What is the best value home printer to buy in 2019?
Maybe your printer has eventually given up the ghost and it’s time to find a replacement or you simply feel like updating and want to be able to print via AirPrint and enjoy the current modern features offered by many of todays inkjet and laser printers. We have listed the following 5 printers we think are worth considering for use in the home or a small office and hope you find it useful and informative.
1. Brother MFC-J5330DW printer
First impressions of the Brother MFC-J5330DW printer are likely to be ‘Wow! is this printer too big to fit in my home?’ The printer measures 304mm x 520mm x 400mm and is certainly larger than the average home printer but despite its size it’s not a heavy printer to move around. This Brother multi-function printer has the ability to print A4 and A3 paper, prints double sided and doubles as a scanner too. Brother are branding this as an A4 printer, not surprising as it can hold up to 250 A4 paper sheets in its tray at any one time. The A4 print speed is estimated at 22 pages per minutes for black and white print to 20 pages per minute for colour prints, the A3 print speed will obviously be slower than this.
The running costs of the Brother MFC-J5330DW are an important factor as always and the best value inks are the high capacity compatible Brother LC3219XL ink cartridges. The black ink cartridge will print approximately 3000 pages and the LC3219XL Cyan/Magenta/Yellow inks will print approximately 1500 pages per colour. At just over €35 for a 4 pack of the compatible inks, this printer is especially affordable to run. The overall performance of the printer is good with excellent quality photo prints. With this printer’s ability to print A4 or A3 pages at a reasonable print speed and would not look out of place in the home or small business.
2. Epson Expression Photo XP-960 printer
This All-in-One Epson Expression XP-960 multi-function printer from Epson has become a form favourite online. The ability to print A4 or A3 prints sets it apart from some of its Brother and HP counterparts using six ink cartridges for well defined high quality printing. The printer measures 148mm x 479mm x 356mm and is relatively light weight so easily unpacked and set up.
This printer/scanner has touchscreen controls (large enough to make reading easy) with an SD card camera slot as well as the standard USB port. Blessed with wireless and cable connectivity it’s easy to set up on MAC and PC. The printer uses just one black ink among its six 24XL (T2431/2/3/4/5/6 colours) with a block buster 30 pack of compatible Epson 24XL inks for under €50! The ink cartridges are replaced individually as and when the printer indicates the need.
Some key features of the XP-960 include the ability to print up to A3 size (ideal for borderless photo printing), sending prints via your mobile phone and an easy to navigate integrated touch screen. This small-in-one also has a scan facility with a top resolution of 4800ppi and is certainly good enough to cope with good quality photo scanning. It’s possible to scan to the desktop on your computer, a emery card in the printer or indeed to a cloud.
3. Canon Pixma TR8550 printer
Breaking the mould with this printer, Canon have designed the Pixma TR8550 printer primarily for the home office user as well as the home photo printer that they are equally highly regarded for. This printer operates using 5 x PGI-580XXL / CLI-581XXL ink cartridges and is considerably smaller in size than it’s Canon siblings aimed at the same home market. The printer will scan, copy, print and fax (does anyone still use fax?) and has an easy to use touchscreen interface.
The Wi-fi is complemented with a bluetooth facility enabling connection of your mobile phone and print via the Canon mobile app. The printer also has a memory card slot so the connection to the home photo printer is maintained and the fact that there is an extra PGI-580XXL pigment black ink cartridge is a nod in recognition of this.
The Pixma TR8550 printer has the ability to produce Duplex printing (that’s printing both sides at once) although this is limited to A4 size. The easy to follow touchscreen makes it easy to set up linking to your Wi-Fi via your password. Photo printing can be a little slow but the quality more than makes up for this.
4. HP LaserJet Pro MFP M227fdw printer
The HP Laserjet Pro MFP M227fdw multi-function laser printer with a Wi-Fi feature produces high quality black and white prints, single or double sided (duplex). This printer produces clean crisp black text and images and can be an economical printer to run if you decide to use the non original compatible brand. Let’s face it, the running costs of the printer is crucial – A4 Pages can be printed for as little as 1 cent per page if you go down the route of using a good quality compatible CF280X high capacity toner.
