Couldn't find a good spot for this so I'll ask here...
I have an Epson XP800 inkjet that I bought a few years ago and barely use, maybe 20 pages a year. But that doesn't stop the ink from going away. It's so annoying.
Is this normal? Should I move to laser for low volume printing without the cost of cartridges every 6 months?
Your experience is one of the reasons I won't have an Epson product anymore, other than for target practice (a scanner that had to be frequently retimed and had lousy software is the other reason). However, any inkjet that doesn't get used frequently is prone to clogged heads due to the ink drying out in them. The printers clear the heads by pumping large amount s of ink through them to blast out the dried ink. Sadly, frequent head clogging, and the subsequent high consumption of ink, is normal for inkjets not used frequently.
Laser printers, on the other hand, do not have that problem. Normally, they can set for weeks or more at a time without being used, then will print something without even a quiet belch. Even though the up front cost is higher aand toner cartridges aren't exactly cheap, the per copy cost is usually much, much less than for inkjets. Also, laser printer printouts will not run if they get wet, unlike most inkjet printouts.
Once you decide to get a laser printer (assuming you do), the next question is whether to get a color laser or B&W. One advantage inkjets do have over laser printers is they will print much better looking photos, when printed on photo paper, than laser printers although the more recent laser color prints do surprisingly well. If you have no real need for color printouts and or rarely make photo prints, it would be more cost effective to just get a B&W laser printer and farm out any photos you need printing to photo labs, such as the ones some pharmacies and Wally World (Walmart) have. Of course, you may be willing to pay the extra cost for color printouts (like I was); that will still be more cost effective than using an inkjet in your situation.
If I were to go out an buy a new laser printer today, I would get one of the better Brothers. Be sure to check on tray capacity, both the main tray (magazine) and the manual feed tray styles and capacities when making your decision since not all are made the same. For example, my Samsung (which I do not recommend due mostly to poor documentation and worthless customer service) has a manual feed tray that is rated for only one sheet at a time (though I have gotten away with two or three at a time). Smaller media is a bit dicy to keep aligned. The manual feed tray in the better Brothers can handle up to ten sheets at a time and can handle most smaller media just fine.
Cost of consumables, mostly toner cartridges, will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. The Lexmarks are pure highway robbery. HP is notorious for discontinuing support on products relatively early, especially when a new OS comes down the cyber pike, and has been known to dramatically increase the price of older consumables. I've yet to hear anything good about Canon and Xerox laser printers (although Canon makes some pretty good scanners). Brothers and Samsung toner cartridges are generally reasonable when you consider the cost per page.
20 pages a year is very low and it may be that your ink dries out or the nozzles get blocked. I have a Canon inkjet printer/scanner and the replacement cartridges are expensive. So I use it when I need colour documents or for quick scanning. I think you need to keep the nozzles unclogged using the practice recommended by your inkjet printer.
Laser printers are great when you print say 500+ pages a year. I use a Brother B&W Laser printer (HL2270-DW) most of the time. It was quite low cost and the drum and toner cartridge are separate. The drum needs replacing far less than the toner. You can buy third party toner cartridges for ~$50 and they will give you 2000 high quality B&W pages.
While both answers are very good, I guess I'll be the guy who ask's ........ why is this question in here, the Chill Out room, and not in say....... our section entitled "Hardware and Devices" ?: https://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/
You're right but I figured the h/w section was more for "computer hardware".
Thanks for the replies.
I've got an Epson Stylus C88+ that's about 8 years old and is still sold and supported by Epson. It used to drink ink because every time I turned it on, it would go through some stupid printhead "priming" routine that wastes ink.
I found that I can get nearly a year of use out of my ink cartridges (and I do print a lot) by
1. Using Draft mode whenever possible
and
2. Leaving the printer switched "on" even when not in use.
Buying an entire set of 4 cartridges costs me less than $60 from Amazon.
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