Printer Recommendations?

[Ziggy]

My only experience with HP printers...

My parents have an HP inkjet printer. It's prints nice color photos, and it has a card reader built in. After I built my parents a new computer, with Vista (what was out at the time), I discovered that HP was too lazy to make a Vista driver for it. This wasn't a low end printer, so it really pissed me off. Instead, they provided instructions on how to get a driver for another model to work with the printer. The catch, you just get the ability to print and nothing else. So you can't check ink levels, print test pages, perform maintenance tasks, etc from on the PC. Luckily you can do all that stuff on the printer itself. But you can't use the card reader. I had to go out and get my parents a stand alone card reader.

My aunt works at a doctors office, and while I was there once they asked me if I could take a look at a printer for them. What happened was they had an HP printer in the main office with a laptop in another room that they wanted to be able to print on. I don't remember the exact circumstances, but after Googling, I found instructions to get it working but I had to jump through a number of hoops first.

So, yeah, HP printers? If my two above experiences with them are any indication, then I'll stay away from them.

[marurun]

I'm sure you remember, Hobie, but that's the shit I have to deal with right now. My current printer will refuse to scan if there's an empty or missing ink cart.

This is exactly why all-in-ones are to be avoided, despite the perceived value of bundling all those devices together. As soon as one part breaks or dies, the whole thing is useless.

Glad to see the OP is looking at a Brother. In my experience these are nice dumb postscript printers. Just please stay away from anything HP. Any printer with a 300mb driver is going to cause you pain.

This is indeed the direction HP is going. Too bad, too, because their office-grade printers are generally durable and kick ass. Every university I've ever worked for has always used HP printers, because they are tanks, repairable, and low-cost to operate (if not to buy). I do hate any software they include beyond the drivers, and even the drivers on the nicer printers are starting to become more of a hassle.

[fastbilly1]

Ok so I didnt read all the pages, and I see that Hatta stated you are getting a brother. But I will say that Ive used HP laserjets for many years to much great success. My parents bought a 4L in 1993 and still use it daily. I bought a 6l and a 6mp over the years and they worked great until someone broke the 6l, the mp still works but is Parallel port only and does not work with Parallel to USB adapters for some reason.

However instead of replacing them with a new laserjet, I discovered Okidata a few years ago and the Okidata C530DN is damn near the best printer I have ever used other than the 4L. It prints well, fast, and its not very expensive, $350 on amazon. Almost every part in it is barcoded and user replaceable - so if a sensor goes you can replace just the sensor at home, for a fraction of the price. And we have ran the hard backing from an old flip chart through it and it still runs fine. Also you can get the toner in just drums, instead of drums and a head, so the price of refills is usually less for more. When my current printer setup stop working, I am buying one - I currently use the 6mp, attached to an old pc that is nothing more than a print server and a firewall (honestly I print maybe 10 pages a quarter).