Advice on color printer

[M A V I C]

So I think we're going to drop the idea of printing photos. I also have a scanner which works well, so we don't really need a AIO.

I had an Epson color printer for a while, but I probably only got 100 or so pages out of it before it died. It didn't help that I would often go 6mo between printing, and apparently that's what clogged it.

Laser seems more expensive, but it sounds like it should be able to sit on the shelf, unused, for a longer period of time.

How do you know which Brother printers are unchipped?

[Robert M]

Mavic,

An issue to consider is that some printers uses a bit of color ink or toner even when printing in black and white only. This happened with the HL-4040cn. We rarely printed in color and was shocked when it informed us the color toner cartridges required replacement. That's when we also found out the printer became unusable if even one toner cartridge was empty.

Not sure which makes and models are affected by the above issues. I can confirm the HP Officejet Pro 8600 and Officejet Pro 8100 are not affected by the empty ink tank issue. Both will still print in black and white or grayscale even when one or more of the color ink cartridges is out of ink. Not sure what will happen if a black cartridge runs out. It'd be nice to know you can print in color or use the color tanks to print a composite black.

My office's 8100 Pro has been giving us a warning about black ink being low for about two or three months. No doubt it'll run out of ink soon. I'll know if it can continue printing in color or print a composite black when the black cartridge finally hits empty. You'll see a post about it.

I'm also not sure how much color ink either printer uses in the event you print in just black and white the vast majority of the time.

FWIW, I stopped printing photos at home. Once in a long while, yes, but typically, I farm them out to a place like Costco or the local drugstore. The results are always better than what I can do on my own, regardless of printer.

Robert

[Mrs. M A V I C]

Thanks everyone!