buying a printer that doesn't suck

printers suck — especially HP ones — and most of them just seem to be getting worse. every time you need new ink, it costs more and more, and the thing only accepts the official, genuine, overpriced cartridges. is this the only option? of course not.

DO YOU EVEN NEED A PRINTER?

while it may be silly to ask, there's a good chance that you might not really need a printer anymore. almost everything can be done paperless these days, after all. if you only need to print things out every couple of months for the occasional bit of paperwork, you may be able to get away with just going to the nearest copy shop, library, or even just having a friend run the prints off for you.

still, assuming you need to print relatively often, that still leaves you with quite a few options, most of them being crap.

DO YOU EVEN CARE ABOUT COLOR?

if your printing consists entirely of documents and shipping labels, you don't need an inkjet. a monochrome laser will be simpler and cheaper to maintain; plus they can churn out prints much faster than any color printer ever will. if color isn't a concern, just buy whatever Brother laser printer is available with the features you need.

so, if you're still with me after that, you probably print photos, or art, or something else where the color actually matters.

you may think that color laser printers are the best option — after all, monochrome lasers are so good — but i don't think that. color laser printers are expensive, complicated, and the print quality still kind of sucks. and while standard inkjet printers are — as stated before — absolute garbage, there is a new spin on that formula worth trying: ink tank printers.

ink tank printers are mostly the same as inkjet printers. the difference comes in how the ink gets into the machine. while old school inkjets use cartridges with built in jets and stupid DRM chips, ink tank machines separate out the printhead into a separate part, and you instead fill up tanks with bottles of ink.

the benefits are pretty obvious. without fancy cartridges, there's no way the manufacturer can enforce a monopoly on ink, so the ink is a lot cheaper. you get the no-bullshit pricing of laser printers, but with the color print quality of an inkjet. plus, you don't have to waste all the electronics and plastic and whatever of every cartridge that gets thrown out; while the bottles of ink are obviously still plastic, they're much more efficient in what they're using.

the downsides, on the other hand, are more subtle. the ink can clog in the lines or the heads pretty easily, which requires a lot of purging to keep clean. unless you print relatively frequently, you may find more of your ink gets used in these purges than in your actual prints. additionally, this purged ink has to go somewhere; and not all machines let you swap out the ink absorbing sponge that will fill up not to soon.

even worse, no manufacturer clearly states which printers of theirs actually let you replace that sponge on the listing — and more importantly, which ones don't — probably because nobody wants to buy a printer that obviously will stop working in a year or two.¹ at least some printers have it, i guess?

so yeah. just buy this one. or this one if you need WiFi.²

or don't. i don't really care.

1. if you do want to check if a specific model happens to have that ability, look up the model number along with "maintenance cartridge" and see if a compatible one pops up.

2. those are the Canon PIXMA G1230 and G3270, if the links don't work for you.