Another multifunction printer question, £100-150 budget?

manveruppd · 27 Nov 2011 at 22:38

Hey all, I need a printer with a decent built-in scanner, preferably costing around £100. Never bought a multifunction printer before, last printer I bought was a cheap Lexmark inkjet 7 years ago so I'm completely clueless as to what's out there.

The big question is whether I should go ink or laser. I'm rather sick of inkjet personally, the ink tends to dry out if you don't use it for awhile, and the cartridges cost a lot, so I'd like to go laser instead. On the other hand, I won't need MASSIVE volumes, so maybe laser will be overkill, and if I went inkjet it'd be cheaper to find a colour one as well. Anyone got any advice or recommendations?

Desirable, but not necessary bonuses:
-wi-fi
-colour
-duplex printing

manveruppd · 28 Nov 2011 at 17:04

Nobody? Am I in the wrong forum for this?

stulid · 28 Nov 2011 at 17:07

It might be because we are all sad gamers/overclockers and no one knows anything about printers, try General discussion instead?

manveruppd · 28 Nov 2011 at 17:09

Are you saying NONE of us do any actual work on our computers? That is sad indeed!

Chihero · 28 Nov 2011 at 17:24

My Epson SX425w seemed pretty impressive for 60 quid or so scanner worked well and the wireless was easy to set up...basically it just worked

doesn't do Duplex printing tho perhaps see if they do a more expensive model

manveruppd · 28 Nov 2011 at 17:55

Oooh that's a sweet sweet price man! I was kinda thinking I should go laser though, because you just get so many more pages per toner cartridge than you do with inkjet cartridges... How much do you get out of yours? And how much do replacement cartridges cost?

manveruppd · 29 Nov 2011 at 04:21

Wow, I've been doing some reading and it seems inkjets are a much better deal than they used to be! They still gouge you on colour cartridges, but I've read reviews for 4 inkjets and 2 laser printers (including the one Chihero recommended), and it seems B&W printing cost hovers at around 3p/page on all of them! So looks like the only real reason to go for laser is quality and printing speed. Which is admittedly a big thing - I mean I only print out 4-5 pages a week normally, but once in a blue moon I do need a 200-page document printed out and it'd be nice if I didn't have to start the job the day before I need it...

So currently vaccillating between the Epson Stylus SX425W that Chihero reviewed, the more expensive HP Photosmart 6510 (which comes highly recommended, but I'm not sure exactly how much better than the Epson it is apart from having duplex and being slightly faster - not sure those are worth £40 more, though I'd gladly pay that for more reliability and economic printing), and the HP laserjet pro m1217nfw (a B&W laser printer).

Anyone got any input?