NA: All-in-one printer recommendations

colojo

colojo

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Colojo
I know we have a lot of IT guys on this board, so here goes.

I just threw my second HP all-in-one printer into the dumpster. Last year it was an Envy 120. This year it's an OfficeJet 4650. Both printers were bundled for free with some computer purchases I made for my office, so it didn't pain me to trash them nearly as much as it did to struggle with HP support.

The Envy 120 worked for about a month, then started eating every sheet of paper fed into it, including HP paper. The OfficeJet 4650 never worked. During setup it kept throwing "Paper Jam" errors, and even after twice following the steps in this 14-minute support video from HP I couldn't get it to work.

So my question is: Can any of you recommend an all-in-one that will actually work? I'd like wireless printing and reliability in a small footprint. It's for my home office, so it won't see heavy use, but I would like it to work when I need it. Thanks!
 
colojo said:
I know we have a lot of IT guys on this board, so here goes.

I just threw my second HP all-in-one printer into the dumpster. Last year it was an Envy 120. This year it's an OfficeJet 4650. Both printers were bundled for free with some computer purchases I made for my office, so it didn't pain me to trash them nearly as much as it did to struggle with HP support.

The Envy 120 worked for about a month, then started eating every sheet of paper fed into it, including HP paper. The OfficeJet 4650 never worked. During setup it kept throwing "Paper Jam" errors, and even after twice following the steps in this 14-minute support video from HP I couldn't get it to work.

So my question is: Can any of you recommend an all-in-one that will actually work? I'd like wireless printing and reliability in a small footprint. It's for my home office, so it won't see heavy use, but I would like it to work when I need it. Thanks!
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I have used Canon's with great success for years. My current model is an MG7500. Ink cartridges are very easy to replace (but $, like all cartridges). Does labels and envelopes (one at a time...I've never tried bulk envelopes. My only gripe is that it has a gray cartridge and most package deals contain yellow, blue, magenta, small black, and large black. I have to buy the gray separately...and I can't see where it does anything at all. Great for making copies, B&W or color, or for scanning to my desktop. I don't use the fax function so can't comment on that. Wireless capable but I'm old-fashioned.

Bob Gardner
 
I just trashed my all in one HP9500. Ink is way too spensive and it started missing a line down the page.

The new one is an old fashioned Brother black and white laser printer. Prints thousands of pages for cheap.

I have a phone for creating images vs the scanner.
 
Small footprint they aren't, but the Canon MFD ImageCLASS color laser printer that I have will probably outlive me. It was all Ted's fault years ago. He was right. It's a tank.

One downside I just noticed though, apparently Canon is behind on their Win10 drivers for the things. I never noticed because I don't print from Win10, nor have I confirmed it. Just something I saw online a second ago.
 
I have an early 2000s Brother that is still ticking in daily office use and an HP from 2009 whose only fault are expensive toner cartridges.
 
I just bought an Epson XP-430 a few weeks ago for $50. So far so good. It's a little slow the first print of the day but other than that it works great.
 
The Epson Workforce printers are good, if you like inkjets. I put a WF-7610 at my GF's studio, because she needs to switch between pigment ink and dye sublimation. I bought refillable cartridges at CobraInk.com. I have also had an HP M476dw laser MFD at home for a couple of years that works great. I buy after market toner for it, which has worked out fine. I can get a full set of cartridges with an extra black for about $90.
 
While I've been happy with my HPs over the years(currently 6 months in on a Color LaserJet Pro MFP M277c6), I think the more important thing for a printer that gets neglected is to get a laser and not an ink jet. That way you can let it sit for a year and nothing dries out and it prints just like nothing has happened.
 
chartbundle said:
While I've been happy with my HPs over the years(currently 6 months in on a Color LaserJet Pro MFP M277c6), I think the more important thing for a printer that gets neglected is to get a laser and not an ink jet. That way you can let it sit for a year and nothing dries out and it prints just like nothing has happened.
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Depends what it is used for. I agree, inkjets need to be used regularly. Inkjets are typically better for photos. Lasers are typically better for office type stuff. There are also special applications, like dye sublimation, that require ink (special ink). Lasers are probably cheaper to run for high volume office stuff, but refillable ink cartridges make it pretty close (of course there is the hassle of having to refill them).
 
I find that Staples or OfficeDepot is much cheaper for color pics than trying to maintain the HP inkjet for photos.
 
