My sister has a Canon inkjet which frustrates her.
She doesn't print regularly and then the print heads dry up and she wastes paper and ink cleaning the heads.
Would you recommend a different brand of inkjet for her occasional use?
Or would you recommend a color laser?
Specific brands and models would be most helpful, please.

Many thanks for your advice!

Does she keep the inkjet on all the time, or power it off between uses?

With one inkjet I had, it clogged horribly during a long period of being off, but when kept on all the time, it would do its own occasional maintenance.

But, for occasional use, and if there's no need to print photo quality, a color laser printer is a good choice, but note that they are more power hungry than an inkjet, so if that's a concern, she might actually want to keep it off between uses.

Lots of folks here like Brother. Personally, I'm not a fan of their low-end color lasers. I have a HL-3170CDW, and it has annoying quirks. It goes into a deep sleep mode that requires you to go over to it and press a button to wake it up. And some documents just disappear when printing them (i.e. they leave the computer's queue, but never print) and then I end up sending them to an inkjet.

Cheap lasers are also slower at printing complex documents because they have to process the entire document at once (which might be why some of my documents just disappear and don't print), vs an inkjet which can process the document "on the fly" as it's printing. Expensive lasers are awesome. Never had any issues with my Xerox 6300, but it's also gigantic and heavy.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2021 05:24PM by Gareth.

With one inkjet I had, it clogged horribly during a long period of being off, but when kept on all the time, it would do it's own occasional maintenance.

My Brother Inkjet is always on and it startles me from time to time when it spontaneously begins its cleaning ritual. I don't use the color portion as much as the black and white but i've never had a clog in the years I've had it.

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For 13 years, I had a Canon S750 that clogged whenever it was unused for more than a couple weeks. I'd spend a lot of time cleaning it, and occasionally would have to replace the printhead.

Finally, when I was no longer able to obtain a working printhead for the S750, I recycled it and got a Canon MX922 all-in-one.

I keep the MX922 on all the time. The printhead is 4 years old, and has never needed to be cleaned or replaced. However, the printer core (everything except the printhead and power supply) had to be replaced some months ago.

I'm done with Canon. I'm moving to Brother. My parents' Brother all-in-one inkjet printer has been going strong for about 10 years, and I'm pleased with my Brother HL-L2320D monochrome laser printer ($8.75 thrift store purchase), which prints a page every 2 seconds.

I have moved to one of the Canon Megatank printers and been very pleased with the results. Have had it for about 14 months now, maybe had to clean heads once. Nice to have bulk-loading ink and not have to deal with stupid cartridges any longer. I have the G7020.

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Thanks, Gareth! (and all who have responded so far!)
She turns it off between uses.

I love my three Xerox color lasers but they are nowhere near photo quality. For that I go to Walgreens.

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Quote
graylocks
With one inkjet I had, it clogged horribly during a long period of being off, but when kept on all the time, it would do it's own occasional maintenance.

My Brother Inkjet is always on and it startles me from time to time when it spontaneously begins its cleaning ritual. I don't use the color portion as much as the black and white but i've never had a clog in the years I've had it.

startles me; Me too @ times with my old MFC-J825DW!
Always on, print lots of hi-speed B&W and a color coupon occasionally.
Permanent B&W, use a Brother laser & any color photos it's off to
Walgreen's as Speedy noted.
I'm not a photog so I couldn't justify buying & maintaining a photo-grade
color printer.

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After trying canon, epson and HP inkjets and had them all clog, I went to Brother color laser based on comments here. Never going back to inkjets. Unless you are printing photos, the color laser output quality is fine.

Get a model where there are third party options.

My favorite is a 3-in-one scanner / printer combo. Just replaced my first one after many years. No real sales, found a 10% coupon at Best Buy. Just turn it off when not in use.

I remember when Epson was the bane of color inkjet users, with the print heads constantly clogging with lack of use, and using up ink during the constant cleaning ritual.

There's never been much of a desire for photo printing for me, so a black and white laser for proofing has been all I've needed.

I print so little that I turn it off after each use, but it's convenient enough to get up to a push the button, especially when printing from another room, an ability that still seems like magic to me.

Printing the odd occasional color, photo-quality image from time to time would be nice, but it's just not worth the agita of dealing with inkjet maintenance.

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Wish brother still made the JW895 so I could still recommend it.

Ours must be 10 years old. Use is sparse. Has never clogged. Even with Generics.

If she just need prints, something like an HP 2600 family is a good find. I see them on Craigslist often for under 100. Take generics. A little big, but a tank. Ran 1000s of sheets thru mine.

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Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.

Thanks, all!
This is so much great information!
I let her sort it.