rockets opened this issue on Jul 26, 2006 ยท 20 posts
jfbeute posted Thu, 27 July 2006 at 1:15 AM
Keep in mind your requirements.
Most HP printers use a single combined color cartridge. No fuss but a waste if you use one color more than the others. No brand cartridges are cheaper (refilling is even cheaper) but will slightly reduce the expected life of your printer. Cost of ink is more important than the price of the printer.
In my experience HP is more consistent in quality, the others makes are generally good printers but an occasional bad one happens. If the printer is not perfect when unpacked (paper skipped, check page not perfectly printed, etc), exchange for another one (my dealer has no problem with this). I have not encountered this with HP yet but it has happened with other manufacturers (have installed some 300+ printers).
Cleaning of a broken printer solves a lot of problems but is a lot of work, proper cleaning requires some solvents and hard scrubbing in hard to reach places, don't forget to reapply correct lubricants to all sliding surfaces. In all it takes 3 to 4 hours to clean a printer.