Clueless and about to buy a printer ... can anyone answer a couple of questions?

[tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz]

Afternoon MN

I'm about to finally take the plunge and fork out for a printer so I can sell on Vinted and the like offering free postage. It seems no bugger wants to buy owt otherwise

Hey ho, so I'm looking at the Canon PIXMA TS3150 (storage space available and £ considered this is looking ok) but there's a few things I can't work out ...

1. I'm probably only going to be black and white printing so would I still need a colour cartridge?

2. Does it need zeperate toner?

3. Possibly thickest question of the lot but at the moment I'm literally only going to use it to print shipping labels ... if I'm using an A4 sheet can I chop off the bit I've printed and use that paper again?!

Any other things you think an idiot like me may benefit knowing before parting with my cash please feel free?

Ta

That should say separate toner. I'm not Helga from Allo Allo

Toner is another way of saying ink cartridge isn’t it?

I suspect that if you use the half sheet of paper, it won’t pull through the printer properly.

Check ink costs. In some cases the ink is more expensive then the printer itself

You put toner in laser printers. It’s a fine plastic dust, not ink.

A laser printer might be a better option if you only want to do black and white.

Look into the HP printers with instant ink subscription

@Zazdar

You put toner in laser printers. It’s a fine plastic dust, not ink.

I never knew that. Cool.

Get this one, it’s the best printer we have ever owned. It actually does what it’s supposed to do with no stress!

Ink cartridges usually for coloured or black and white ink jet printers.
Toner for black and white laser printers.
How much of a page you cut off and the sizes of paper it can handle will affect whether you can re-use part of an A4 sheet. If you can set it to A5 pages then you can cut A4 sheets in half.

Get this one, it’s the best printer we have ever owned. It actually does what it’s supposed to do with no stress!

Yes, we dumped our Canon Pixma for a Xerox mono laser and it just works.

Second looking at HP with an ink subscription. Ours has been fab and much cheaper than buying cartridges.

we have a HP printer....reliable and get the refill kit on ebay for about £7...4 large syringes of ink and just refill the hp cartridge....excellent....some printers have a block on the filling up of cartridges....so check as ink very expensive.

Another vote for Brother lazer black & white. Very reliable.

Use labels that will print out, if you cut a page it will get chewed up in the mechanism

I would also recommended HP instant ink. I pay £2 a month for 50 pages.

I also have the HP instant ink for £2 a month and a cheap as chips HP wireless printer. Automatically detects when ink levels are low and sends out replacement cartridges and then tells you when to change them. No brainer.

The problem with inkjet is that they dry out. If you are printing every day then you should be fine. If it's once a week or less then definitely Lazer

Wow so many replies! Thanks so much

Some stuff to think about ... the printer up thread looks good but I can't justify the spend ££ unfortunately. It looks bigger than I have space for too.

@dontmesswithmymoxie

I also have the HP instant ink for £2 a month and a cheap as chips HP wireless printer. Automatically detects when ink levels are low and sends out replacement cartridges and then tells you when to change them. No brainer.

don't, which one do you have?

the printer up thread looks good but I can't justify the spend ££ unfortunately. they do a smaller version for £79.99. Cheaper printers are false economy , I buy the compatible toner from cartridges direct it lasts so long. 1.3p a page if I remember correctly.

I'm not an expert. At all! But I did some research for a new printer earlier this year so this is my take

First of all, the companies make their money from selling their ink not from selling the printer. Everything is chipped now to stop you buying fake cartridges. And they're even changing the composition of ink so you can't refill old cartridges. It blocks the nozzle somehow.

Im pretty sure the two cartridges can be replaced individually and irrespective of the other. Sometimes there can be a problem with the starter cartridges and they both need replacing - not sure if tats the case with this model. You won't need to change the colour along side the black but I think you do need to have ink in the colour cartridge otherwise you'll have problems printing.

How much printing are you doing a month? You need to look at the cost of a cartridge and how long it wil last. When you enter an hp ink plan, it alows you so many pages a month. It does not allow for what is on a page. So a single word in black counts as a full page, the same as a full colour picture. It can work out worthwhile but it depends on your usage. Read the small print about cancelling and overcharges.

If you do very little, laserjets can often work out cheaper in the long run because the toner doesn't dry out like inkjet cartridges do.

Oh bugger, one possibility I was considering was buying "own brand cartridges " to keep the cost down

At this point in time and I can't see it changing for some time, I literally only need it for printing shipping labels for eBay and Vinted selling so at the volume of stuff I have, 3/4 labels a week? So very low useage hence wanting to keep costs and footprint of the machine low.

That's really interesting about what the ink subscriptions class as a page though.

Maybe I need to consider a laser one.

Feel like I'm back at square one!!

But appreciate everyone posting advice / cheers folks, MN is ace 😊

If its just for shipping labels look at getting a dymo or brother label printer. No cartridges or toner at all, just buy rolls of labels.

@tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz
I have the HP Deskjet 3720 which prints, scans and copies.

Got it from Curry's/PC World.

It will almost certainly freak out at pages choped up.
However, there is nothing stopping you pealing off the stickers used, and printing further down the page. You will need to set up the sheet properly first tho.

why are you getting such an expensive printer for mainly labels?

Get an HP Envy and you pay a small subscription monthly (around £4) and get free inks. All colours and it scans, copies and prints photos etc. cheap as chips. You often can't use hooky ink cartridges as the manufacturers will alter the machines and somehow not work. Hence I dumped my Epson printer.