The printer has 2 sheet feeds, the main feed holding up 250 A4 sheets with a secondary 15 sheet feed for heavier or specialised paper. Uncharacteristically, the HPLaserjet Pro MFP M227fdw uses separate drum unit and laser toner cartridges. In terms of speed, the M277fdw can print up to 26 pages per minute of text with a drop off of about 8 seconds for A4 coverage with images.
Overall this printer is quiet, fast to use with a good quality scan facility and economical to run. Ideal for the small office and definitely worth buying if you are considering using the no-oriignal HP toners.
5. Oki C542dn printer
The OKI C542DN laser printer is an ideal 4 colour office printer. Easy to use and with a large colour touchscreen this A4 printer will hold up to 350 A4 sheets of paper so ideal for uninterrupted printing. This printer does what it says on the tin, prints only, no scan or Wi-Fi with this OKI C542DN printer. There is, however, the option for a Wi-Fi module should you desire.
The printer is quite large and more suited to a busy small office rather than a home and it’s real plus is its speed of 30 pages per minute in colour. So what about the running costs? The compatible high capacity OKI 46490605/6/7/8 laser toner cartridges are available at under €300 with the black toner printing up to 7000 pages and each of the three colours printing up to 6000 pages each. That’s a cost of approximately 5 cents per A4 page for a colour print. Overall a good performance from this printer from a trusted brand
How to Reduce the Usage of your HP Toner or Printer Ink
At Printerinkcartridges.ie we are not just interested in selling HP toner but are committed to finding ways to help the environment as well as making a difference in your pocket. Our discounted prices have already helped you save money but we think you will benefit from some useful tips on even further savings on cost.
First of all try to reduce the output resolution on your laser printer. Similar to the draft mode on your inkjet printer, the laser printer output resolution setting is adjustable. If you are printing at a lower resolution the printer will use less toner. Your printer may be pre-set to 600 dpi or even 1200dpi, if this is the case then try resetting to 300 dpi. Depending on what you are printing, especially text, you will probably not see much of a difference in the print quality of your HP toner. The printer will also produce faster print as it has less time to produce ink on the paper.
In HP inkjet printers (or any brand of printer for that matter), the colour HP ink and toner bears the brunt of the cost during the lifetime of the printer. Try setting the printer to print black only and this will ensure that the printer only uses a small amount of colour ink (which it must do either way) to produce a black image as it may currently be configuring the black as much as 30% from the colour cartridge. Some HP toner laser printers have an added feature called ‘Toner Saver’. If this is activated then it will help save toner during the life of the toner cartridge.
Buying the correct toner for your printer may sound like an obvious suggestion but some businesses and home users buy the standard capacity HP laser toner or ink cartridge. Some printers are able to accept a high capacity or XL version of the toner. This ink and toner will print be better value and will print more pages for your euro. Under the same label of the correct toner comes the non-genuine HP ink and toner. Compatible or non-original HP toner laser is readily available and can cost as much as up to 100% less than the genuine article! Good quality compatible HP toner is manufactured by no-HP third-party manufacturers to ISO standard and is guaranteed to give you the same results as the original brand toner. It cannot be stressed how much of a difference this can make to a business or busy home user over the course of a year, the savings are huge and all without compromising the quality of the print.
In short, there are two types of non-original HP toner, compatible HP toner and remanufactured HP toner. Compatible HP toner is a toner cartridge that is manufactured as a more or less direct copy of the original brand toner but made without any infringement on copyright of the original brand cartridge. This is currently the most popular selling replacement toner for HP printers. The remanufactured cartridge is a cartridge that has been collected or returned to a third-party factory, cleaned, repaired if necessary, refilled, tested, repackaged and resold as a new replacement toner. There is a difference in the cost with the compatible cartridge being cheaper as it is generally mass-produced and the manufacturing costs are lower than checking and repairing individual HP toner cartridges.
Printing can become more cost effective when taking into consideration a combination of the above factors, buying smarter and seeking out supplier incentive deals when buying HP toner online.
- Published in HP Toners
HP Toner or Inkjet Printing, Which is the More Cost Effective?
Home printing 4 decades ago was limited to low cost inkjet printers with the laser toner printer designed for the office. In more recent times the retail price and the sheer physical size of the laser printer have both been reduced making it an option for home and business. Some black and white laser printers can be bought for under €120 offering useful features such as Wi-Fi and double-sided printing and fit comfortably on your desk!
