Grrr .... printers !!!

unless there is some hidden requirement the answer has been "laser" for a long time now

Hmmm,

I have a memory of my first laser printer (1999) not printing properly after periods of inactivity ... has toner improved ?

Yes. FSVO 'cheap'

Color lasers are underwtritten cost wise on the basis that you wiull have to pay thrigh te nose for new toimers Nevertheless a decent color laser can be had sub £200 and that is about the same cost as the 4 inkjets you threw away because they dried out....

"HP T6B59A Color LaserJet Pro M254nw Printer"

networked, wirelss color laser for about £160 at amazon.

whole new 4 toner/drum set is about £120 for HP or half that for compatible brands.

yes.

A laser printer! :-)

I switched to a colour laser all-in-one a few years ago and I haven't regretted the change at all, it 'just works' whenever I want.

You are likely leaving it so long that the printer does a deep clean cycle every time you actually try to print.

The hidden requirement of wanting photoreal colour is one aspect where inkjets do still have the edge. I think Canon printers tend to do much better on intermittent use than HP or Epson but YMMV. My A3+ Canon printer gets hammered about once a month and is dormant in between. It seldom has problems and is frugal with (cloned) ink use.

Orders of magnitude better than wet inks. I can't vouch for any particular modern models. I'm still using an old Dell 1320c. It is on cloned cartridges - the official OEM ones are still an arm and a leg.

The thing to watch out for is the cost of consumables when the printer hardware is too cheap. OTOH if you hardly ever print anything out then that high consumable cost may be something that you can ignore.

The only downside to cheap laser printers is that they tend to be big and ugly.

I would like to see a link that shows that pricing from HP, a full set of toners, even the standard ones is way more than the initial capital cost of the printer and the special low capacity cartridges they are supplied with.

As of today, for the M254dw printer toner cartridges from HP UK it's £332.40 for four 203X high yield toners and £246 for 203A four standard toners

Versus £169 for a M254dw printer and four low yield toners, with £50 cashback on the printer at the moment bringing it down to £119.

HP standard 203 cartridges are a £54 - £64.80 each, the high yield ones £80.40 - £84, marginally cheaper than the 201 cartridges used on the previous M252dw model - the 201 cartridges currently have 50 quid cashback on a purchase of 4 cartridges.

HP203

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But there are inkjets which will cope with "once a month", I have an A3 Brother all in one that seldom gets used for printing more than once a week. MFC J6920DW.

The auto sheet feed scanner (either A3 or A4) is pretty bloody good. Both of these are networked, full duplex. The lexmark is wired, the Brother does either.

Thanks for the quick points - seems laser is the way.

The scanner on this printer works fine, so a single purpose laser would do.

Off to look ...

I agree. Roughly the same cost for the networked Samsung one I've had for years. It has more than paid back its cost compared to all the dried up Lexmark ink cartridges I was getting through (that was actually a Xerox printer but was easily hacked to use Lexmark cartridges). I didn't use it often enough...

Both the capital cost and the replacement cartridge costs were very similar to that HP one quoted.

If left switched on most Brothers do a self clean every few days (or perhaps more often) so the ink may go down.

I have a similar Brother the J5320DW so presumable an older model and it seems to cope will with intermittent use...

Dave

Well I put a HP LJ1200 into a cupboard unused as a colour laser took it's place. After several years it became apparent that the colour laser was quietly consuming the CYM toners, most printing was in black with the driver told to use "monochome". Presumably the "calibration" checks used up the CYM toners. Decided to bring the LJ1200 back into service after several (5+?) years, took it out of the cupboard powered it up, test page, perfect... The colour laser now sits switched off most of the time and prints the odd sheet of two colour maybe evry couple of months. No problems with that either.

I have a Canon Pixma MX925 and it always does an extensive clean every time I use it and I reckon most of the ink is used up in that process than ends up on paper but only using it every blue moon to print out the odd boarding pass or return label it does not make sense to replace it. Like others here I had a colour laser which was excellent till I had to replace all the toners in one go to find I could have bought another laser cheaper.

Richard

My mother's HP inkjet gets used once in a blue moon, and I always have to clean the cartridges - one wet sheet of kitchen roll on a flat surface, followed by dabbing on a second dry sheet to dry off.

Other options are getting a mono laser printer for the everyday stuff, and paying Boots etc. to do a proper job when you want nice photo prints. (or find a friend who uses a colour printer more often than you do and go halves on the consumables...)

Canons generally handle that rather better.

Some inkjets base their need to run a cleaning cycle on the elapsed time since the last clean. If you power them off they loose count and will default to running a cleaning cycle when switched back on whether it's needed or not.

I now make a point of leaving my HP Officejet Pro 8100 on standby instead of powering it off and it invariably starts to print immediately without a cleaning cycle even after standing for several weeks without use. I've had this printer for 4 years now and never had any problem with blocked jets and the cartridges last long enough for me to be happy to buy full price genuine cartridges instead of cheaper compatible ones..

I did that (HP4540). But it had a "thing" where it would then just fall off the network and *still* need power cycling to get it working when needed.

Eventually I fitted a timer plug that power cycles it daily at 03:00. At least it was ready when I needed it.

I tend to do a lot more scanning than printing.

We too have that Lexmark - or a near-identical model number. Very happy and it just sits there month after month. The original carts are proper - not three-quarter empty ones.

In general, duplex printing is far more successful with laser than inkjet. In case that is of concern. (We use duplex whenever possible.)

I have never had that experience with HP ink Jet printers, Epson certainly, but normally removing the cart and putting it back cures it. The older ones were probably the best though. Brian