My second Epson C86 has bitten the dust within 2.5 years. The heads are clogged and I'm tired of trying every solution under the sun, not to mention spending hundreds of dollars on ink due to all the head cleanings! I only need a printer for kids homework basically, and don't care about speed or quality photos. I just want something to print when I need it, which may only be once every week or two, without being clogged. I think a laser may be overkill, so I guess I'm looking at either Canon or HP inkjets, huh? Do lasers also clog from lack of use? Any comments for this type of usage? fyi, I don't mind spending up to $250 as long as I know it will last.
Printers are fairly cheap, so if you're willing to pay $250 for a printer you could buy a cheap $40-60 and when it breaks you can buy up to 4-5 new ones to replace it. This is likely to give you better reliability than a $250 one. I've owned two HPs, one I gave to my mom, and it's 5 years old and runs great. I bought it for $150 at the time and it's a photo printer. She prints from it maybe once every few months and I know it still works because when I visit 2-3 times a year I can still print my plane tickets. I bought another one for her that is a scanner (she wanted to scan some recipes and that way she could put a printer one in my sister's room) and that cost $60 on sale. I also have an all-in-one I bought 3 years ago for $100 and I print from it a few times a month. So in all, cheap printers (relatively), great quality, and high reliability. I'm quite happy with my HP(s). It doesn't seem quality of print is an issue but they have relatively good print quality and you're not going to notice if you're just printing text. Pictures with photo paper is 'good/great' but not 'exceptional'.



Keywords: HP Printer

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