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Tech Money Pit: Bought a new printer

May 4th, 2015 at 01:02 am

So rough when the printer refuses to function on the weekend. Our Canon PIXMA coughed up a B200 error, which I'd seen before and corrected, but when we followed the same correction procedure, shutting off the printer, leaving it unplugged overnight, cleaning the printhead and drying it naturally, we had no joy, and customer support was off for the weekend. We suspect it was a damaged printhead and replacing it would be $100+ with tax and shipping. I'm sure Canon support'd just tell us to return it and get a discount for a new printer. Now that I read Amazon reviews for our dead printer I see that lamenting it is like when I attended a pet grief support for the loss of my 19-year-old cat. "It was 19! Did you think it'd live forever?" Two years is the lifespan of that printer. We did not know.

I found a better method of satisfaction. And no, no baseball bats were used.

I went to Consumer Reports 'Library Subscriber' site, looked at the home printers tested and rated, checked Office Depot website to learn it is having a Small Business sale with lots of printers on sale, and then visited our nearest Office Depot store.

Four of our shortlist models were available for poking, analyzing, price comparing. When we learned we could save an additional $50 for bringing our Pixma in for recycling, we decided saving $150.00 on an Epson WP-4630 retailing offsale for $299.99 was the way to go. But before that it was a tough decision among the Epson, the HP 8620 OfficeJet Pro, an Epson Expression 820, and a Brother MFC-J6720DW (I hope I got that right) Printer ink cartridges cost $101.00 (gaaah!) but they'll last a long while.

The Epson printer came with a CD for installing interface and drivers, but it works for Windows only.

My ginger bug is fizzing and smelling yeasty-sweet! Soon I can begin using it for homemade ginger ale! I wish I'd thought to ask the universe for a kombucha scoby. Maybe next week.

Posted in untamed budget | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “Tech Money Pit: Bought a new printer”

  1. creditcardfree Says:
    May 4th, 2015 at 01:46 am 1430704009
    1430704009

    I think I'm going to need a new printer soon...it seems pretty finicky about talking to our computer. Or maybe I need a new computer. Or both!

  2. PauletteGoddard Says:
    May 4th, 2015 at 01:56 am 1430704561
    1430704561

    If you want a print/fax/scan/copy doodad for home use, any of the four we investigated would be good. The Epson Expression boasted superior photo print capability and was the cheapest of the four. We went with the Epson because the ink consumption is less than what a color laserjet ink consumption would be, plus $50 discount for bringing in the dead ink hog (I searched "B200" and "print head" on Amazon reviews for the Canon Pixma MG5320: dozens of complaints). I will need a new laptop soon too, I think. Or some patience, a screwdriver, and compressed air. Isn't it great how readily available online reviews and ratings are for technology? And isn't planned obsolescence the pits?

  3. creditcardfree Says:
    May 4th, 2015 at 02:38 am 1430707108
    1430707108

    Nice to know I have a post to come back to when it time to upgrade. Yes, planned obsolescence is the pits!!

  4. VS_ozgirl Says:
    May 4th, 2015 at 11:20 am 1430738433
    1430738433

    Smart work with your research Smile

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