I have a Canon MFC8500 series printer. I'm happy with it. It both scans and prints duplex.
 
I have given up on combining devices, preferring instead to use scanners as scanners and printers as printers, but I also have observed that the best of the AIOs seem to be the Canons.

Me, I'd just go with a Fujitsu scanner and an HP laser printer, and let that be that.

I had a Brother, which was replaced with factory refurbed units twice while warranty lasted, and (ultimately) ended up working for about a year before keeling over; now I have a Samsung all-in-one color laser, for which I had such high hopes, as it looks very robust, but appearances do not equal results. the scanner is a shredder, and the printer prints what looks like a small map of Chile across the page on occasion.

Of course I have a Ricoh "all in one" at the office - but it's a full-sized, 50 PPM copier with finisher. It works very well, but the buy-in is... ummm... a little steep.
 
I've used HP printers for years (20+ years). That said, I told a colleague who works for their ink squirter group that if my newest printer doesn't work properly, I'm done. In the past, HP printers were "bullet proof" and worked and worked and worked. But, my 310 quit feeding paper. I've got two Deskjet 6520s that work, except that both have stopped squirting black ink. New ink cartridges, but no black ink winds up on the paper. There's a new OfficeJet Pro 8715 (according the label, 8710 according to my computers) all in one that is running for most house-hold purposes. Bought it a couple months ago at Costco. And a Dell laser all in one down in the office. We'll see. If that 8715 dies prematurely (and by that, I mean in less than a couple years) I'm probably finished with HP printers. Where I go next, I don't know.
 
I'm browned off on HP for pretty much their planned obsolescence in ink cartridges. I got ****ed off that buying the cartridge/print head combos for my GX85 that they have an programmed in life span, so even ones that have never been out of the box may be "expired" and unusable in the printer. I got a cheapy HP multifunction free with a computer as well and that stupid things print head (now separate from the ink cartridge) plugged up within a year. Couple this with the absolutely abhorant network interfaces in the jetdirect cards (had to ditch the first one as it didn't support any thing other than WEP) and I'll stay away from HP for a good long time.

I've got a Kyocera color laser in the hangar and the Canon MFC in my office upstairs.
 
I've gone through several HPs and have now settled on Brother printers for myself and my employees. They've been reliable. A few things to consider, Ink Jet cartridges evaporate and have limited life whether you use them or not. If you're an occasional user look for a machine that uses toner cartridges (laser jet). Consider the paper trays if you use ledger paper. Some printers are more friendly than others. Make sure you have a strong wifi signal to the printer. Mine are concealed in closets so I've added wifi boosters. That helped a ton.
 
I work in IT at a major university, and also run a consulting business for small business IT. I have recommended Brother all-in-one color lasers for most of my smaller clients for 5+ years now, and all have been very reliable. Clients are happy, the software package is simple to use and the units work well. They are not tiny however, they do take up some space. Most inkjet all-in-ones are junk. We simply don't buy them anymore at all.

HP's are particularly horrible, since that GIANT software package they install by default can bring a PC to it's knees. HP lasers are not bad, but the Brothers are better for home/small business use.

I myself have an old Dell color laser 3000cn at home, and a separate scanner.That old dell laser has been amazing, and it's built like a tank. But it's huge.
 
I have a HP 8610 ($100) that works great, it has been over a year, and before that I had HP7650 (If I remember), and that worked for like 5 years until the scanner broke and the new piece was almost $100 so I just bought a newer model.
 
jbrinker said:
I work in IT at a major university, and also run a consulting business for small business IT. I have recommended Brother all-in-one color lasers for most of my smaller clients for 5+ years now, and all have been very reliable. Clients are happy, the software package is simple to use and the units work well. They are not tiny however, they do take up some space. Most inkjet all-in-ones are junk. We simply don't buy them anymore at all.

HP's are particularly horrible, since that GIANT software package they install by default can bring a PC to it's knees. HP lasers are not bad, but the Brothers are better for home/small business use.

I myself have an old Dell color laser 3000cn at home, and a separate scanner.That old dell laser has been amazing, and it's built like a tank. But it's huge.
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aha! A Brother brother! Tell me that I can find a network board or other way to put my old Brother HL-1660e online and use as a network printer! It's too dang pretty to throw in the trash! :)
 
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I haven't bought anything other than HP Color LaserJet printers for well over ten years, with one unfortunate exception. (You can read about that exception, a Brother MFC-490CW, here if you like.)

