need printer advice

I bought a refurbished HP from Big Lots. It's never scanned (didn't try scanning until I'd owned it for about 60 days) and when I called HP Support they wanted $40 before they'd even speak to me! Also, it takes forever for the program to run/start when I start up my puter and if I try to open IE before the HP program is ready my IE freezes up and I have to turn the puter off and start the whole process of waiting for the HP program. I HATE the HP and I'm not too happy with Big Lots for selling these and telling me it had a warranty!

Leslie & The Furbabies in MO.

The clor printer will print in B&W only but you have to go to and tell the printer to do so. Go into the printer preferences and check it out.

Kate T. South Mississippi

My printer is an hp D1520. It's about a year old and has been well-behaved. For reasons totally obscure, it was cheaper to buy a new printer than it was to buy refills for the old one. It's nothing fancy and I couldn't say that it is sturdy - I really don't print much. Polly

I've had mostly good experiences with HP (except for their L4 laser upright model which they admit was poorly designed) since I bought my my fist one back in the '80's. All of them have lasted far longer than their expected lifetimes and over many new operating systems. However, and it's a big however, they have all been 'dry' ink printers, not inkjets. Most of the companies that sell cheap printers, all of the inkjet variety, make it up on the cost of the ink a great deal of which is wasted in automatically cleaning the printing heads every time you start the printer, and once opened dry up into dead husks. You spend a little more up front for an inexpensive laser printer, but you can get plain B&W and the ink cartridges just sit and wait to be used without deterioration, so you get your money's worth out of them. The only reason for me to buy an inkjet is for printing photos on photographic paper where the ink dots mimic the old photo printing process better than the color lasers.

HP was one of the earliest small office printers made and have a good track record, at least for me, with their laser printers. I must add that I'm not terribly impressed with either their computers or their inkjet printers. I currently have an HP laser for my everyday workhorse printing and an Epson inkjet for photos.

Diana H - PA

I have had 3 HP Printers, one of them of the printer/scanner variety they all worked just fine but the cost of ink in the 2 that used the r/b/y in one cartridge was too much. The yellow always runs out first and it hurt to through it away knowing that it still had red and blue ink.

Our "new" printer/scanner HP C5180 uses separate color cartridges at about $10 each, red/blue/yellow/pink/lt. blue. They have now introduced a larger color cartridge, I can't remember the price on that one. Seldom need the pink or light blue as they are used mainly in photos, it does fantastic photos of any size and has a special feed tray for 4"x6" photo paper.

The first HP scanner that I had never did work right the second was OK, this new combo unit is great. It is often used as a copy machine, I astound my guild mates with color copies! B&W copies are good too. The worst color printer we ever had was an Epson, the Lexmark was cheap, worked well but was SLOW.

Bonnie, in Middletown, VA

I know color printers will print only B&W, but I'm trying to keep the thing to just B&W that uses toner, not inks, for both economical and maintenance issues. I am very careful and deliberate when I remove ink/toner cartridges, etc. .. . I never force things or slam them in in a hurry. It seems that every time someone other than me touches an office machine, it starts to fail.

Also, I print a lot on this little machine, so cheap toner and lots of copies per cartridge is good. We have other printers for color, and don't need it on another. I like to remove any temptation there may be to print in color. Printers will also default to color when it's in a document, but I generally want an edit copy or a website copy for reference, both of which definitely don't need to be in color.

I'm severely tempted to buy a refurbished model of my current hp. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Delete the obvious to reply to me personally. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I bought a HP 1015, I think that is the model, for use at state conference for printing all my reports and certificates and such. It is a real little workhorse, printing nealy 500 copies in about three days. I just love it and have had not problems. It is small and compact so that I can transport it in a rubbermaid tote when I travel for conference and takes up very little table top space. I'll check the model tomorrow when I unload the car at school.

Steve Still recovering from running state conference, dealing with snotty advisors, judges that didn't show up, a few student alcohol issues, but great contestant results. Alaska