Please can anyone recommend a decent printer UK?

My 4 in 1 HP printer has been hanging on for a while now, but today after loud clanks and clunks it has finally packed up altogether. Yay.....LOL

The "possibles" list seems endless and none seem to come particularly well recommended so it's like trying to negotiate a minefield.
People don't seem to get on very well with their printers at least within the UK.

We want a 4 in 1 home machine that prints and scans in colour and can print colour photos occasionally.
Don't want ink to be stupidly expensive or subscription only every month or so. HP - looking at you there.
Double sided printing would be good but not essential as would the ability to use different paper sizes easily.
For me an excellent colour scanner would be an advantage.
We need to be able to use it on our home network despite the fact that our Mac software isn't particularly up to date.

Does anyone actually have a printer that they like that works well and they would actually recommend to others?

Sorry I can't help you there, Chrissy. We got tired of throwing money at inkjets and went to laser years ago. We only need mono these days. On the odd occasion we need a colour print it's cheaper to send it to an agency.

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Originally Posted by eachan

Sorry I can't help you there, Chrissy. We got tired of throwing money at inkjets and went to laser years ago. We only need mono these days. On the odd occasion we need a colour print it's cheaper to send it to an agency.

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I understand and we were quite tempted to consider a laser printer because we had one before that packed up. I know the drawbacks of a colour laser jet printer but it's nice to have the facility for those odd occasions where we need to print a photo in colour. Most of our ink just evaporates as sadly the study is south facing and occasionally gets warm in the sun. It's a very tough decision to make.

I switched to colour laser years ago, and had to replace my Dell (which had served me brilliantly for the previous 10+ years) last year. I ended up going for a bigger beast (a Xerox) - it's more a small office machine than a home one, but I've been delighted with it. I can buy really good compatible toner cartridges for a very realistic price, and the scanner is excellent (if not immediately intuitive). With decent paper, it performs pretty faultlessly, and is very fast and economical (using compatibles). I'd like to think I could get away with a mono, but in reality, I know it would annoy me not to be able to print in colour when I want to.

I also have a small dye sub printer (a Canon), which I use for high quality photo printing. I've had it for close to 15 years and it's still doing an excellent job, but supplies are getting harder to find.

I used printerland (dot co dot uk), and found them very helpful (and prepared to negotiate a little!). Their compatible refills (which you can only order by phone, not on the website) are also excellent. No affiliation, just a satisfied customer.

Thanks. Our neighbour has also suggested we look at Printerland and we're currently doing that. :)

Think HP officejet. I've have one that is easily six years old. It's reliable, efficient, and produces quality prints.

We have had and like the Canon Pixma G6020 megatank ink jet printer.

Although more money upfront, the ink refill cost is very low.

For us there are only 2 downsides to this printer - 1) it is a bed scanner only which means you can only scan one sheet at a time. 2) you have to be careful not too perform too many cleaning cycles if you have a printing problem. It uses a sponge like system to absorb the ink and once it is full you are done. Did not know about it and 2 years ago were having a print problem (prior model) and were running a number of cleaning cycles starting with the lowest and working our way up. Before the problem was fully resolved the printer essentially bricked itself as the sponge was full. While you might be able to find on ebay some replacements it is not designed to be a user replaceable item and Canon does not sell it to consumers.

While this sounds like it could be a real problem, we have over 14,000 pages printed to-date and have had to do only a single cleaning cycle. BTW, ours came with an extra bottle of black ink and we have only recently had to buy more color ink - which does not need to be purchased as a complete set.

Choosing a printer is not easy these days. I was using Epson Photo printers. I had had already thrown away two printers.
My last printer is Epson 1800 and it had got a serious clogging issue so I am looking for a printer to adapt only for Mono printing.
On earlier days there were several bulk ink system for B&W only now there's only one system and it is very expensive. I need one to print my calligraphy reproductions and occasional B&W photo printing.