Reliable and economical printer

[LaBelleDameSansPatience]

I need the above to use with my DD for school / homework projects. Will be printing 3-4 times a week and don't need great quality. Any ideas? Wifi would be useful but not essential, but cheap cartridges probably are. At present manage fine without a printer, so no real idea.

please? Any ideas??

I used to have a dell but cartridges were ££££, cheaper to buy a new printer. Now got an HP printer which is easy to get cheap/compatible inks for. Mines a deskjet f2180 but not new, has a scanner with it, was only about £30 from Wilkinsons when I got it.

For reliability, buy a laser printer, not an inkjet.They are usually cheaper to run as well.

Do you need colour? Black and white printers are a lot cheaper to run.

The key thing to remember is that the manufacturers lose money on printers and make money by the bucket load on printer inks/toner. Don't pick a printer on initial purchase price, pick it on cost per page.

We have a HP Laserjet 1320n. It has been absolutely hammered, printing large documents regularly. Its only black and white, but it prints fast, is sturdy (the desk doesn't rock when printing), does double sided, envelopes etc. It has never once jammed in 4 years. I've had loads of printers but this one is the best. The cartridge light is on now, so I've looked them up and they are £80.00, which yes is steep. But its the first cartridge we've had to buy for it. Agree with CruelAndUnusualParenting go with cost per page. Also my DH works in IT and he swears by HP printers. Have also been told that although wifi printers are handy, they are not "locked down wifi" ie they are open devices, so if some saddo (they are out there) is near your house and searches for wireless devices, chances are they will find your printer and send loads of rubbish to it. Sad I know.

Oh dear. I do need colour. Not much chance of a saddo passing close to my house, unless it is a fox or a badger, so that's not a problem. Off to google 'printers cost per page'.

For reasonable initial costs, Amazon have Samsung and Minolta colour lasers under £100, but as I advised, you should research the cost per page. Bear in mind that you don't have to buy cartridges from the manufacturer. My colour laser is running happily on recycled cartridges from IJT Direct and they almost always have a sale on, so you can usually get their cartridges for 25% below list price.

Thank you! Am looking on Amazon now.