My most recent purchase was a couple of days ago. I bought an HP LaserJet Pro MFP m477fnw at Best Buy for $299.99, which is about $230.00 off list and about $60.00 less than I've seen it anywhere else. (I'm not a big fan of Best Buy, but once in a while their sales can't be beat.)

It's too early to say how well the machine will work for the long haul, but the model has been around for at least a year and the reviews so far have been excellent. I can tell you that it took me all of ten minutes to join it to the network and install the software, and all the functions work perfectly. I've accessed all the functions from Windows and the print function from Linux. I haven't tried scanning anything in Linux.

Paper-handling is excellent, including envelope feeding. First page-out while sleeping is much faster than advertised (maybe three or four seconds, although I didn't time it with a stopwatch). It also has sufficient and sensible configuration options that are accessible from the touch screen, so you can get away with installing only the basic drivers if you want. I did install the full package, however, and installation was quick and painless (uncharacteristically so for HP software, actually).

My previous printer is still in service and is still my current default printer. It's an HP Color LaserJet 3600n that has about nine years of unflinching, trouble-free service under its belt. It's starting to show signs of age like occasional, un-explainable, non-reproducible blemishes when printing in color, however, so I don't plan to keep it in service once the current toner is gone. Or maybe I'll use it as a monochrome printer once the color cartridges are empty. I haven't decided yet.

I mainly needed a new copier / fax more than I needed a new printer, so I decided to on the sale on the MFP m477fnw so it can pull printing duty if and when the CLJ 3600n ever stops working.

The best advice I can give about printers, especially multi-function ones, is to avoid the bleeding edge. I have always had the best luck buying models that are at least a year old and that have thousands of excellent reviews with an average of four stars or higher. As an added plus, these "older" printers often go on sale at deep discount.

The one time I did succumb to the temptation to buy a bleeding-edge printer was the aforementioned Brother MFC-490CW. And I regretted it. That machine quaffs ink like a wino.

Rich
 
I think all the inkjet printers are junk. Working tech support, I've seem more of them stop working, of all brands.

My "old reliable" is a Brother 5140 laser printer (HP4 look alike) + a HP flat bed scanner with document feed. No, it's not an all-in-one, but the combination has the same functionality, I can copy, print and scan. If I wanted to fax I would need to add a modem, but I can't think of the last time I used a fax machine.
 
RJM62 said:
I haven't bought anything other than HP Color LaserJet printers for well over ten years, with one unfortunate exception. (You can read about that exception, a Brother MFC-490CW, here if you like.)

My most recent purchase was a couple of days ago. I bought an HP LaserJet Pro MFP m477fnw at Best Buy for $299.99, which is about $230.00 off list and about $60.00 less than I've seen it anywhere else. (I'm not a big fan of Best Buy, but once in a while their sales can't be beat.)

It's too early to say how well the machine will work for the long haul, but the model has been around for at least a year and the reviews so far have been excellent. I can tell you that it took me all of ten minutes to join it to the network and install the software, and all the functions work perfectly. I've accessed all the functions from Windows and the print function from Linux. I haven't tried scanning anything in Linux.

Paper-handling is excellent, including envelope feeding. First page-out while sleeping is much faster than advertised (maybe three or four seconds, although I didn't time it with a stopwatch). It also has sufficient and sensible configuration options that are accessible from the touch screen, so you can get away with installing only the basic drivers if you want. I did install the full package, however, and installation was quick and painless (uncharacteristically so for HP software, actually).

My previous printer is still in service and is still my current default printer. It's an HP Color LaserJet 3600n that has about nine years of unflinching, trouble-free service under its belt. It's starting to show signs of age like occasional, un-explainable, non-reproducible blemishes when printing in color, however, so I don't plan to keep it in service once the current toner is gone. Or maybe I'll use it as a monochrome printer once the color cartridges are empty. I haven't decided yet.

I mainly needed a new copier / fax more than I needed a new printer, so I decided to on the sale on the MFP m477fnw so it can pull printing duty if and when the CLJ 3600n ever stops working.

The best advice I can give about printers, especially multi-function ones, is to avoid the bleeding edge. I have always had the best luck buying models that are at least a year old and that have thousands of excellent reviews with an average of four stars or higher. As an added plus, these "older" printers often go on sale at deep discount.

