Suzuki V-Strom (VStrom) Owners Club DL250, DL650, DL1000 & DL1050
Other Stuff => The Blue Oyster bar => Topic started by: Upt North on January 14, 2026, 17:01:20
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:groan:
I know, I know.
Any of you lovely people bought a printer lately.
I'm looking for a sub £100.00 jobbie that is not on an ink subscription. The problem with the ink subscription for me is that the printer, router and PC are nowhere near each other so it's a possible problem. With the interwebthingymabob connected printers they won't print if they're not connected. So if it's not talking to the router it's not printing.
Any suggestions would be welcomed but I'm not interested in moving the router or printer and don't want to extend the wi fi just to print.
Upt.
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Did I say :groan:.
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As a tip, check the replacement ink cartridge prices before you buy. We bought a great printer a few years ago from Costco but the ink cartridges were ridiculously expensive. We gave it to the monster-in-law in the end as she only prints about 2 pages a year. Good luck with your search :thumb:
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Just an aside; printers are cheap because most folks don't print lots so the cartridges are expensive to make the company money, especially if it uses common cartridges.
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I print very little and very rarely, mostly postage labels, and I got sick of cartridges and heads clogging between uses. I don't absolutely need Colour so I went for a B&W laser printer as the toner can sit for months without use and still work perfectly, no subscription inks either.
May not suit your use case but maybe it's a thought.
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We use an Epson Ecotank printer.
It has big refillable tanks.
It's used in our home office and prints at least 30 pages per day.
It's cost no more than £36 in ink over two years. This is because we're buying bottles of ink, not cartridges.
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I was also going to suggest the black only lazer printer. I read somewhere that's the best way as for colour prints (unless you do it lots) it's cheaper to get the printed and posted when you consider quality etc.
MisterDavey's suggestion also sounds good.
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Thanks Boys.
Somethings to think about there. I really want to get away from HP Instant Ink.
It seems most printers now come with "free" ink subscription, I can't afford free.
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About a year ago we bought an Epson XP-4205 (Photo quality 1440ppi printer/scanner in one and does double sided printing) - Think it was about £80
It's Wifi and wired, I can print from my phone or any PC in the house, but it sits next to my desk wired with USB.
Ink cartridges are fairly cost effective for genuine, though I buy non-genuine stuff on Amazon, colour profiles needed to be played with to get the non-genuine stuff colour correct, but I have bought genuine when I wanted prints to be stop on.
you can subscribe to the genuine stuff and the printer will order when needed, but I told it to sod off!
I wanted highish PPI for photo printing and a decent brand, I've used Epson for 20+years, Cannon have always been glitchy and HP are lower spec and high priced.
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I'll check out the Epson.
Ta me duck.
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Some years ago I bought a printer that had blue tooth connection but I couldn't make it work. My landlord at the time had once owned a computer shop and was quite knowledgeable so I asked him to have a look at it, he couldn't make it work either even when he connected it by cable.
A friend (by coincidence) told me she was on the way to Curry's to buy a printer so I told her about mine and she gladly accepted it as a gift and assured me that it would be working 10 minutes after she got home, it didn't work and was thrown out. :thumb:
Hind sight I should have taken it back to the shop but I was going through a divorce at the time and couldn't go through any more hassle, years later I still haven't got a printer but haven't needed one as I download tickets to airline's, concerts and motorbike racing to my phone, it's easier.
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Printers are the least cooperative pieces of tech I've ever owned. Whether wired, wifi or both, they decide whether or not to be online, whether they feel like talking to my pc and whether or not I'm allowed to print anything. :dl_smiley_banghead: ###
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To be honest this Epson printer doesn't like my Three broadband router and won't connect to it, but it will connect to my wifi extender with the same password.
but we have a few things that don't like the router, one of the 3 fire tablets and 2 out of 3 kindles will find it but won't connect to it, so don't think it's the printers fault.
And my doorbell camera is a bit slow with the router.
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Mr Diver
Maybe your router is only 2.4, or 5Ghz, instead of both?
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Doc and Rusty, you're not wrong.
I print very little but when I try it drives me MAD!
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I hate a cliff hanger, so......
I cancelled my HP instant ink nonsense and removed the printer from the HP app before the subscription expired. At present there appears to be a fair quantity of Instant Ink left which they haven't requested be sent back. Although I can't see why they would?
After the contract ended I thought.....let's see what happens when I plug the laptop into the printer. Well at first nothing happened of any note but I deleted and reloaded the drivers. Although a bit clunky it now prints. Clunky is OK because I can't see me printing more than 10 A4 sheets all year.
I've also joined my library so I can also print there. It's only a ten minute walk and they have decent opening hours including late nights and Saturday mornings. The upside of joining is I have "free" access to a shed load of downloadable magazines including, Ride, Bike and MCN amongst others including daily newspapers.
So for now I'm holding fire and see how it pans out, thanks for your help.
Upt.