Buying a printer at the worst possible time

[Old Thrashbarg]

Reasonably-priced printers seem to be out of stock everywhere. And those that are in stock seem to be priced higher (often much higher) than they were a year ago. Thanks Covid. Thanks capitalism.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a cheap(ish) printer that is actually in stock? It'll mostly be for monochrome text, but we will inevitably want to print photographs at some point. And the only other necessity is the ability to print wirelessly.

[Dex Sawash]

Really thought this would be about buying a printer while needing to have a shit

[beanheadmcginty]

Have you considered a typewriter?

[touchingcloth]

I had to sack one of my employees the other day, I caught him with his knob in the printer.

Oh yeah, what did you do with the printer?

I sacked her and all.

And what role was your male employee sacked from?

He was the bacon slicer.

[Blumf]

It'll mostly be for monochrome text, but we will inevitably want to print photographs at some point.

Just get a mono printer, and take the photos to whatever local shop runs those photo printer kiosks.

Or just get a small dye-sublimation printer (can be under a £100) for those jobs. Will looks better than a cheap colour laser/inkjet.

[Old Thrashbarg]

Thanks, that's probably a sensible way to go. And I hadn't considered that anything like that for photos would be priced at a reasonable level.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Just get a mono printer, and take the photos to whatever local shop runs those photo printer kiosks.

Online printing with introductory offers mate.

[Ominous Dave]

My printer is fucked, tbh probably just cos I bought a cheap inkjet one then didn't replace the cartridge for ages. Part of the problem is that these days most people only need to actually physically print out a couple of things a year, and it's easier to just do it in the library but they're all shut now.

But this will mean I'll have to write out my cryptic letters to the police confessing to unsolved murders by hand from now on. It's a fucking disgrace.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Worth checking gumtree for big office laserjets going cheap.

[Blue Jam]

For photos you'll be wanting an inkjet, and all inkjet printers intended primarily for home use are absolutely crap.

I gave up on inkjet printers after owning several crap ones. When I got a laser printer I was happy to find that, being intended primarily for business use, it came with no crapware and it just fucking worked. It's also still going strong after nine years of use.

Laser printers are no good for photos of course but as others have suggested you can take your photo files to an instore kiosk or, even better, use an online printing service and take advantage of all those introductory offers. I've used PhotoBox before and they were great, and very cheap iirc.

Amazon have numerous options for laser printers starting at around £100, like this one and this one, and there are loads more on Amazon Marketplace. My Samsung colour laser printer was about £60 and was a return/refurb from Marketplace, but that was in 2011, and as I said, it's still in perfect working order. It's also pretty smol, but if you go for a mono printer it will be even more compact.

Toner cartridges cost a bomb of course but there are places that will do you refilled and recycled cartridges for cheap. Just make sure you go to a place that throws in a guarantee as machines can sometimes still detect a refilled and reset cartridge.