So how does HP laser toner compare for use in the home in comparison to an inkjet printer. It comes down to the amount of pages your print, the initial purchase price of the printer can be expensive but the running costs for a busy printer can be lower than an inkjet printer. HP are the largest seller of inkjet printers in the UK and Ireland with the HP Deskjet 3050A being it’s most popular printer, while the best selling HP laser printer is the HP Colour Laserjet CP2025.
As a rule of thumb if you consider yourself to print in or around 1000 pages a year then the inkjet printer is the best deal for you. If you print upwards of 200 pages a year then the laser toner printer will be more economical and of course if you print 8,000 – 10,000 pages per year (especially in black and white) then the laser printer will save you an absolute fortune.
Running costs of any printer are crucial and the inkjet printer HP Deskjet 3050A ink cartridges are no exception. These are currently available as both original HP and remanufactured ink cartridges HP301XL Black and colour. The original HP cartridges are manufactured by HP and are costly to buy. The remanufactured version is HP cartridges that have been used, returned empty to a third-party, checked, refilled, repaired if necessary and re-packaged.
Both will work perfectly well in the printer but the remanufactured cartridges are considerably less to buy than the original. It’s the same story with HP Colour Laserjet CP2025 toner cartridges. The original HP toner is expensive but the compatible version can cost up to 100% less. The compatible version of the HP toner is once again manufactured by a third-party company, not HP, and will offer obvious big savings to any business that uses these toners. One piece of good advice to follow is to never buy any printer based on the purchase price alone, always check the cost of the replacement HP ink or HP toner.
The price of print per page should be calculated and more importantly, will the printer work with non-original ink or toner cartridges. The print definition of the inkjet printer is far superior to the laser printer and image printing on photo paper is using an inkjet printer is unbeatable. A big plus for the laser printer and one of the most obvious advantages of printing with a laser printer is the print speed – this vastly out-performs any inkjet printer. Some models of laser printers are also able to perform Duplex printing, that’s printed 2 sides of the page at once. A real time saver for large document runs. Consider buying a printer that is Wi-Fi enabled and will allow device printing remotely from a mobile phone or tablet.
- Published in HP Toners, Inkjet Cartridges
Original and Compatible HP Toner Comparisons and What Works Best in your Printer
Unfortunately these days some people categorize original brand toner as very expensive and compatible HP toner as likely to damage your printer. Lack of knowledge and information about the compatible toner cartridges can out them at a disadvantage so hopefully we will be able to clarify some of the myths associated with negative press they have attracted in the past.
HP Toner Jargon Explained
The original toner cartridge is one that is actually manufactured by HP for a HP printer.
A compatible HP toner cartridges is manufactured by a third-party and not HP and is therefore a copy of the HP cartridge that doesn’t infringe the copyright of the cartridge.
A remanufactured HP toner cartridge is an original HP toner cartridge that has been collected following use, factory cleaned, refilled, repackaged and sold as a replacement for the original.
The Difference in the Price
The original brand toner cartridges are manufactured with profit in mind as well as all the overheads that go with the R&D of this and future products. The third-party manufacturers of the compatible and remanufactured toners don’t have the same outlays so they are able to mass-produce toners at a lower cost. However, beware of compatible HP toner that seems to be priced ridiculously low, always check out the social media page of the supplier to confirm quality or issue feedback.
How will my Printer Guarantee be affected if I use Non-Original Toner Cartridges
First of all it is extremely rare for a toner cartridge to damage a laser printer. If your printer is under warranty and does develop a fault contact your printer supplier. The printer supplier will be required to show evidence that the compatible cartridges were responsible for the problem otherwise repair it under the warranty. If the issue is with the printer it will be covered under guarantee. However, beware of an extended warranty after 12 months as there may be a clause that will allow the manufacturer to void this warranty if you use compatibles. It’s worth checking this out but as I stated earlier, it’s extremely rare for a compatible toner cartridge to damage the printer.
Tip: It’s worth noting that if you have original brand HP toner in your printer when it’s checked for the problem by an engineer, then the manufacturer is more likely to come down on your side.
