We now treat or consider all printers as a throw away item. One or two sets of ink perhaps.
I know that is wasteful. We have tried numerous ways to minimise this outcome.
The real test of any printer reviewed should be reliability over time and usage. Which is unlikely to be practical. Even the history of a particular manufacturerer is not foolproof.
Since our first home PC in 1989 there has been a continual procession of printers including several for our business needs.
There is also a technology obsolescence issue.
Currently the reviews on Choice, several Aussie computer mags and online sites have all helped with short listing for performance, features and usability.
After that the following golden rules have all failed.
- buy on best price from the short list
- buy local just in case it fails within warranty
- buy only brands that have a positive recent reliability history
The only positive outcome is we have never in all the time since 1989 had a printer fail in the warranty period!
The two longest lasting products have been
- a low cost brother laser printer still in use after 7 years and on third full capacity toner.
- An HP office jet multifunction that worked itâs way through 7 sets of XL capacity inks, which are now only available on line after market or as refills if you reuse your old cartridges. The auto doc feeder has long since developed a terminal fault. (The Epson that replaced it lasted less than 24 months upon which it developed a print head fault.)
Previous purchases have included products from Canon, Epson, Fujitsu, HP, Brother.
Epson despite great print and picture quality has been the worst for cost and reliability.
HP has been ok, if expensive for inks in the past.