Our $39 Walmart special Canon inkjet is dying and not worth repairing. Also I'm doing some mail receiving and scanning for missionary friends in Slovakia. Thirdly, my son who uses this desk wants to print and scan for school work. Those three conditions are pushing me to shop for a "prosumer" grade color printing and scanning solution.
-Today I've got a 35 page packet I want to scan to pdf for my friends. This is a roughly twice monthly occurrence.
-Price isn't a big sticking point; maybe under $750? I'd like it to last 5+ years with daily scanning or printing use.
-Not picky about ink or toner. I'd like to hear your anecdotes about what you've used and what you like.
Something like pictured is my initial thought. Any suggestions?
I've got a Brother MFC-J985DW that would probably fit the bill. Not sure if they still make this particular model, but even with it being an inkjet printer it's been doing reasonably well in the longevity stakes. I'm pretty sure that it's at least 5-6 years old, if not older.
It's part of the Brother "inkvestment" series, which means that you pay actual money for the unit, but don't have to win the lottery to be able to buy additional ink.
Gzwg
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12/15/23 6:37 a.m.
A few years ago even the entry level Epson MFC had the ADF feature that scanned in duplex mode. My WF3520 is nearly 10 years old, and still does its Job nicely.
Regarding ink costs, I would look at the Epson EcoTank models. Initial BuyIn is not that cheap, but the cost for the ink is really good.
For occasional home use that is what I recommend at the moment.
In small Business Applications, I am quite happy with Brother Devices, but their Model range is quite complicated.
At work we currently have an HP MFP M477dn, that runs good as well.
Always check the Toner costs as well (and how many pages one Cartridge does).
My suggestion is to consider a laser printer. We had several ink jets over the years and it seemed like I was always replacing ink even though we didn't print that much. I think it just dries out and/or clogs up. Laser toner is a powder, and does not have that problem. Down side is that you can print better photos with an ink jet than a relatively inexpensive color laser printer (maybe if you spend up $750 you can do good photos?). I don't have any specific suggestions as to model. I like the one I bought a few years ago, a Canon MF642Cdw, but it is no longer available.
IMHO, be sure to get one that does not require you to buy name brand ink/toner, or refuses to print once it has printed so many pages on a cartridge. My Canon has been complaining that the black toner is out (because it hit some page count) for months, but it keeps printing just fine, so I will not replace the cartridge until the print quality actually declines. When I was printer shopping, HP was particularly bad about trying to lock you in to only using their ink/toner; I don't know if that is still the case.
Also be sure to figure out how serious a scanner you want. The document feeder on mine only does single sided scanning which is not a big problem for me, but you might care.
