bobforman Loc: Anacortes, Washington State

I'm on my second Brother MFC-J5945DW. A very competent multi-function printer and will print as large as 11X17. White it does a decent job printing photos, it's not going to print professional-quality ones like a Canon maxpro 100 or 200. If you even use 3rd party ink, stay away from Epson. If they do an update and you get caught with ink other than theirs, they'll immediately shut down your printer.

cahale Loc: San Angelo, TX

Question last. Not really; ink tends to dry and clog with inattention. The answer to that; print a test page a couple of times a week. Under $400? I've used almost nothing but HP (except the big Epson) and have had very good results scanning and printing remarkably good 8.5 X 11s.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

If you want to print photos, I recommend a printer with no less than 6 colors. Typically those are: cyan, light cyan, magenta, light magenta, yellow and black.

That pretty much limits you to ink jet (instead of laser jet).

Even then, there really aren't a lot of "all in ones" with 6 colors.

B&H only lists a half dozen (I didn't narrow to 8.5" wide, which might reduce the total even more):

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/products/Inkjet-Printers/ci/1109/N/3752166111?filters=fct_ink-cartridge-configuration_4583%3A6-cartridges%2Cfct_type_1837%3Aall-in-one-mfc

Notice that a lot of those are out of stock. This is an on-going problem with printers and everything else that uses chips!

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I suppose it depends on how persnickety one may be, or not, or if one prints ALL images at home or farms out the majority of printing to a lab. Not everyone does commercial work.

(24 colors would be even better.......)

NDMarks Loc: Dublin, Ca

I am another fan of the Epson Eco-Tank series of printers. I used to have an HP inkjet. HP practically gives the printers away knowing they will make up for it in ink. My first series of printed pages on the Epson went over 4000 before I needed any ink. If they will work for you then they are worth converting. I GAVE my HP printer away and am glad I did.

jbhess

I have a Canon MX882. Old but worked well using generic ink cartridges. Began giving a warning that the ink absorbing pad was nearly full. Finally stopped printing. Googled how to change ink pad; seemed complicated. Bought a new printer at Best Buy. Geek Squad came to install (free). Tech was easily able to remove ink pad, rinse it out with water & reinstall. He did not have to disassemble anything. Printer now works as well as before. Returned new printer for refund. Saved me $400. Maybe I just got lucky with a technician who knew what he was doing. I have never had an Office Depot or Amazon ink cartridge dry up. I print something once a week to keep the ink flowing.

delder Loc: Maryland

I use the HP7740 Large Format InkjetPro. I find the HP ink cartridges costly enough that I send my occasional 8×10' s out to CVS. 5.99 in store 3.98 online $1.98 on sale on-line.

profbowman Loc: Harrisonburg, VA, USA

Just a quick warning about trusting our recommendations on printers. If the models we recommend or downplay are more than two years old, these critiques are not trustworthy in today's market. Printer technologies have developed continuously over the past decade, so search the web for bloggers who have tested the current model you are interested in.

NOTE: Any brand mentioned here is only for purposes of illustration and not for suggesting that any brand is better than another one. In my opinion, any same quality printer made by one major brand is as good as the same quality one manufactured by another major brand.

To illustrate my point about technology developing, WIFI connections with the HP printer we had purchased seven years ago were so bad, I finally used a wired connection to our desktop computer and had to reset the printer manually anytime we wanted to print from a laptop. Last summer we bought a similar quality HP inkjet that had recent software and hardware, and it has been working with WIFI un our desktop almost continuously since then.

As to nozzle clogging, in my volunteer role with retired residents in the retired community in which we live, one person would contact me every month or two, and I would have to her nozzles before I could finally get a reasonable printout. This was an Epson printer purchased in 2018, and it had separate ink cartridges (4) for each color needed to print all colors. The difficulty was not the brand, even though her son finally bought her a more basic HP printer which had only two cartridges. The problem was the technology and that she never did print a color picture once a week as I suggested.

The printers with only two cartridges where one is tricolor, have a built-in print head so that the ink goes from the cartridge straight to the paper being printed. In those with four or six individual color cartridges, the ink goes from each cartridge as called for and the through "plumbing" ends up at a separated printhead which then deposits the ink on the paper. This latter method is more prone to clogging. Just something to keep in mind if you do not print many color pages each month. --Richard

delder Loc: Maryland

Thank you for the information on the Wi-Fi issues with the legacy HP Printer.
We live in an Erickson Senior Living Community with Resident Wi-Fi provisioned via an Enterprise Network.
We have ONLY Cisco Access Points in our Resident units, NOT individual routers. It is a challenge to maintain Wireless Connections to Printers and other "Headless" Devices. I use the USB for reliability.

gouldopfl

I have a brother color laser which I purchased in 2014. It has been a great printer and can use photo quality paper for great pictures.

The biggest drawback to using the manufacturer cartridges is they just an internal expiration date and I was never able past that. I would have cartridges that were 50% full and not be able to use. I am a programmer and tried to flash the bios to remove that function but was unsuccessful. I ended up going to using a 3rd party ink and I don't see any difference in color and there is no expiration date.

Photolady2014 Loc: Southwest Colorado

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. Printing photos is not my primary need, so I just went with an inexpensive Epson with the ink tank. My problem now, it refuses to connect the Wi-Fi with my MAC so I went with the cable connection, ok but will need to find a longer cable. Now I tried to register it and it says my serial number is incorrect!!! It is what is on the box and the bottom of the printer, so now what? I truly hate setting up electronic stuff….

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Any chance of a misinterpreted character, like the number zero (0) and the letter "O"??

Photolady2014 Loc: Southwest Colorado

No, tried it both ways, even put the * that was in front and at the end…. Grrrrr

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

profbowman Loc: Harrisonburg, VA, USA

Just a quick additional note, DElder. Most, if not all, printers today have their own WIFI capability. They are designed to make their own short-range network which desktops, laptops, tablets, and smart phones can connect to and print on that printer. You all may want to check that out instead of trying to set Cisco connecting points up for WIFI printing. --Richard