Printer recommendation for an IT newbie please

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Hi guys, seeking some advice for a printer for my best mate as a birthday present and a first printer for him.

Trouble is, he doesn't have a PC at all in the house, and only uses an Ipad and his Fuji digital camera.

So what I need is an A4 printer that will a) allow set up and use without a PC and only via apple Air print, and b) with an SD card slot as my mate get's all of his holiday snaps printed as 6x4's and was thinking he could do these himself and his camera takes SD cards.

Obviously running costs would also be a consideration, so any printers who's cartridges are reasonably price to replace or that there are good cheap compatibles would be preferred.

Any ideas please ?
 
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Home printers are a financial and environmental disaster - the inks etc cost a fortune and the printers like many peripherals don't last long, thus likely ending up in landfill. He can get prints cheaper by uploading to a lab.
 
Firstly, you can't get cheaper prints from a lab and that's presuming he only wants prints; a lab isn't going to print your word documents or Justin Bieber tickets for you.

I don't know much about consumer grade printers but if I was going to get one now I would look for one from a decent manufacturer like Epson or Canon then look into ink refill options. Refillable cartridges, compatible cartridges etc. This is going to be the best idea. I happen to know that HP have a lot of options for refilling for some reason.

I have a Canon IP7250 which prints great photos, has duplexing, two paper trays and DVD printing and cost about £60. I use it with refillable cartridges and it costs next to nothing to print. It's been used very heavily and still works well. If it broke tomorrow I would ideally get another the same.
 
connersz said:
Firstly, you can't get cheaper prints from a lab and that's presuming he only wants prints; a lab isn't going to print your word documents or Justin Bieber tickets for you.

I don't know much about consumer grade printers but if I was going to get one now I would look for one from a decent manufacturer like Epson or Canon then look into ink refill options. Refillable cartridges, compatible cartridges etc. This is going to be the best idea. I happen to know that HP have a lot of options for refilling for some reason.

I have a Canon IP7250 which prints great photos, has duplexing, two paper trays and DVD printing and cost about £60. I use it with refillable cartridges and it costs next to nothing to print. It's been used very heavily and still works well. If it broke tomorrow I would ideally get another the same.
Click to expand...

Another plus for the Canon printers here, quality vs cost is very good and third party inks work very well in them.(y)
 
Yeah, I know for large print runs a commercial printer is the best bet financially, but for the occasional print he wants blowing up or as has been mentioned (and the reason it cropped up originally), things like flight tickets and boarding cards he couldn't print off, and that's one of the reasons he wants a printer.
 
I use an HP Envy 5530 printer. The thing that I like about it is that you sign up to HP for their scheme called Instant Ink. In my case I pay them a monthly fee of £ 3.49 (including VAT) and this lets me print off 100 pages a month. For this monthly fee, they monitor (across the internet) the ink levels and just post me replacement inks automatically, as required. There are also cheaper and more costly monthly fees depending on your anticipated monthly usage. Left over (unused) pages can be carried over to the next month and, if you exceed your quota, they just charge you a bit extra.
Regarding connectivity, we (the whole family) print off from our iPhones, iPads, MACs and Windows PCs all the time. I don't believe that you would need a computer to set it up, just some kind of connected device but this might be worth checking out - the only bit that I am not sure about.
I see that you can now get this printer for £ 59 - it is a printer, scanner and photo copier. It also has an SD Card slot.
We have had ours for about 2 years or so and are very happy with it.
 
RaphaelSamad said:
I use an HP Envy 5530 printer. The thing that I like about it is that you sign up to HP for their scheme called Instant Ink. In my case I pay them a monthly fee of £ 3.49 (including VAT) and this lets me print off 100 pages a month. For this monthly fee, they monitor (across the internet) the ink levels and just post me replacement inks automatically, as required. There are also cheaper and more costly monthly fees depending on your anticipated monthly usage. Left over (unused) pages can be carried over to the next month and, if you exceed your quota, they just charge you a bit extra.
Regarding connectivity, we (the whole family) print off from our iPhones, iPads, MACs and Windows PCs all the time. I don't believe that you would need a computer to set it up, just some kind of connected device but this might be worth checking out - the only bit that I am not sure about.
I see that you can now get this printer for £ 59 - it is a printer, scanner and photo copier. It also has an SD Card slot.
We have had ours for about 2 years or so and are very happy with it.
Click to expand...
That does work out at quite good value. I worked it out that based on the fact that the black cartridge can supposedly doing around 200 prints (colour slightly less) and the cost of a duo cartridge pack costing £15 online that it would be £90 a year to run it normally and £42 using the instant ink scheme. That of course depends on you printing 100 pages a month.

