First you may think, if you really need a printer of your own.
If you are not willing to pay say > 400..600€ for the thing, you don't really need a printer, because you have too few printing to do.
Then you'd propably better be off with your copy-shop down the street:
high quality hardcopies, lower price per page (many underestimate that even the price per one b&w-page of a "low-budget"-printer is quickly above 1€ (color may be over 3..4€! - per a single page!) Not counting failed prints because of blur, wrinkles, or cartridge went empyt while printing)
In a copy-shop you only pay, what you get,
and no fuss about those hobbiest-home-"office"-printer-crap aka waste of resources.
Otherwise it's very likely in 2..3 years your new "fantastic-five-thumbs-up"-printer starts having the first troubles again.
It's not the printer was old, it's they are programmed to start to fail, to urge you to buy a new one (and switch to new cartridges, of course.)
Of course, the new one is "greener". Saves 90 mg CO2 (but cost 3.5 t for production, transportation and disposal! [search for pictures of electronics-dumps in Africa; you may point out to some scrap printer:"Hey, I once had the same one, too!")
But the worst part is,
you're wasting (your) live-energy by getting annoyed about a printer that is neither damaged nor old.
3 times HP
I also had a Scanner and several computers by HP. They are on my black list. I had one of those famous DJ520, once. I
loved this thing. Exemplary! But then they simply discontinued to produce the cartridges. The last one was a b&w-laserjet. I trashed it in the recycling bin after the third page, which took me a whole saturday to get this shit doing even that! A few days ago I read on HN that HP "upgraded" their printers to not accept third party cartridges anymore. Or they simply discontinue drivers. So you'll end up dumping a piece of hardware, only few years young, which could continue working properly, if there was no greed in the world.
To me HP is dead.
Then Konica-Minolta
really p133ed me off, also with a rip-off customers mocking-policy.
See the video Jose linked above.
I once threw a printer out of the window of the third floor! Felt good to sweep the cobblestones afterwards; I can recommend that (ensure the street is clear first!)
So I made a little evaluation process, which preced the realization that I don't will buy any cheap "home-office"-printer anymore, ever.
So I was looking for a professional one.
So I decided for to give
Ricoh a try
.
professional, Postscript, network, Color-Laserpinter, duplex,.... cups (I don't use cups, but there are many Ricoh printers on the list.)
not really low-budget when buying, but lowest on price per page
Search the internet for cent/page per printer comparisons.
Those 149,99 are the very most expensive ones aka cr#p.
And those comparisons only respect producer's specs, not that the printer will start showing the first troubles after 150...300 pages and behaving old and damaged long before specified life span.
My Ricoh now is in service for over 12 years,
still printing its couple of pages per day, or sometimes a handbook in one job at once,
no paper jam yet so far,
especially no "paper jam", when there is no paper jam, no mocking with empty cartridges still halffull, not telling me it cannot load paper, when everything is just perfect, ... not starting doing like being old when 3..4y, and after open it, everything is brandnew - not p133ing me off!
no (additional) grey hair anymore!
simply prints.