was perfect for low-moderate home needs this past decade or 2....

It's demise marked by ever-increasing murky color printing, reluctant/lurchy/spasmodic paper feed often to more than 1/5+ pages to print...

Only remaining competent repair shop in county moved/retired years ago.

Have been shopping for replacement. Don't need cordless/laser/multifunction/bluetooth/cosmophonic/turboencabulator/etc. Reluctant to try those with high load of negative feedback.

Seeking short enthusiastic specific model referrals from actual users.

I just bought an Epson Eco-Tank. So far so good. Scanner is really good, and I like that I no longer need ink cartridges.

IW: Inquiry: I've read a number of 'user reviews' and some of the common comments regards difficulty in setting up. This is a simple 1 desktop home use unit. The various models are all above our user-need performance. "Shopper shock" has set in, as there are so many choices. Could you list "maybe 2" each of the best and worst features you have observed in your unit? Thank you for your comments.

This is the one I got:
https://www.microcenter.com/pr...r-with-scan-and-copy

Set up was easy: But you have to download and install a suite of apps. My desktop and laptop (Windows 10/11) it went smooth. My wife's 8 year old MacBook is not loving it. But we are already talking about replacing her computer anyway. It wasn't a plug it in, and your computer recognizes it and off you go installation. But the instructions are good, and just follow them and you are good to go.

I can see someone saying difficult installation since so many accessories today are either pure plug and play or just need a driver installed to work. As someone who installed things under DOS 6.0/Win3.1, this was still easier than back then.

I've always been an inkjet all-in-one printer + scanner guy. Mine took a dirt nap in November, and I was looking for another. Black Friday sale popped up on a well reviewed HP all-in-one laser , and I jumped on it since it was significantly less money than well reviewed inkjets. I don't need color, and mainly print stuff I don't want to smudge so laser jet has a been a nice step up from inkjet. It includes a free 6-month subscription to the laser toner replacement, and HP already sent me a replacement toner to have at the ready.

Today's price is only $1 more than my Black Friday "deal".

I’m another happy convert to Eco-tank by Epson. Refills are stupid easy and exceedingly cheaper than cartridges, plus the tanks really do seem to last a long time. We print a lot for homeschool and for a homeschool co-op. The ink tanks seem to last as long as the toner cartridges (color and black) from our last big multifunction, a HP, but are vastly cheaper. It’s for sure much cheaper to run.

Additionally, I’ve had experiences with both HP and Canon telling me a cartridge is expired and needs changing, even though it prints fine. I suspect the expiration is just a ploy to sell more ink.

So, the ecotank seems to rival the color laser HP we recently had in how long the ink lasts while being vastly cheaper. Further, it works better. The HP was always a hit or miss with wireless printing from either a PC laptop or our iPhones. We’ve had no such issues with the Epson. Once I put it on our wife it simply appeared on our iOS devices and the windows machines.

I suspect plugging it in via usb would be just as easy… at worst a driver install but that is very easy these days, in my opinion.

Another benefit compared to the laser color? It can do pretty good quality prints on photo paper. My wife uses that feature a lot. So yes, big fan. Very much suggest it.