I love my mono laser printer. It’s an older Canon I got from a retired lawyer, so it has probably printed a million pages already for all I know. Haven’t had to futz with it since I popped in a new toner cartridge that was ~$40. If I need to print color, I go to the local copy store, but that’s rare anyways. Been recommending the same for all my friends and family.

I use my HP printer infrequently enough that every time I booted up my inkjet, I had to put it through a printer head cleaning cycle. I’d be surprised if I got more than 20 sheets of paper for each cartridge do to the wasted ink, and the dang thing malfunctioned frequently even after cleaning (streaks, blots, complaining about missing colors when printing b/w, etc).

After switching to a Brother mono laser, I haven’t had to do any maintenance in 3 years and it’s still on the original toner cart which it came with.

This is the way.

I’ve got a Canon Pixima 5000 series. My family tends to print a good percentage in color (because thankfully I don’t have to print many documents in this day and age). It uses individual color cartridges (C, M, Y, K and a second large K), so if one goes out you just replace that color. I generally pick up the off brand refills on Amazon for fairly cheap. Last time I got a 5 pack of sets for $20. It’s lasted us 2 years at this point. The ink carts are literally JUST ink and a foam block. No electronics or drm like HP. Highly recommend.

Absolutely, I got inkjet printers for years between ~1990 and ~2010, ink is expensive, dry, smear, etc. I bought a Samsung color laser wifi printer in 2012, more than 10 years ago, I changed toners a few times, it still work perfectly fine. I’ll never again go to inkjet.

IMHO, inkjet printers as a whole are a scam. That is, unless you buy a really high end one for professional photo printing.