[Wylug-discuss] Printer recommendations wanted...

[Smylers]

Jim Jackson writes:

> Anyone recommend a robust small office printer mainly for b/w printing
> but also ok for colour photo prints, that plays well with Linux.

Hi Jim. My dad bought an HP B109n last year and was very happy with it:
http://j.mp/HP_B109n

My Ubuntu laptop prints to it just fine -- it scanned for printers on
the network, found the printer, picked an appropriate driver, and was
printing in seconds. Amusingly, this was much less hassle than getting
it working from my parents' Windows laptop, which required installing
software from the supplied HP CD (and probably rebooting too).

Features include:

* It's fast, for an inkjet, especially when just printing black. I was
  really impressed (though it may just be that it's years since I bought
  a new printer and they're all pretty speedy these days).

* Output is sufficiently high quality; it doesn't look overly
  'inkjetty'.

* There are separate cartridges for each of the 4 inks, so you don't
  have the waste of throwing away yellow and magenta ink just because
  you've run out of cyan.

* Wi-fi connectivity, so can be positioned anywhere and doesn't require
  a particular computer to be turned on for it to print.

* Works as a primitive A4 photocopier. It has buttons for this; doesn't
  involve a computer.

* Can scan to SD card or memory stick, (again no computer involved).

Theoretically it can scan to a computer too, but that isn't something
I've tried, and may not work from Linux. Dad picked it solely for its
printing abilities; it just happened to come with a scanner. I think it
was a 'Which?' Best Buy.

A very similar model -- seems to be the same but without wireless -- has
some poor reviews on Amazon, but they all seem to be related to the
scanning and the Windows software; they may well be true, but aren't
relevant if you're just using it as a printer and from Linux:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-B109/dp/B003DK9KQE/#customerReviews

There may well be a newer model which supersedes it.

Hope that helps.

Smylers