Home office printer

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larmen

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Hi all,

I am looking for a recommendation for a home office printer. Our current one, HP Deskjet F2280 All In One, is finally past it. I think I had it since 2007?

Anyway, it looks like my Mac doesn't support it anymore, I get virus messages, HP advises to deinstall the driver, but doesn't supply a new one.
The girlfriend was printing some pictures for our little one to take to school tomorrow and they came out all purple on her PC. Ink is fine as it copies perfectly well. Advice is ...; same.
On her work PC we got the pictures printed, but that isn't a long term solution.


My 1st instinct is to go to Amazon, look up what HP is offering, but suddenly there seem to be subscription models and whatever. So we are looking for some basic advice on a printer that
- isn't expensive to maintain down the line
- prints / scans / copies (all in one)
- wireless would be a plus, phones and tables support as well would be a great plus
- must support Windows and MacOs

The HPs look like they do that, but not sure about ink subscription plans. And Epson seems to have a couple of good options as well.
Not even sure if laser or inkjet is teh way to go these days.

Anyone has the must have, goto, can't miss device?

Cheers. larmen
 
If you've updated your Mac to Catalina OS then that's probably your problem. I tried to print something earlier today & kept getting blank pages, turns out Canon's drivers for that model stop at OS 10.14, Catalina is OS 10.15.

I was looking at the HP Envy models (6030)which seems to hit your requirements, but finding one in stock was proving the problem.
 
It depends on how much you use it. I work from home and print a lot so inkjet is just too expensive and slow.

To that end I have an HP colour laser, MFP M281fdw is the model. Its brilliant.

All HP wireless printers use the HP Smart app and also the HP remote print plugin app.

Think I paid £300 for it but print speed and quality is superb.
 
Last edited:
I am on BigSur 11.2.1 but I don't know how long my problems have been there. I was trying to scan before and i got the issues, but we had her PC to go around them.
 
I bought one of these HP units last summer when our previous Canon bit the dust. It's a massive step up. The HP Smart app @GreiginFife mentioned is great.

Definitely cross platform - I'm Mac/iPhone and my wife is windows/Andrioid and it's great on all devices. I'm still on Mac OS10.14 though, so can't comment on the OS issues.

Safe to say right now if I needed another printer I'd be looking at HP, no questions asked.
 
I'm very pleased with my HP Envy 5020 AIO. Has got and does everything I want.
I also have the £1.99 pm ink package - very economic.
 
rulefan said:
I'm very pleased with my HP Envy 5020 AIO. Has got and does everything I want.
I also have the £1.99 pm ink package - very economic.
Click to expand...
how does that package work exactly? Do you just get a cartridge every month, if you need it or not?Can you opt out at some point?
 
larmen said:
Hi all,

I am looking for a recommendation for a home office printer. Our current one, HP Deskjet F2280 All In One, is finally past it. I think I had it since 2007?

Anyway, it looks like my Mac doesn't support it anymore, I get virus messages, HP advises to deinstall the driver, but doesn't supply a new one.
The girlfriend was printing some pictures for our little one to take to school tomorrow and they came out all purple on her PC. Ink is fine as it copies perfectly well. Advice is ...; same.
On her work PC we got the pictures printed, but that isn't a long term solution.


My 1st instinct is to go to Amazon, look up what HP is offering, but suddenly there seem to be subscription models and whatever. So we are looking for some basic advice on a printer that
- isn't expensive to maintain down the line
- prints / scans / copies (all in one)
- wireless would be a plus, phones and tables support as well would be a great plus
- must support Windows and MacOs

The HPs look like they do that, but not sure about ink subscription plans. And Epson seems to have a couple of good options as well.
Not even sure if laser or inkjet is teh way to go these days.

Anyone has the must have, goto, can't miss device?

Cheers. larmen
Click to expand...

I also had an HP inkjet for a long time. Replaced with an Epson 4100, which feels like it gets through expensive ink at an astonishing rate. Would not recommend, but have found it very difficult to do identify suitable alternatives.

I’m also interested to know how the ink subscription arrangements work. I think it is some sort of sensor in the cartridge that automatically orders a new one when needed, and can charge you for extra copies above the deal you agreed. All a bit like leasing a car. I really don’t like the idea of it.
 
larmen said:
how does that package work exactly? Do you just get a cartridge every month, if you need it or not?Can you opt out at some point?
Click to expand...

Not sure how the package is structured now but when I got my hp envy there was an option to opt out of automatic cartridge ordering.
 
I've got a smaller HP (DEskjet 2633) cost me £30 with the free HP instant Ink package (15 pages a month free), because it cost more to replace the ink in my old Epson than buying a new printer with cartridges. I don't even print 5 pages a month, maybe 5 every other month. Bought it for the ink package which works out a treat, basically you leave the printer on, it keeps in touch with HP and they automatically send cartridges when it signals it's getting low. Have had the printer about 18 months and only had two cartridges so far. The printer itself is pretty crap though, paper feed always fails, and because I don't print that often, the first part of the first page is always poorly printed. if I printed a lot more, I would certainly be upgrading to one of the HP Envy machines, but no real need to at the moment.
 
larmen said:
how does that package work exactly? Do you just get a cartridge every month, if you need it or not?Can you opt out at some point?
Click to expand...
The printer is connected to the internet by wifi. It speaks to hp and tells it how many sheets you are printing, what your ink levels are. When they start to get low they ship a cartridge to you. If you aren't printing anything then they won't send anything out. You don't need to do anything.
 
HP Envy 7134 here, my only gripe is its sometimes a bit picky about grabbing the photo paper when printing 6x4's. But toner is reasonable, quality is good, wireless and compatible with everything we have. Scans and emails etc too, which I use for work stuff.. was around 100 quid i think.
 
rulefan said:
This tells you how.
https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/hp-instant-ink-709-commercial.html

I haven't done a precise calculation but reckon I'm quids in on the £1.99 plan.
Click to expand...
Cheers. £1 or £2 monthly cost is not really swinging it, so I think we will go for that.

I have done some research on YouTube as well and those guys seem to give out referral codes to get free pages themselves for each of their viewers who they sign up. Do you have a code which gives you a kickback?
 
I bought a Brother last August for my home office when I started out. It can print A3, prints and scans in no time. You can also get ink cartridges with the black being XL( which is probably twice the capacity). Its also wireless,so works perfectly for any item connected to my home network(tablets, my pc, phones etc).
Ive always been an Epson fan, but this printer beats everything I’ve had before.
 
One of the things if you do a lot of black and white printing eg letters, reports and you have the room it worthwhile getting a cheap laser printer as well. The toner cartidges are very cheap and last years
Colour laser printers cartridges cost a small fortune.
 
jim8flog said:
One of the things if you do a lot of black and white printing eg letters, reports and you have the room it worthwhile getting a cheap laser printer as well. The toner cartidges are very cheap and last years
Colour laser printers cartridges cost a small fortune.
Click to expand...

I buy "compatible" (read knock off) toner sets on Amazon and for everyday printing of documents and the like they can't ve faulted at a 1/4 of the price (ones I got this time were £89) and just swap the chips from the originals, printer doesn't know the difference.

Current set are 3000 page ones, wonder how many ink cartridges my old HP Envy would use for that at £30 a set.
 
larmen said:
Cheers. £1 or £2 monthly cost is not really swinging it, so I think we will go for that.

I have done some research on YouTube as well and those guys seem to give out referral codes to get free pages themselves for each of their viewers who they sign up. Do you have a code which gives you a kickback?
Click to expand...
I'm afraid not.
 
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