1) Surprisingly, the running costs, with generic ink, are the same as a laser.
2) The text quality is fine. The image quality is better than a laser. Photos are great.
3) It can do larger formats (up to 13x19), copies, duplex, etc. The cost is literally a fraction of a similar laser. A large format laser is $$$. This one is $250 right now.
4) The speed is similar to a basic laser, but slower than a nice laser. It's rated at 12PPM color and 25PPM mono. It's slower, but it's fast enough.
I used to share your opinion, but ink has come a long ways. Something like this is super-versatile, since it does literally everything for $250.
I had an Epson inkjet and I only used it maybe once a month, and I had to change the ink cartridges every other time I used it, despite attempts at maintenance. I've now a laser printer for a couple years and am now only just running low on toner. Don't buy inkjet.
At the time I was buying mine, Epson marketed the WorkForce Series as the ones which didn't rip you off on ink, and WorkForce Pro, I believe, was even better.
Read reviews for printing costs, and adjust for the cost of generic ink. That's even true for lasers now; it's rare, but I've seen models designed to rip you off on toner too.
Not in my experience. Have had one for several years, switch it on when I need and turn off for weeks at a time. Runs perfectly and total cost of ownership is already lower than the mid-range pro HP printer I had before.
Also laser printers draw a lot of power constantly, you may be confused here. The toner needs to be kept warm.
The problem for GP and for me too is inkjets needs a couples of cleaning and test prints after a drop of IPA on K, C, LC, LM and M ink drawing port each time I'd use it. That won't happen with lasers at all.
I print no more than a few times per year, but those times I do print it'd be really annoying not to be able to print. Inkjet simply doesn't work for that kind of use case, you have to be printing somewhat regularly for it to make any sense. Highly irregular printing patterns like this are better served by laser, because the toner doesn't go bad just because you haven't printed this month.
Just as an overview I recently researched for a new printer but of all the reviews, HP comes out last by a mile. I think the smartprint was mentioned a lot, then Canon (especially the low budget ones) , Epson/Brother are kind of tiered.
He says you should always buy their special guaranteed virus free ink, but in my opinion it's much easier and safer to avoid the printers completely. You never know when you buy ink online if it's genuine - you could "catch a virus" at any time. It's almost certainly nonsense, but you can't be too careful.
The heads don't clog on these printers, although perhaps they do need to be continuously powered to pull that trick off. As the sibling comment said, they are cheap to run, and as reliable as a laser. I gather all manufacturers have similar models that work just as well, including HP.
Be warned that since you aren't being ripped off for the ink you will be asked to pay the real cost of the printer. The cost is comparable to a laser, but much higher then their "we are going to gouge you on ink" cousins they will be sitting beside on the store shelf.
For printing, pretty much everything now works with IPP Everywhere, even if not certified. For scanning, SANE has built-in backends for most devices, and even a built-in as well as a third-party AirScan backend, which will again work with most newer devices.
I have a WF-4833 and CUPS/SANE support is really great. The only problem I've noticed is if you use two-sided scanning with the ADF, the odd pages will be upside down. You could probably fix it if you use SANE at the command line, but I've only ever used XSane, and had to manually flip the pages after scanning.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/epson-workforce-pro-wf-7840-wir...
1) Surprisingly, the running costs, with generic ink, are the same as a laser.
2) The text quality is fine. The image quality is better than a laser. Photos are great.
3) It can do larger formats (up to 13x19), copies, duplex, etc. The cost is literally a fraction of a similar laser. A large format laser is $$$. This one is $250 right now.
4) The speed is similar to a basic laser, but slower than a nice laser. It's rated at 12PPM color and 25PPM mono. It's slower, but it's fast enough.
I used to share your opinion, but ink has come a long ways. Something like this is super-versatile, since it does literally everything for $250.
Just don't get HP.