All-in-one printer scanner copier

We currently have a Canon Pixma MG5220 and have generally been disappointed. We usually revert back to Canon, but this printer (three years old now) is slower than it said it was, scans/copies very slowly, has no automatic feeder for stacks of paper, and now the print quality has gotten very bad, so that when my wife prints out coupons (often) they don't work.

We want a:

All in one, wireless setup. Cheaper consumables and longer life is best. Cheaper buy-in is a huge plus. We want color, but best photo quality is not paramount.

What say the hive?

Oh, and an auto duplexer would be the bees knees

Whatever's on sale when my old one craps out.

Looking at HP Officejet 8600 lineup now

How much do you print? From the fact that you need an ADF and autoduplexer, I'm guessing this is more than just standard home use? If so, DON'T buy an inkjet. Get a laser. I've been using monochrome Brother laser all-in-ones for my business for three years now, and they tend to be pretty durable as well...my current main printer has a print/copy count of 55,000 over two and a half years and it's just now starting to get flaky. Laser cost per page is so much lower (and the amount of time that consumables last is much higher) than inkjet. Staples usually has a decent monochrome all-in-one laser for ~$150.00.

The best bang for the buck might be to buy a monochrome all-in-one for most things, AND a ~$150 color inkjet for photos and the like (cheap laser printers tend not to print the best color stuff, and consumables are more expensive).

I don't print enough to warrant two printers, but when I use it, I will need it to be good. In other words, scanning piles of bills of whatever, printing off a good double sided presentation for school, that sort of thing. We definitely don't print very many sheets.

According to this thread and this one, the GRM winner is the Epson WorkForce WF-3520. I just bought one last week based upon those recommendations. It's still sitting in it's box on my desk next to my three dead POS printers (Brother Laser, HP All in One, and a Canon PIXMA). I haven't had a chance to set it up yet.

I have a Brother that is a all in one duplex, I have been very happy with it. It is wireless and I bought on sale at Officemax, only drawback is that it does not print color, but it would have been almost double the price to print color.

I was involved in the second thread Javelin listed above, the Epson WorkForce WF-3520 has been great so far for SWMBO's technologically challenged parents, and I intend to replace our ancient Lexmark at home with the same Epson printer.

We have an HP Office Jet Pro 8600 Plus at work, it's a decent printer, but our IT won't let us use the WIFI, so it's a network printer on the LAN via Ethernet cable. However, it WILL NOT wake on LAN, you have to physically go in the room with the printer and push a button on it to wake it from sleep mode, then go back to your computer and print your document. You can not turn sleep mode off. HP support can't do anything about it, their support forum is full of folks complaining about the same issue. HP's "solution" was to leave "demo mode" on repeat so that it constantly plays a little HP advertisement on the LCD touch screen, preventing it from going to sleep. Said "solution" has about a 30% success rate and didn't work for us.

• Lee

My old HP 750 still works fine.

But then I don't use it much. still there when I need it.

+1 on epson. That is what I had for my digital photo classes and swayed me to an all-in-one that is now 6 years and works fine. Best part about consumables is that it has 3 separate color cartridges, replace individually as needed.

bigdaddylee82 wrote: I was involved in the second thread Javelin listed above, the Epson WorkForce WF-3520 has been great so far for SWMBO's technologically challenged parents, and I intend to replace our ancient Lexmark at home with the same Epson printer. We have an HP Office Jet Pro 8600 Plus at work, it's a decent printer, but our IT won't let us use the WIFI, so it's a network printer on the LAN via Ethernet cable. However, it WILL NOT wake on LAN, you have to physically go in the room with the printer and push a button on it to wake it from sleep mode, then go back to your computer and print your document. You can not turn sleep mode off. HP support can't do anything about it, their support forum is full of folks complaining about the same issue. HP's "solution" was to leave "demo mode" on repeat so that it constantly plays a little HP advertisement on the LCD touch screen, preventing it from going to sleep. Said "solution" has about a 30% success rate and didn't work for us. - Lee

That's good advice, Lee. Thanks

tuna55 wrote: Looking at HP Officejet 8600 lineup now

SWMBO bought one of these about 6 months ago. Wireless setup was easy, no issues so far and she uses the hell out of it.

its nice to be sitting on the couch looking at parts diagrams and being able to just print it from my phone or lap top and grab it off the printer when I go to work on something.

Lancer007 wrote:

tuna55 wrote: Looking at HP Officejet 8600 lineup now

SWMBO bought one of these about 6 months ago. Wireless setup was easy, no issues so far and she uses the hell out of it. its nice to be sitting on the couch looking at parts diagrams and being able to just print it from my phone or lap top and grab it off the printer when I go to work on something.

So you don't have the "cannot wake up via LAN' issues that Lee alluded to above?

Not me, the woman uses it more than I so I could be that she had used it recently and it hadn't slept yet when I went to use it.

In reply to tuna55:

We've never used the WiFi, our IT guy's won't let us, something about security, changing passwords, yaddy, yadda... The won't wake on LAN is with a physical Ethernet cable hooked into it, the only way IT will let us use it. Additionally, if you do hook an Ethernet cable into it, it turns the WiFi features of the printer off, so it's an either, wired OR wireless, not wired AND wireless.

• Lee

HP printers where the shiznit. 10 or 15 years ago. Now, not so much. I have an HP Photosmart 3710 wifi AIO, and I've never been very happy with it. No doc feeder or duplexing. It often won't wake up, even using the wifi. Ink is expensive and scanning is mediocre at best. It does print nice photos on photo paper, I will give it that. But it has never been terribly reliable, and when the current inks are gone, I think I am going to get a Canon color laser AIO. Initial investment will be about $600 with color toners, but I expect the overall life cycle cost will be cheaper.

Get out of my head. The wife and I were chatting about this very thing about 3 hours ago. We've had good luck with our several year old Epson all-in-one but I hate that it won't print black and white if any other color cartridge is out. We can't get it to cooperate with her laptop either.

I have a brother MFC-J67100W. It is a color ink jet. It is larger than most people would want for home use, but I have it so I can print and scan 11"x17" pages.

I use an HP LaserJet Pro 400 for my normal day to day printing, but it is just a printer. I use both via wifi. Nothing but the power cords plugged into them.

Just to close the loop, we got the Epson just yesterday and it's super fast so far, and Tunawife really appreciates the duplexer and the fact that it can scan/copy multiple pages at once.