laser, but the colour laser printers seem to be really expensive. (There is absolutely no way, even now, that I can buy a printer for 2000-5000 kr.)

[cdybedahl]

I'm not sure, actually. For us, it'd go months between each printing, so that's definitely too long.

And I'm getting old... The first laser printer I ever used was black-and-white, printed about six pages a minute and cost over 50 thousand SEK. In 1990, so that was a lot of money at the time.

[kattahj]

*g* Point taken. Printers are a lot cheaper than they used to be; that's why I even consider buying one (rather than using my parents'/my job's). I guess it's a question of cost/benefit, i.e. how much do I need a printer vs. how much do I need a new sweater and a haircut. Somewhere around 1500 the new sweater and the haircut wins out. :-)

[justhuman]

As the others were saying, if you don't print much then inkjets become expensive because the cartridges dry out. On the other hand, color lasers are very expensive. I have a black and white lasar at home and am 100x happier with it than the old inkjet.

So for me the question was how often I print color. If it turns out to be not that much, then it's cheaper to take those jobs out to a place that lets you pay for printing. For instance, for printing out photos, we could hit a Wal-mart and get prints for about 1/10 of a dollar. I get my color printing (rare) done at work.

An all in one, combo scanner/printer might be the way to go because to get you both devices.

[kattahj]

I'm pretty adamant about wanting colour. :-) I do all my printing at my parents' or at work, but I've really tried to avoid printing out pictures because I feel guilty spending so much of someone else's cartridges. (I sit right by the printer at work, so even though I'm far from the only one using it, I get to hear all the "How can the cartridge be out ALREADY" rants and I'd really rather be blameless.) Likewise with copying. So buying a black-and-white printer for me isn't an option; in that case I'd just as soon forget about the whole thing.

[abbylee]

That's too bad :( My normal recommendation is to buy a b&w laser, a separate scanner, and to do all your colour printing at a shop. Unless you buy a super fancy colour printer and use it all the time (ie, 10+ pages a day) it's cheaper and you get better quality in a store. And a b&w laser gives you your best bang for the buck over an inkjet, in any situation. And a separate scanner also gives you a better quality machine for a better price - it just takes up a bit more room than an all-in-one.

It might be worthwhile to check a little further about what your options are for printing photos online (and having them mailed or picking them up locally). And then compare that hassle to the cost of ink refills. On the other hand, if you're *only* printing pictures, and not text, then it might make sense to just try doing that for a while and see how it works for you?

Sorry, I know it seems like I'm ignoring what you want :( But I think colour printers are a waste of money for most people and end up being more of a hassle than people

[kattahj]

Thing is, I hate going out of my way to do something, and I hate dealing with strangers, and most of the colour printing I'd do would be of the "ooh, I really like that pic, I want it in physical form" kind or "okay, it's so much easier to make a greeting card online" kind - not the kind where I have a larger amount of photos and am willing to wait for them. (And certainly not the kind where I'd want just anyone to look at the things I printed!) And most of the non-work-related b&w stuff would be work applications, which can mostly be done online now, so the ones that can't I could go over to my parents' to do. I'd need the scanner rarely, and the copying machine a bit more often, but what it all comes down to is that I'd have more use for a machine that can do everything than all of the machines separately.

My previous printer was a colour printer (1999-2005, I think), and I didn't find it much trouble, apart from how the store stopped selling the right kind of cartridges. That was a nuisance. *g*

Sorry, I know it seems like I'm

[viciouswishes]

I have that printer (or one really similar to it) and I love it.

[kattahj]

I'll remember that for later - right now, I changed my mind and bought clothes. :-)