Are ALL home printers complete bastards?

[CharliesAngles]

As in, really unreliable, expensive and utterly contemptible temperamental twats?

We've had three.
All "good" brands - HP, Epson etc, and they've all been absolutely useless.
Only print come alive when they feel like it.
Refuses to connect to the WiFi.
Always running out of ink (Like, how???? When you've refused to print a damn thing ever?!)
Not even wanting to print out loads. It's just the odd thing for DCs school work now and then.

Just wondering if I'm missing something here, and all you wonderful MNs are in some secret club, and actually know of the Holy Grail of home printers?

Share please? 🙏

We decided a while ago we would simply buy the cheapest one on the market and use it until it broke and so forth. If we get a year out of it we’ve done well. Printers have designed obsolescence built in to them and we gave up trying to fight it

Absolutely.

How much printing do you really have to do? After years of wasted time , money and stress, I now have a second screen at home and if I really have to print something, use the local library or even Prontaprint.

Hope you find what works for you

Avoid inkjets and go for a cheap laser printer if you don’t need colour?

We are still using our 15 year old laser printer / scanner / copier / fax(!) - bigger up-front investment but seems to have resulted in less downtime and heartache.

After years of temperamental HP's we now have an Epson with the refillable ink tanks
No problems at all with the actual printing but it seems to be a matter of luck as to who can print over the WiFi.

I had to replace my 3 in 1 printer as it fell off the desk as I was vacuuming.

I was given 4 cartridges (1 each of black, magenta, yellow and cyan) and put them in did the alignment of heads, printed test pages, printed a couple of pictures then got the message to replace my cartridges!

I have an Epson and buy the 3rd party cartridges for £15 for 4 black and 2 each of the colours.

Some printer manufacturers still use a single cartridge for all the colours. Downside of this is one of the colours runs out, you have to chuck out the whole cartridge, even though you have a 1/5 ink left

5G isn’t WiFi / it’s a wide area mobile signal
printrrs should work on WiFi ( and I think they should have a cable option too )
WiFi can have different options and it is worth checking your hub throws out a signal the printer can work on

It's not very good if it's cheaper to buy a new printer with sample ink included than buy new ink cartridges each time.

Trying to scan on them you need a phd in the dark arts.

3 in 1 printer my arse.

All printers are bastards.

I’ve had my HP one since I retired 9 years ago and it has mostly been ok. At times though it decides not to print through my Wi-Fi but often a quick reset ie switch printer and Virgin box on and off a few times gets it back on board. I do find that sometimes one of my devices ( lap top, iPad and iPhone) stop printing but at least one works when I need it. I have sent emails to myself from my lap top just so I can print from my iPad!

Ink wise, I subscribe to the HP ink service and get sent replacement cartridges way before I need them included in the low monthly price. It went up a little while ago and I looked at leaving as there are some months when I do very little printing but then I looked at the price of cartridges and changed my mind. Also, there are times when I do a lot of printing, WI stuff, recipes, crochet patterns etc so overall I think it is worth it.

I do always cross my fingers and hold my breath when I click on print just it case it is doomed not to work! I do agree with folk who say that rarely printing dries up the cartridges, especially in hot weather but with not worrying about costs ( other than a low monthly amount) means I do print regularly.

I've had a lot of printers that have been rubbish and used clients ones as well that have all been temperamental to connect etc!

I have had am Epson eco tank for the last two years and it's a game changer! It was about £150 and came with bottles of ink. I've not replaced any of the coloured ones yet and use my printer semi regularly for crafts. I have topped the black up once but print a few hundred pages a month. Refil ink is about £10 a colour. It connects wirelessly, I can print from downstairs no problem. I have struggled with printing from my iPad but don't actually need to so haven't let it bother me!!

I have a cheap HP low cost laser. Brilliant. It will fire up after years of no use, stink a bit then print fine.

It won't do colour though.

I have 2x HP colour lasers, they are great again, but if you print a lot of colour on them it would get pricey. They aren't the sort of things you would let your kids loose on unless you wanted to spend a fortune on toner.

I threw all the inkjets away because they are crap.

Yes. They’re dicks, the lot of them. I just gave mine away to some poor unsuspecting bastard on FB Marketplace. I cannot describe how wonderful it feels to be free from that useless ink-gobbling albatross around my neck.

I would also always get one of the MFP lasers because they are so good.

Basically scanned and then shredded a load of paper with them.

Kudos to those who have actually lobbed their printer.

Our previous one (HP) was nearly rage launched out of a first floor window. Only the thought of sweeping up its shattered components from the driveway restrained me.

It was a bastard to get talking to the computer and finding the wifi.
That day, I'd got that far, then it decreed it had no black ink, so off I traipse to Staples. I get back. It whinges that it has no cyan. I'm printing in black and white. Cyan is not in the equation but the printer will not budge until it's desire for cyan is sated. Off to Staples again. It took about 2 hours to print a document. I was absolutely seething with it.

We've had a Kodak since then which wasn't as bad but still had its moments. It could be decieved with a bit of yin breathing and industrial strength anti-perspirant to mask signs of urgency. It seems to be fading into obselesence now.

My favourite printer was my 1996 Cannon bubblejet. It just worked and got me through GCSEs to graduating. I still think of it fondly every Christmas when I fetch its box from the loft with its tinsel and garlands inside. That box has lasted me well.

And credit to the 1989 dot matrix. It sounded like a pneumatic drill but at least it could and did print a page every 5 minutes, which on balance was faster than going to Staples twice.

Yes all of them, not just the ones at home. I work in a school and spend a huge proportion of my working life swearing at the photocopiers (under my breath obviously).

As mentioned in my PP, get the 3rd party cartridges for your printer. Google your make and model printer and 3rd party cartridges. You will get a message popping up on your screen saying you are using 3rd party cartridges, skip that message, which I also get on the printer.

My latest Epson has a program called Smartscan - very easy and then you select if wanting printing, sent as an attachment, saving it to your hard drive etc.

Quite a few new HP printers block 3rd party ink cartridges.

I bet googling will find a result

Yep and thats why mine has gone in the bin!

Yes, they're all crap. Cheap and crap.

My current HP model mocks me from the corner as I try to print.

Sometimes it just refuses point blank to do anything, sometimes it just blinks at me and sometimes it'll shoot a blank piece of paper out at high speed. Sometimes it'll print one line - in yellow - then get stuck half way out.

It seems to be the case that if you dont print anything for a couple of months then that's it, you need new toner, its almost as if its designed to get you to use loads of ink ... hence trying to get you to sign up to a subscription.

I print stuff at work now if i need to.

Yes! I hate mine. I’m going to stick it on Facebook cos I can’t even look at it anymore! Freaking lazy, condescending smug twats is what they are. I don’t need that shit in my life.

‘…stink a bit..’ 😆🤣😆 they so do.. burn off that dust…

I think the modern ones are much worse. I miss old ones where you had to install drivers but then you plugged in with cables and they were slow but more reliable.

Double yes!