How to pick a low-cost printer?

I'm going to be a law student and simply need a reliable B&W printer that is as inexpensive as possible. I don't expect to put a phenomenal number of pages through it. However, the market seems to be flooded with inexpensive garbage which, if Newegg customer reviews are to be believed, will fall apart as soon as the 30-day return window is over, or which will cost ridiculous sums in ink costs.

This leads me naturally to several questions:

1) How much faith should I place in Newegg reviews. It seems like the review database must be full of puff pieces written by ringers and hit pieces written by snipers, looking to either buff up or tear down a specific manufacturer's "online cred".

2) My current approach to finding a good low-cost printer is as follows:

a) Look in inkjet and laser categories only.
b) In those categories, search for All Printers in the category.
c) Sort by "most reviews".
d) Look for the lowest-cost printer that has a 4 or 5 average rating, that has a large number of total reviews (preferably at least 50% of the reviews that have been written for the product that has had the MOST total reviews written)
e) Look at any specific product that pops out, focus on the 1-star (worst) reviews, and look for anything that sounds especially deal-breaking.

Now, I think this is a relatively clever approach, but it still leaves me almost entirely in the dark. For starters, I can't really tell the Cost Per Page of any given printer. Next, I don't know if the reviews are reliable or if they are written by interested partisans. Next, when a product has mostly positive reviews but has a number of damning reviews which cite similar issues, I am left wondering if the people who wrote positive reviews just weren't observant as the people who noticed major faults and wrote negative reviews. And of course, there's really no way of knowing whether the 1-star reviews were just written by people that happened to get a genuinely defective unit.

I'm left feeling like I'm in the jungle, and I'm tempted to spend hundreds of dollars on 20-year-old technology (i.e., a laser or inkjet printer) just to get me out of this jungle. But that's by no means a sure shot, and I don't want to do it to begin with.

Help! Any advice? I'd LOVE to buy one of those $50-something inkjets if I could count on it. I'd be WILLING to spend $100+ if that's what it takes. But I simply don't know what it takes.

Any advice on this subject would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks for the advice, however my only reservation is this:

Isn't HP the company that programs its printers to reject any non-HP ink cartridge? And aren't the HP ink cartridges programmed to expire, at which point the printer will refuse to print with them?

 

I always peruse the customer reviews on newegg.com if I'm shopping there, and I find your impression inaccurate. It may apply to some products and it's certainly not an accurate description of customer reviews in general. I do think you need to apply some critical thinking to the reviews and separate the seed from the chaff.

The Canon printer suggested by DomLuc seems to be a good one. I have a Brother MFC-790, so I'll suggest a slightly lower-cost (compared to mine) Brother model which has the same features as mine except the phone answering system. It's the MFC-490CW; this would put the cost over $100 but may save money in the long run since it uses separate ink cartridges for the color printing. Therefore, you only replace the color that needs replacing.

 

If you really want just a rock solid printer, and only a printer, Go to Ebay and look for a HP Laserjet 4L. I have 3 of them that have been rock solid printers for almost 8 years. You could probably pick one up for $50 and the toners last for a reeeeally long time.

 

Just remember if you get an inkjet type, you will only get around 250 - 400 pages per cartridge, depending on type.
I have a HP PSC color AIO and some of my ink dates are a couple of years old & I haven't had any trouble with any programming to expire issues.

You might want to consider a monochrome (black only) AIO laser. I have the samsung posted below, set up for the kids to use, toner runs between $35 - $70 depending on store, but you get around 2000 - 2500 pages.

Good remanufacture ink company www.abacus24-7.com used them for years no problems yet.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N=2010270630 1613940385&name=MFC / All-In-One

 

Does anyone know if i can get silver ink for an inkjet printer? I want to print my own wedding invitations, does anyone know where i can get some inkjet cartriges?

 

I would recommend this printer: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148076

I have been doing some research into a printer for University, and this is the best one I have found. It is a black and white laser printer, so it will have great print quality at a cheap price. From the reviews I have read, the printer works out at about 1p or 2p a page.

The toner cartridges cost about £40, but they last for 1200 pages or so.

 

Hi, why dont you have a look at the Epson range ? I have an R300 which i have owned for 4 years( cheap ink ) and it tells you the amount of pages your ink cartridge will print. i also recommend the Epson dx4450 3 in 1 print scan copy which I also own both great machines

 

I've had a samsung ML-1720 now for seven years, and changed the toner in it once. It prints 17 pages per minute, and I think I bought it on sale for $129 or something stupid like that.

When my girlfriend went away to due graduate stuides I set her up with the model that had replaced it (2010?), and she hasnt had any problems in 2 years and is still on the first toner. It's even faster printing.

Nothing fancy, just cheap , reliable , fast printing.

FWIW