Print Quality, Original Versus Compatible
In our experience there is no difference in printing every day general-purpose documents or reports using either compatible or original brand toners. In our own trials we printed a selection of photos and text documents using both types of toner and found little or no difference in the print quality. If you are printing photo quality prints then the original toner will give you better results especially if you are trying to achieve consistent colour tones on original photo paper.
Finally
From the positive feedback we received from our customers we are able to determine that using compatibles HP toner offers huge savings (often up to 100%) at home and in the office, The pros by far outweigh the cons and with good supplier customer support there is no reason not to give the compatible HP toner a try. If you are undecided then contact your online supplier and ask for a guarantee that if you are unhappy with the results they will offer a replacement toner or refund your money.
- Published in HP Toners
Important Factors to Consider when Buying HP Toner
If you are in possession a HP laser printer either in the office or at home it’s likely that the most worrying part of owning one is the running costs. This is ultimately the price you pay for your HP toner and the price per page it costs to print. This is a factor many people may not take into consideration when purchasing the printer, especially if the initial purchase price is a considered to be a good deal!
Buying a HP Laser Printer
When you decide to buy a laser printer either to upgrade from your existing HP inkjet printer that is no longer able to cope with the output of print or to simply replace a printer that has reached end of life, there are some important factors to consider. Apart from the initial purchase price that will determine what your initial outlay is, how much will it actually cost to run the printer with HP toner. An approximate price per page may be given in the sales description but of course this will be based on 5% coverage of text only printed double-lined spaced! As we all know it’s unlikely that you will be printing text only all the time so this figure will be unrealistic to say the least. This will be more prevalent if you are buying a colour HP laser printer where the emphasis will definitely be on printing colour images and not just black text. Once you have found a model that will suit your needs and the purchase price is within your budget, turn you attention to the HP toner it use as a daily running cost and divide the estimated printed page by half to give a more realistic 10% coverage. As part of your homework in researching the capabilities and performance of the printer, it is now time to check if there are compatible or re-manufactured HP toners available for this model. Most of the well established and long running series of HP printers have the non-genuine alternative HP toners available, but check to see in case the model you have bought is part of a new series that may not have the compatible or re-manufactured HP laser toner available at this time.
Buying Non-genuine HP Toner
Using Compatible or re-manufactured HP toner can reduce your printing costs by up to 100%. That’s a lot of savings across a year for a business, school or college and will put a significant dent in any budget deficit. Basically there are two alternatives to buying original brand HP toner. Firstly, we have compatible laser toner that has been manufactured by a third-party other than HP and is a copy toner cartridge whilst not infringing on the HP copyright of the toner cartridge, it will work in the HP printer as a replacement toner. This toner will be available online with the biggest saving compared to your original brand HP toner. The second type of replacement toner available is the re-manufactured toner cartridge and is again produced by a third-party manufacturer and not by HP themselves. This toner is an original HP toner cartridge that has been returned to a factory, inspected, repaired if necessary, re-chipped, refilled and tested. Because this toner was once an original brand HP cartridge it is identical to an original toner in everything except the packaging. This will cost slightly more than the compatible toner but will work just a swell offering savings in the region of 40% – 50%. The fact of the matter is that most high quality compatible HP toner is manufactured to the same ISO standards as the original brand and if it comes with a money-back guarantee by the supplier then there is absolutely no risk to the buyer. Why not make a purchase of compatible HP toner for your printer today and give it a try, you won’t be disappointed.
- Published in HP, HP Toners, Ink and Toner
Your Business Buyers’ Guide to HP Toner Cartridges – Original Brand versus Compatibles
When it’s time to replace your HP toner, you have 3 choices of types of toner you can call on.
- OEM – Original brand manufacturer – HP toner manufacturers by HP
- Compatible laser toner. HP toner manufactured by a third party and not HP
- Re-manufactured HP toner. Original HP toner cartridges, returned to the factory, cleaned, repaired and refilled
Advantages and disadvantages of using an original brand toner
Original brand HP toner manufactured by HP is claimed to give the best print results possible with the lowest cartridge failure rate (it’s worth noting that there are actually failures with original brand cartridges as they may be with compatible versions). The downside can be the cost. The costs on average are 40% – 100% more for an original brand HP toner than a compatible.
