Best printer for c£100
 

Hi. Our HP photosmart 8250 is fooking us off. It rarely grabs paper (despite cleaning rollers) and always says: Out Of Paper despite having loads. Anyway, we've had enough of it.

The best thing about the 8250 was the photo printing, however it still does this (it uses different rollers to pick up the glossy photo paper) so thinking may as well keep it for that then the photo-printing requirements of a replacement printer isn't so high on the list (although if we can replace it, all the better but no point paying extra).

Also of consideration is ink costs, I'm thinking I'd rather go for a laser so don't have to keep replacing cartridges etc. Do the colour lasers last as well as the plain black lasers? Do they use separate toner?

Also, don't want some giant thing but appreciate it'll be bigger than the inkjet. Usage is low/medium but we want it to be reliable so need it to work even if not used for a few weeks at a time. Typical use is once a week, maybe twice.

Anyway, anyone any recommendations? Thinking of staying away from HP after this, my mum's HP (different model) also has the same issues so I no longer trust HP.

Oh, and if it can work as a network printer (rather than having to have main PC on to use it) then all the better not not 100% essential.

We've got a Xerox colour laser here at work. Compared to an inkjet, it's a big ugly thing. It does take four separate toners (CMYK). IMO, it's not lasting as well as the old mono HP laser it (sort of) replaced. The running costs for it seem high in relation to the use it gets, but that's not based on anything firm, just my feeling. When it dies, we'll certainly seriously consider whether we really need to replace it with another colour laser, or just a mono laser and a colour inkjet for the little colour work we actually need (as opposed to the "nice to have" factor). It's networked, and that was very easy to set up.

In terms of print quality, it's no better than my Canon inkjet at home, and absolutely pants when it comes to any photo output.