Printer for College Student?

I'm looking for a printer that will will print, copy, and scan at decent speeds. Budget: $50-75 or less. I've seen the Canon Pixma MP470 at a decent price-- $65. Anyone used this one?

Thanks for any help.

 

I've also found the Canon Pixma MP610. It's a little over my budget with the $50 rebate (puts it at about $110) but it seems like the ink cartridges or "tanks" would last longer. Are there printers in my budget that have ink cartridges that last a while?

 

The more you spend on a printer, the lower your per copy cost will be. Just throwing that out there, because a LOT of people come to regret their decision after they realize how absurd ink costs can be.

Also, unless you print photos (which you won't do for less than a photo lab with quality on par for less than $400 initial investment, or so), I'd strongly consider a laser. Again, you'll probably spend more for a decent one, but you don't have as many problems with drums as you do with clogged nozzles. Toner tends to be a good bit less expensive, as well.

 

Computer labs.

 

i agree w/ using computer labs unless you write or print out tons of papers. it's usually $.10 cents per paper.

 

I am really happy with my HP Deskjet D4160. There's also the Deskjet D4260 which I would guess is the new model and it's $40. At my school, you couldn't make copies without paying. Plus, there was no guarantee that you could always find a place to print. Not to mention the added convenience of having a printer in your room. Furthermore, when I was in college I was usually writing a paper every 2 weeks at least with periods of multiple papers at once. Thus, it was definitely worth it to buy a printer for college.

You have no idea how many times I've seen people turn in their papers late because they couldn't print it. There were also myriad of times where I would hear people begging others to use their printer.

Oh yeah, I should add that the black ink cartridges both last a long time and are pretty cheap.

 

Canon has good, small and cheap printers.

 

Actually HP is quite a bit cheaper than Canon. Many HP printers can have the actual cartridge refilled instead of buying a new one. Canon printers often require a minimum of 6 cartridges being replaced at at least 18$ a pop. and people complain about gas prices

 

Most big schools are actually free.

 

Yes, I forgot those freaking ink cartridges

That's why I say, stick to black & white

 

buy the cheapest inkjet you can buy.... (make sure it comes w/ both color and black cartridges)

then when you run out of ink.... buy a new one... it's cheaper than new cartridges

 

Aha. Well you'll find Canon has realised people are doing this.

And now for quite some time you'll also find that in response you'll only get 1/1 filled cartridges.

Sleezy, that is.

 

I use a HP Deskjet F4135. I think it might have been $60 when I got it. Works very nicely.

 

I know these aren't multifunction units, but you can usually find decent HP Laserjets, ie: LJ4, LJ5, LJ4000, etc. with Ethernet cards, for a little over $100 if you check craigslist or kijiji or eBay for your area.

These are business class laserprinters, the cartridges cost ~$100 a piece but they'll print 10,000 pages each, and the printers themselves are good for ~150k pages without any maintenance other than just replacing the toner cartridges. You'll never worry about printing 'too many pages' again (at 1 cent a page), and ink costs will never be of a big concern.

The ethernet card part is important, because without ethernet, you won't be able to connect the printer to your wireless network easily (the only other option usually is parallel, and not many laptops are equipped anymore). With ethernet, just plug it into your wireless access point, or into your wall ethernet, and print away.