printer for student

[dementedma]

can anyone recommend a good printer for DD for university. budget a bit tight but don't want to buy the cheapest one and be ripped off for cartridges. have been told that shared printers in library are often busy or "down" so want her to have her own one in her room - no excuses for not getting work in on time!!

I am currently a mature student at uni and I never use my home printer for work. When we started we were all given £20 printing credit and I have hardly dented that. There are hundreds of printers and of a far higher quality than home ones. Ink is so expensive and home printers so tempremental, using uni ones really is the way to go imo.

Both of mine have had their own printers. PC World etc do good offers before term starts. I would recommend a wireless printer as they can then be put anywhere in their rooms and also a printer that uses cartridges with individual colour cartridges. Then you just change the cartridge that has run out.
My DD said that she thought the importance of having your own printer depended on whether your lecturers gave out handouts/ lecture slides etc. iIf they don't it would be cheaper to print on your own printer rather than at the library. She also said that not all universities are as generous as gobbers and she thought she got a maximum of £5, whereas my DS got nothing.

That's a good point goinggetstough, it's worth checking whether the university dd is studying at has a VLE, mine uses blackboard, so everything is online, meaning we never need to print out any module guidelines, lecture notes etc, which is after all a huge waste of paper.

It is also worth pointing out much of our written work is submitted virtually and there is no hard paper copy, to meet green targets Universities are working hard to go paperless.

I have mentioned to fellow students that when I was a lass all work was written with a PEN, they look at me as though I am crazy, it is so odd being back in a learning enviroment where technology has just changed everything so much.

What is a VLE?

Sorry, Virtual Learning Environment.

Most of my students use the campus printers as well. Where I work there are printers in all the depts, computer labs and the library.

We have a 'follow-me' system which means that you send your documents to print centrally then log-in to any printer on campus with your uni card to get the documents.

So although there are still queues in the library, this is only because the students are too lazy to walk to another floor building for printing!

DC1 began university with a printer in their room. In years 2 and 3, they decided to leave it at home as they found that it was more cost effective to just print any work via the university system. This year, final year, they are taking printer with them when they go back in October as there will be a LOT more printing (final year project etc) which will make it better financially to have their own printer.

I think many universities these days have the VLE mentioned above, which means they do not need to print out lecture notes etc.

Very few students seem to have their own printers - there do seem to be adequate facilities for printing at most unis. If she's the only one on her corridor with a printer, she'll be getting people asking to use it all the time. I really wouldn't bother until she's started at uni and found out for herself what the set-up really is.

DD has a great HP, after going through a number of other brands (Epsom sticks out as one to avoid) which all broke and had to be returned.
She got given £5 printer credit by the uni in first year also which she usually uses but says it is useful to have a printer as she needs a print out of slides at the lecture to make good enough notes and often she can't get to the library in time or has to queue.

Also....Tell her to always have 'run out of ink' if anyone asks to use her printer! DD moans she used to be bombarded with 'could I just print...' which all adds up over time to quite a bit of ink cost.

Whilst I was in uni I had to have my own printer I couldn't have lived without it.i think ink is always going to be expensive whatever you buy but we just bought a canon printer and scanner for £40 from pc world and its also WiFi which is a must these days so if u do buy one make sure it has WiFi and compatible with smart mobile devices and tablets 😊

I am a uni student- please take a printer! Yes, you get people asking to use it but it really does save so much hassle with queues and printing credits and last minute panicking about getting work done/printed on time. Also if you need to print anything in colour it can be a lot more expensive to use the uni facilities.

I'm afraid I don't have any advice on a cheap one as I could do with a new printer where the ink is cheaper. My only advice is to avoid Lexmark as that seems to be pretty expensive.