Choosing the best option for you
Generally speaking the right choice for you would depend on what you use the printer for. If it’s for general-purpose everyday printing such as documents and reports then the compatible HP toner will be the best choice as there is virtually no difference in the quality of print between it and the original toner. If you are printing high resolution colour prints with particular emphasis on your company logo colour for example, then the original brand toner will suit your needs more.
The reliability of compatible toner nowadays, when purchased from a reputable supplier, should produce good quality prints that would be good enough to gloss any report. It’s worth having a word with your supplier to find out if it’s likely that there may be any issues for you with using compatible HP toner and if there is a customer line that is able to offer advice if needed.
If we take a look at an individual HP printer as an example, the HP Laserjet PRO 100 Color MFP M175A is a popular office printer in Ireland and the UK. This printer uses four laser toners HP126A (CE310A), black, cyan magenta and yellow. The original brand HP toners are around €180 online but will probably cost more locally. The compatible equivalent for these toners will set you back around €99. That’s over 90% less than the original brand HP toners! All good quality compatible toners will come with a money-back guarantee so there is no risk to the end user.
Laser toner printers are widely used in the office and at home and although have several advantages over the inkjet printers they can be expensive to run on original brand toners. Our office runs on several different printers and they all use the compatible version of ink and toner without any problems. On the odd occasion there may be an issue with cartridge recognition but this issue is usually reserved for inkjet cartridges and not toner.
From a business perspective, the running costs of any printer will be a major concern and if it’s possible to reduce printing costs throughout the year by between 40% and 100% then there is really is not reason for not giving it a try. Speak to a trusted online supplier today and make the switch to compatible HP toner.
- Published in HP, HP Toners, Toner and Ink
Switching to Compatible HP Toner and Printing the Same Amount of Pages for a lot less Money
Has the thought ever crossed your mind to switch to compatible HP toner but you have actually committed to doing it? HP printers are one of the most popular desktop laser printers on the market and you can be sure to find one in almost every office in the country. There are two types, the black and white (mono) and colour laserjet printer. Obviously the black and white printer is for pretty much text documents only while the colour printer can give fast well-defined colour prints in a fraction of the time that an inkjet printer will produce the same document. The initial cost of the HP printer is certainly considerably more than you would pay for than an inkjet printer but the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.
The HP laserjet printer will allow you to print large quantities of paper at a fast rate while retaining the quality of the print. Are there any downsides to owning a HP laser printer and is there anything to consider for example before you purchase one? The answer is quite obvious to those of us in the trade and the first thing we should consider is the running cost of the printer. The main consideration should be given to how much per copy it will cost to either produce a black and white or colour print. This can be calculated by dividing the cost of the laser toner by the number of pages it will produce.
For example if we take the HP toner cartridges CF410X, CF411X, CF412X and CF413X, the black toner will 6500 pages and the colours 5000 pages. The cost of an original brand HP toner CF410X black toner is approximately €158.00 which calculates the cost per print as 0.02 cents. The compatible HP toner equivalent cost is approximately €80 and therefore the cost per print comes in at 0.01 cent. The original HP toner colour CF411X cartridge is approximately €212 offering a cost per colour page of 0.04 cents while the compatible version of the toner comes in at 0.0002 cents per page. The savings with opting for the compatible version of the toner are huge and any business trying to save money should be making the switch to compatibles as soon as possible!
If you have concerns about the quality and reliability of the compatible HP toner cartridges then there is not need. Many businesses and homes users across Ireland and the UK have switch to using compatible toners, not jut HP but all the leading brands such as Canon, Brother, Dell and Samsung too. Let’s face it, being in business is all about being competitive and keeping costs down is one of the best ways to do that. Implementing a strategy such as switching all printers to using compatible ink and toner could be a good starting point. It’s important initially to get a good supplier so pick up the phone to one of the larger online suppliers and see what they can do for you regarding customer support, what happens when a toner doesn’t work and what sort of guarantee they will offer you on your product.
There is a lot of scare-mongering theses days about compatible HP toner and while some of it may be merited if there are poor quality imports being sold the majority of the toners are sold with a full money-back guarantee offering no risk to the user as repeat business is the name of the game of any reputable supplier and it’s worth remembering any customer is too valuable to lose.
- Published in HP Toners