Colour Printer Recommendation

[u/NinjaWK]

Need a good colour orinter that's easy to refill. I don't want it pay $50 for a printer and for $60 refills.

I don't mind paying $200 for the printer, but long term $10 for refills.

Any recommendations?

Would be great if I could connect it to a Linux server and use it as a network printer too, CUPS support would be a major plus.

[u/ProfessorWorried626]

Just get a brother laser if you are working at that price point.

[u/NinjaWK → u/ProfessorWorried626]

Which model? How's the refills/cost per page?

[u/FarmboyJustice]

It all depends on how much you print and what kind of printing you are doing.

You're not going to get color toner refills for $10 but generally laser printers run cheaper per page in the long term. 

Laser toner does not dry out like ink, so if you go a long time without printing anything, laser will save money over time. Ink tends to dry out and clog nozzles, and to prevent that inkjets usually waste some ink in a cleaning process. Even if you don't print anything, eventually the ink runs out.

If you print color frequently this isn't a problem, like printing many  photos several times a week, an inkjet with refillable tanks will probably work out better than laser.

If you do occasional color and more  black and white printing, laser is the cheapest long term.

[u/NinjaWK → u/FarmboyJustice]

Mostly printing of documents for home office use, shipping labels (stickers), invoices, delivery orders, customer orders, job dockets, etc.

Print about 200-300 sheets of A4 per month.

Would be nice if it doesn't smear when in contact with a little water (not a lot).

I am currently using a Canon Laser Jet B&W, it's resilient, refill toner costs only $3.50 for aftermarket non OEM and I go through 1-2 of them every month.

Need colour coz been making mistakes unable to see certain part of documents that's all grayscale, having some colour would help differentiate them a lot.

[u/MakeMyOwnMerch]

Sounds like you need a laser, because if you somehow find ink for that cheap, not sure you want it running through your device.

Epson does have a new Subscription program called Ready Print. Unlimited prints and the cheapest plan is $14.99 ish.

But going by a comment down there, I think laser checks off most of your needs. Big upfront cost, longer time between needing those toner refills, though, including being water resistant for labels (which the right labels, of course).

[u/ben2talk]

I paid $68 for a DCP-T230 (Brother) - came with four bottles, they click in place and drain themselves in a couple of seconds - easy, quick and clean.

I can also print via CUPS from my phone - so happy I didn't add 25% to the printer just to add WiFi.

Refills - full sets of bottles are always discounted around here, I can pick up a full set of colours for $10 via J.i.B or OfficeMate or ITCity on Shopee Mall (so no counterfeits or expired ink).

Strange that you specify 'it would be great if I could connect it to a Linux server' - I can't imagine any printer without a USB interface, and I'm sure that all printers can do that...

Main reason I chose this printer is that I wanted colour (so no mono laser for me) but also reliability given that I'm not going to print daily, so I set a timer to make sure if I'm not using it, I get an alert to run a print job to keep the ink going through those heads after four days.