The one time I did succumb to the temptation to buy a bleeding-edge printer was the aforementioned Brother MFC-490CW. And I regretted it. That machine quaffs ink like a wino.

Rich
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I have had an M476dn for a couple of years and it has been a very good printer/MFP. We mainly use it for printing and scanning. I haven't had a fax number in years. I set it up to scan to email, which is a nice feature and pretty easy to do on this machine. I buy the YoYoInk cartridges off of Amazon and they have been very good quality and color. We have printed about 3,500 pages with no problems (650 duplex). Quit a bit of card stock, as well.
 
Have a Canon MG series at home right now. Works ok, but goes thru ink at a phenomenal rate. Scored an HP 8000 laser with the multi-thousand page drawer set for a pittance, a little while back, so working on getting that going on the network here at the house.
 
I buy the same model of printer that they have at my office. Haven't ran out of toner yet.
 
Are there any scanners out there which you can put 5 sheets of paper in - and zing; a few seconds later you have a completed pdf on the desktop? Everyone I have is a minor battle to get it to complete this. Computer can't find the scanner, too many options, too many popups....just scan the damn page.
Right clicking the pdf and expedient emailing would be awesome too.
 
About a month ago we bought a HP envy 5660, seems to work great , simple to instal, scans to the iMAC, prints from the iMAC, thats all I need.

And I forgot, it has internet support, from HP.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Are there any scanners out there which you can put 5 sheets of paper in - and zing; a few seconds later you have a completed pdf on the desktop? Everyone I have is a minor battle to get it to complete this. Computer can't find the scanner, too many options, too many popups....just scan the damn page.
Right clicking the pdf and expedient emailing would be awesome too.
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Pretty much any of them that have an auto feeder. The last several all in ones I have had do scan to email and have auto feeders, so you just stack the pages on top, select scan to email off the menu and then select the address you want it to go to (I setup an address list) and then start. It will send all pages to a PDF. Examples would be the one Denver has (I have the earlier model and it does it too), the Epson Workforce (inkjet) printers (for these, you need to set up a cloud account, but it isn't a big deal and it is free).
 
I have a couple of HP4630s and they are pretty good - just ridiculously slow and cannot handle anything but new paper. Looking for better.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I have a couple of HP4630s and they are pretty good - just ridiculously slow and cannot handle anything but new paper. Looking for better.
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I meant the one Rich has M477 (the nw means network and wireless, dn means duplex and network).
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Are there any scanners out there which you can put 5 sheets of paper in - and zing; a few seconds later you have a completed pdf on the desktop? Everyone I have is a minor battle to get it to complete this. Computer can't find the scanner, too many options, too many popups....just scan the damn page.
Right clicking the pdf and expedient emailing would be awesome too.
Click to expand...

I thought I had told you this.

Fujitsu ScanSnap IX500. Nothing else comes close. I have ten or so of them (varying generations). Drop paper into hopper, press the blue lit button, paper slides through as fast as can be, PDF pops up. Both sides at once, color automatically detected. Pdf, rat now.

Best single piece of equipment I ever bought. My oldest one is probably ten years old, still soldiering along.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Are there any scanners out there which you can put 5 sheets of paper in - and zing; a few seconds later you have a completed pdf on the desktop? Everyone I have is a minor battle to get it to complete this. Computer can't find the scanner, too many options, too many popups....just scan the damn page.
Right clicking the pdf and expedient emailing would be awesome too.
Click to expand...

The one I just bought can. The attached PDF of some random papers from the pile on my desk took about 12 seconds.

The machine can also email, but I don't have that configured. I prefer to check documents before I email them.

Rich
 

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SCCutler said:
I thought I had told you this.
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I swear you have not! At least, I do not recall the name Fujitsu uttered in the past. However I will check it out! Thank you.
Thanks to all and sorry OP for misdirecting your thread (I was thinking it might have played out anyway).
 
Mr @SCCutler , I will read the specs but is it networkable? (by this I mean, the resulting pdf can pop up in a shared folder on the server?

PS; enjoying your Custom Cruiser avatar....wondering if a Caddy avatar is planned? ;)
 
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RJM62 said:
The one I just bought can. The attached PDF of some random papers from the pile on my desk took about 12 seconds.

The machine can also email, but I don't have that configured. I prefer to check documents before I email them.

Rich
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I email it to myself. Check it and then forward. It probably doesn't make that much difference, but I can manage email from many different devices.
 
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