D&C GLug - Home Page

[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]

Re: [LUG] printer recomendation needed

 

Dave Morgan wrote:
> A Wireless all-in-one printer that works well with Linux and is
> not too expensive (< 200 quid).

> I was looking at the Lexmarks that Tesco sell
> http://direct.tesco.com/q/N.1999711$4294965650/Nr.99.aspx - most
> likely the X4850, but could find nothing on Google that said they
> worked with Linux.
> 
> Any recommendation on printers to look at (or avoid)?

Avoid Lexmark (can't remember why exactly, just remember being told to 
steer clear of them by so many people that I never really looked into it).

For wireless all-in-one I would say go for Brother's DCP range. My Dad 
bought a DCP-340CW to replace yet another broken ink-wasting cheap 
printer and we liked it so much that I bought one for uni and we got one 
for my Grandad. The 340CW has wifi, ethernet and USB and a document 
feeder. The DCP range has to be the most compact and yet most functional 
all-in-one printers on the market. I still can't believe how HP manage 
to make them so obscenely big!

Brother has Linux drivers and provides Debian packages. Scanning even 
works *over the network* with sane- it has got to be one of a very small 
collection of network attached scanners that works in Linux. My one 
gripe with Brother and their drivers is that the packages are *a mess* 
if you want to unpack them and install on a system that doesn't use debs 
or rpms (well, it's not that bad- so long as you make sure csh is where 
it expects it because it takes some debugging from cups to work out that 
the script is missing it's shell).

The only real issue we've had is that a replacement print head is about 
the price of THREE complete printers. We just bought a broken printer 
off ebay for 20 quid and took the head out of that (needed to buy the 
maintenance manual download from Brother though- only a few quid). That 
said, I think the reason that our head was stuffed was that we refill 
the ink ourselves and I think it got airlocked. If you just buy 
(recycled) cartridges it will probably be fine.

100-150 pounds off ebay I think. Not too expensive in shops either- 
staples had them at a reasonable price when I was looking for uni stuff.

-- 
The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG
http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list
FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html