The Best Printers That Won’t Cost You a Fortune in Ink Cartridges | WSJ

Beware of the talking printer

Printers are still the worst but at least new ink-tank printers help you save money on ink. WSJ’s Joanna Stern survived testing 10 home printers from Epson, HP, Brother and Canon to tell you which are worth buying.

Personal Technology With Joanna Stern
Technology is overwhelming and making decisions about what gadget to buy is harder than ever. WSJ personal tech columnist Joanna Stern makes it all a bit easier in her lively and informative videos.

More from the Wall Street Journal:

#WSJ #Tech #Printers

[adamneulander]

She didn't mention this, but laser printers are best for people who may not print all the time because the ink from an inkjet can dry and plug it up.

[eugenebebs]

So basically, in the face of declining sales, printer manufacturers decided to stop ripping you off on consumables and allowed to pour the ink from a jug

[dmo]

I remember at a time it was cheaper to buy a whole new printer than to buy just an ink cartridge. No lie

[BaghaShams]

It should be noted that Epson invented the ink tank concept and all the other brands were forced to come out with their version because they had no choice. I bought an Epson ecotank to support them for doing this.

[ronfiedler]

Joanna does a good job with her reviews but she omitted an important difference between inkjet and laser printers. Laser printers do not get plugged ink heads so they are much better if the printer goes for long periods of inactivity.

[JakeBloodless]

I bought Canon laser printer 10 years ago when I went to college. It’s still working fine and I am still occasionally using it. The model was LBP-2900.
If you need a printer just for the documents - laser is the choice!

[jayff]

Traded in my fancy ink jet for a monochrome laser printer and it's been way better for me. I can just ignore the thing for like 2 years then decide to print 1000 pages and it just works. Hooray for low maintenance!

[possum]

I've been servicing printers for over 30 years. I bought a Brother MFC-J5845DW for personal/home use last year. I absolutely love it. Great quality, duplexing, copying, faxing. Long-life tanks and the brother software is very very useful and easy. Highly recommend this unit.

[dkod]

Nice comparison review. After working for well over 2 decades in IT, I can agree with everything Joanna said. No printer is really 'great' or 'the best.' I'm always checking online where I can get the least expensive replacement ink carts. Right now, Staples is the place, but that could change in a heartbeat. For a long time, I was always a fan of Epson. One of their best selling points IMO was they always provided the straightest paper path to reduce jams. Sadly, that's no longer true. Still, even as I don't print a lot now that I'm retired, I'm quite satisfied with the print quality of my current Epson, and I have a bit more time to look for the least costly cartridges. Thanks for this info, Joanna.

[finnerutavdet]

I gave up inkjet printers aprox 3 years ago, and bought a B&W laser printer costing only twice of the inkjet one (including a multi-sheet scanner feeder). That was a huge improvement. As I rarely used my Inkjet most of the inc was used for cleaning the heads, and because of the long usage interval the head was cloged and dry when I eventually needed to use it. I repeatedly had to use alcohol to dissolve the cloged heads, and repetedly had to clean the pad where it's disposing of 50% (in my case) of the ink it spilled from cleaning the heads before printing. The laser printer doesn't have any of these problems ! It can stand for 3 months, and it's still gonna work on the first atempt. And the toner cartridge is lasting (in my case) for a couple of years, whereas the ink cartridges I had to replace several times per year. When I need a color photo I just upload it to the web page of my local photoshop and then I pick it up there after a few days, on real photo paper. .... I will probably never ever have an inkjet printer again. And I did have at least 4 different ones over the years.

[ruelsmith]

I looked at the ink tank printer. First, it costs more to begin with. Now, I could do that if costs were better over time. But, as I looked into the problems these printers have over time. Users report the ink getting clogged, and the print head is non-replaceable, and they have a limited number of prints before needing expensive service. The Epson I looked at had an 18k page limit where a counter is set off stopping the printer in its tracks. A workaround of that is possible by removing a set of sponges that get ink soaked, cleaning them, and then replacing them, followed by a $10 app that resets the counter. Only some would be willing to do this messy job. I went with a traditional HP. IMO opinion, the ink tanks have some development left to be done. I knew it wasn't going to be as simple as manufacturers just cutting our costs for ink and robbing themselves of income.

[reezalbasri]

You have to also take into consideration maintenance cost of running an ink tank printer, the print head (it will fail by 2 to 3 years), ink absorbent pad replacement, chip counter resetting and cost of repair itself is almost the cost of buying a new printer. I would have to say getting monochrome laser printer is more worth it if you're only printing black and white.

[shriterk]

Working at an office supply store I can confirm that ink tanks and laser printers are the way to go, but most people don’t want to spend the money

[rogeralvarado]

Probably the most entertaining and well produced printer review video I've seen. Nice job! Thanks for the info!

[Phil]

I've been using the Epson ecotank for years, I was so fed up with other printers. It works great!

[marksmyth]

Just connected my HP Laser to my PC today — was sitting unused for
2 years with toner cartridge in it . Prints perfect.

[taewankim]

"You try to Control-P at my age!" 😂😂😂

[ItchyKneeSon]

The Epson EcoTank is nice. As others have mentioned, you need to use it regularly so that the jets don't jam. If they do, you have to run a cleaning cycle which uses a good amount of ink. AND the excess ink used during the cleaning cycle gets stored in a separate tank that, when filled, needs to be serviced ($$$). FEAR NOT! You can do this yourself. There's a number of tutorials on YouTube.

[MrBelmont]

I gave up purchasing printers years ago. Whenever I need to print something, I just head to my local library and pay cents for each copy. I only print pages sporadically though 🙄

[ccnbutter]

Bought a brother printer 15yrs ago for $50, bought cartridge refills from eBay for cheap. The whole thing lasted 15yrs. Pretty happy with the time it lasted.