Looking for a basic printer

My current printer broke down after many years of service and finally need to replace it.

I'm looking for a good basic printer. It needs to be able to print in black and white and color. All I need it to be able to do is print out stuff like essays, documents, form, etc. I don't need it to have extra things like faxing or anything. And not having expensive ink to replace when it runs out, and also not expensive in general.

 

how many pages do you print per month? What sizes do you print? do you require good photo quality? DVD printing? network requirements? web printing? do you need built-in media card reader? do you need built-in lcd? do you need a scanner? if yes how many dpi? is printing time important? how many ppm would be enough? how long you expect to have the printer? any other requirement?

 

What I basically need is a printer for a student to print out his reports etc.

To answer your questions:

I don't know exactly how many pages per month but I would say about 10 (sometimes more, sometimes less. It may change in the future but not a lot.). I always print on 8 1/2 x 11 paper. I don't need really good photo quality, but I have a few younger siblings that include photos in their projects and I may also need to do this too. No DVD printing, no network requirements. Web printing (if that means printing out articles from the internet then yes). A media card reader is not needed. A built-in lcd is not necessary either but could be useful for display things like error messages, how much ink is left. I don't need a scanner. I don't print a lot of pages so printing time is not important. And I expect to have this printer for at least 3 years. An additional requirement is ink cartridges not being expensive (I used to pay about $15 for black, $30 for color).

 

well based in your requirements you can opt for either a very cheap printer or either a more complex and expensive one with web printing capabilities.
Since you are printing the enormous volume of 10 pages per month anything will do and cartridges prices shouldn't influence your decision. The most cheap printers have cartridges that last for like 200 pages.
You can also search for used printers. But anyway for 10 pages a month.. that's nothing.
If you really want web printing you can get a HP Deskjet 3050A e-All-in-One for around 80$. It really exceeds all your requirements.
If you don't want it you can get a HP Deskjet 1000 Printer for 30$.
also when looking for new cartridges in 2 years from now, just buy generic ones. they are much cheaper and quality and printer guarantee is not an issue. just avoid recycled ones. (because recycled ones are just refilled and since these printers have built in printer heads it can lower the quality and or have some nasty problems).
But really, for 10 pages a month, that's like asking advice for buying a new notebook just to play tetris. anything will do.