I second the Brother recommendation! We’ve had our printer for almost a decade, and it’s still going strong. I worked from home during the pandemic and we only had to buy ink twice. Iirc the black is like $25 and the color set is like $40. Sometimes it tries to not let you print if one of the colors runs out. But when that happens we just take out the cartridge and use sharpie to cover the transparent ink reservoir. The computer thinks it’s full, so you can literally print until they all run dry.
I believe some of their models use a printing method similar to xerox machines that’s even cheaper than ink, long term.
The only downside I’ve had is that the phone app is finicky and sometimes glitchy. For example, if I want to attach a document to an email I have to open the Brother app first, scan the document, share it to my email, save the draft it generates, exit the app, and then open my email back up and load the draft. I can’t attach straight from Gmail. However, I think this might just be a phone compatibility issue. I have terrible luck with phones. But either way, it’s still better than having to boot up the computer every time you need to print.
Eventually I’d like to find a model that can print from usb or be hardwired in addition to being wifi, so I don’t have to rely on the app or my phone. But there’s just no reason to upgrade yet, our printer still works great!
I second the Brother recommendation! We’ve had our printer for almost a decade, and it’s still going strong. I worked from home during the pandemic and we only had to buy ink twice. Iirc the black is like $25 and the color set is like $40. Sometimes it tries to not let you print if one of the colors runs out. But when that happens we just take out the cartridge and use sharpie to cover the transparent ink reservoir. The computer thinks it’s full, so you can literally print until they all run dry.
I believe some of their models use a printing method similar to xerox machines that’s even cheaper than ink, long term.
The only downside I’ve had is that the phone app is finicky and sometimes glitchy. For example, if I want to attach a document to an email I have to open the Brother app first, scan the document, share it to my email, save the draft it generates, exit the app, and then open my email back up and load the draft. I can’t attach straight from Gmail. However, I think this might just be a phone compatibility issue. I have terrible luck with phones. But either way, it’s still better than having to boot up the computer every time you need to print.
Eventually I’d like to find a model that can print from usb or be hardwired in addition to being wifi, so I don’t have to rely on the app or my phone. But there’s just no reason to upgrade yet, our printer still works great!