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As you can probably guess from the thread subject I am looking for a printer to use with my laptop.  I'm basically looking for something that is dirt cheap that can do a decent job.  It's mainly for printing out University notes and other bumpf (bumpf = a word I once heard used meaning something along the lines of 'crap').

Anyone invested in any printers of note?

bumpf (or bumf) comes from 'bum-fodder' and was originally used to refer to toilet paper, but now refers to useless pieces of information - much like this.

Oh - as for the printer, it's the ink that costs.  Are you going to be printing in colour, or just lots of text?

Mostly text, but I'd like it to be able to print colour if needs be. I suppose.

Bum-fodder you say. Interesting.

If you're only printing text, and lots of it, a laser printer might be the best option.  The toner isn't cheap at all - but laser is far better for printing out hundreds of pages of text.

Of course, if you want colour, you're going to need an inkjet.  The paper and ink are your cost here, the printers themselves are pretty cheap.

I haven't bought a printer for ages (for myself - I have an inkjet at home I rarely use), except for a cheap HP 1018 laser for the office (for printing out copies of documents or notes for myself).  It cost about £50, but somes with a starter toner which prints about 1,000 pages.  A replacement toner cartridge is about the same price as the printer, but does 2,000 pages (ish).  With a laser printer, you can use cheaper paper (just bought some for £15 for 2,500 sheets).  So not counting the printer itself - it works out at about 3p a page.

There might be (and probably are) better printers out there for that money.  But the HP is nice and small, which was what we needed.

As Kin said its the ink that costs I've known people buy a printer for £30 then it cost them £40 to replace the carts. Go with an Epson to avoid this carts are very cheap.
An Epson Stylus D92 should set you back no more than £40 and has 4 individual carts so you only replace the colour that has run out, 8 carts around £18 maybe even cheaper.

Thanks guys.

We have an Epson R360 at work, probably overkill but they are cheap and the inks are cheap too.

That said, the laser jet that Kins mention seems valuuuuu

Can recommend this printer: http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/117315 Canon ip4300, £55. Much better than my previous epsons (3 i think!). Threw them away as the quality had degraded after about a year to unbearable/unreadable.

I wrote this little review on ebuyer about the canon: "Awesome printer for the price. Has a tray and an auto sheet feeder, so you can load 2 types of paper. Can print on CDs. Has duplex support (print both sides of the paper). Quiet mode (night mode). Auto on and auto off features. Great quality, really fast. Pict bridge compatible (not that I will use this). If you just use the tray not the auto feeder (which folds out of the top) then it is closed up like in the picture and you can put things on top of it, so it's stackable and takes up no space.

Overall, lots of features/performance I didn't expect in such a cheap printer. "

To add to that, it has a tray and a top loader, so you can have you normal A4 paper in the tray, and load card, photo paper or as I do, labels in the top. You can select which paper source to use either on the printer or in the print options. It's quick too (not so quick when printing duplex, but to be expected as it does 1 page at a time).

Would you consider a wireless printer as it's for your laptop, they aren't that expensive, I haven't owned one myself so can't give you a recommendation really, but a friend had a HP wireless printer, very convenient, don't need to plug in after you have been using your laptop on the sofa. Also, if you have a wirless router in your room, you could just get a wired network printer rather than a wireless one and still print wirelessly.

How?

Your laptop is connected to the network wirelessly, you can connect some printers via a network cable to the router and install the network drivers (from included CD) and print over the network. It doesn't care if you connection to the network is wireless or wired. You need a network printer for that though not a completely normal USB one.

You can actually print wirelessly to a normal USB printer too if you have it plugged into a desktop PC. You share the printer on your network, and whilst the PC and printer are on, you can print from your laptop wirelessly. (You need to install the printer first, but no biggie).