There are schemes out there design to make it potentially cheaper but you should be able to get a set of refillable cartridges and inks for about £50 for that printer that would refill them around 7 times over. The after that you would just be buying the ink at around £25-£30 a set making it cheaper still.
 
I also have an Instant Ink HP printer. I am on the 100 pages for £3.49. It's certainly good value if you print a lot of A4 photos. The only issue is that its not a photo grade printer as it only has 4 colours

Cheers
 
Russ G said:
I also have an Instant Ink HP printer. I am on the 100 pages for £3.49. It's certainly good value if you print a lot of A4 photos. The only issue is that its not a photo grade printer as it only has 4 colours

Cheers
Click to expand...

When you say not photo, does it print photos to reasonable quality?
 
Hi,

It's pretty good, but not as good as a proper photo printer, which tend to have more ink colours
 
connersz said:
Firstly, you can't get cheaper prints from a lab and that's presuming he only wants prints; a lab isn't going to print your word documents or Justin Bieber tickets for you.

I don't know much about consumer grade printers but if I was going to get one now I would look for one from a decent manufacturer like Epson or Canon then look into ink refill options. Refillable cartridges, compatible cartridges etc. This is going to be the best idea. I happen to know that HP have a lot of options for refilling for some reason.

I have a Canon IP7250 which prints great photos, has duplexing, two paper trays and DVD printing and cost about £60. I use it with refillable cartridges and it costs next to nothing to print. It's been used very heavily and still works well. If it broke tomorrow I would ideally get another the same.
Click to expand...
can you elaborate on the ink for this printer canon ip7250 were can you get it cheaply
thanks
 
connersz said:
Firstly, you can't get cheaper prints from a lab and that's presuming he only wants prints; a lab isn't going to print your word documents or Justin Bieber tickets for you.

I don't know much about consumer grade printers but if I was going to get one now I would look for one from a decent manufacturer like Epson or Canon then look into ink refill options. Refillable cartridges, compatible cartridges etc. This is going to be the best idea. I happen to know that HP have a lot of options for refilling for some reason.

I have a Canon IP7250 which prints great photos, has duplexing, two paper trays and DVD printing and cost about £60. I use it with refillable cartridges and it costs next to nothing to print. It's been used very heavily and still works well. If it broke tomorrow I would ideally get another the same.
Click to expand...

I've had first hand experience of 2 Canon iP7250's breaking down with the same error code but in the main would always recommend Canon printers for home use. Quality compatibles can be a bargain and at the moment (touch wood) they aren't constantly affected by printer firmware upgrades like a couple of other leading manufacturers. Canon printers also seem to have the best build quality too.

sbowler579 said:
Another plus for the Canon printers here, quality vs cost is very good and third party inks work very well in them.(y)
Click to expand...

If anybody would like a discount code for their Canon cartridges I work for an online retailer, just give me a PM and I will help you out :)
 
look into the Epson et-2550 its about 220 ish and has a cis system Built in , the tanks are 70mm and cost about £9 a bottle there are 4 colours that approx £36 for all the colours
 
droj said:
Home printers are a financial and environmental disaster - the inks etc cost a fortune and the printers like many peripherals don't last long, thus likely ending up in landfill. He can get prints cheaper by uploading to a lab.
Click to expand...

I agree home printing is very expensive but I do it anyway on my Epson XP-950 A3 printer. Why? good question. I think it is the satisfaction of taking a photo from start to finish. Only the photographer that knows exactly what he/she took in the way of colour- composition etc. Then comes the editing if necessary, so why stop there? why not complete the process and do ones own printing. I get a lot of expensive satisfaction in seeing my picture work its way out of the printer. You can print say one in matt finish and the next in gloss or whatever finish paper you have. That to me is doing the complete job.
Ok if you are doing a days shoot and the client wants pictures fast then this is not an option .
 
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In what way is the MG5650 better than the IP7250 given that they appear to be about the same price but the former is an all in on and the latter a printer only. I'm looking to change but as I have a scanner I don't really need an all in one, but if the MG5650 is better!!!
 
With CANON Printers the Higher the 1st Number Then the 2nd Number usually means the better the Printer.

So a 7000 series is better than a 5000 Series and a 7550 is better than a 7250 or an up todate version.
 
Seeing ref the Epson Eco Tank printers.................they do look interesting and I note the talk of 1 year/30,000 page warranty on the higher spec models. This 1year or 30,000 pages is I surmise a 'whichever comes soonest'. However, in the past I have had the over spill ink pads 'fill up' and they cannot be user replaced and too costly if Epson do it therefore that was two printers into recycle/landfill.

The concept is good for a non photo printer but in real life use just how long will one of these last ~ the cynic in me says they will last just as long as the supplied ink. How new a product range are they, in other words how many user reviews have there been of anyone using one into the "must buy more ink" period?
 
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