Years ago, I had a Cannon inkjet. It worked fine, until I needed to replace the cartridges. Then, the printhead would stall or the machine would send an error regarding the ink cartridge. The machine became junk.
Next, I bought a Lennox inkjet. It had a short warranty (60 days, IIRC). Over the two months I had it, I printed about 20 sheets. Then, the printhead jammed. Of course, it was out of warranty. I never could get it work. It was a piece of JUNK.
Next, I bought a desktop Minolta PagePro b/w laser. Great little printer. I seldom print more than a few pages a month. Every time I would turn it on to print some thing — no problem, great printing results. That is — until Windows7 64-bit. No driver. Someone had created a quick-fix driver for the 32-bit, but nothing for the 64-bit. I sent the printer to a relative who had also inherited my older XP laptop when I finally bought a new Win7 laptop. That Minolta was still using the original cartridge after about 5 years of my owning it.
Next, about 4 years ago, I ran across a Xerox color laser. It, too, works fine and is still on the original cartridges. When I upgraded from XP to Win7 with a new laptop and later a new desktop, I discovered the Xerox had built-in wireless. The laptop recognized it and set it up with no problem. I have it wire-connected to the desktop computer.
The beauty with laser printers is that their printing heads don’t clog like inkjets.
Laser printers are very cheap. The Xerox color I got on cyberMonday for $150. I have occasionally seen color lasers for under $100.
For years i have used old Lexmark printers, z22, and now z32 and z705, which, like old ford 390 engines i used to have, burn a lot of “oil,” but are very easy to refill. And using bulk ink for about 1.50 peer ounce, it cost about 1.00 per refill if you factor in the cart.
The best buy on ink used to be from alotofthings.com, but they abruptly stopped, yet http://www.oddparts.com/ is a Christian company which sells the correct ink, and i have found pigment based black ink for my Lexmark model on ebay that works ok.
Same with real or remanufactured carts (7.00), and i have refilled the black at least 25 times before they quit. Some of the remanufactured ones had a whoiler sponge, which Lexmark carts used to have.
Color carts do not last as long.
To refill the black cart, put a hole in the top front (above the cartridge head) middle using a small hot nail, and use a syringe (the cooking baster type they sell at some dollar stores are legal and work fine) to inject about half an ounce of ink into the cart. Use gloves, and hold over a liberal newspaper when filling.
Soak toilet tissue in hot water and press against the bottom of the head if needed to get ink flowing, but never leave carts outside printer without sealing the heads with tape.
Lexmark are not the best printers, and they went out of the inket business, but if you see any old ones are a yard sale that work, this may be a viable way to save money.