Looking for a decent and reliable all in one printer for a friend of mine (copier/printer/scanner). They're probably looking for something within the £30-£70 bracket. I've personally got one of these and I'm quite happy with it but it's a bit out of their price range.

Looking for other Epson AIO printers that my friend would be able to afford I came across this one and this one.

Does anybody have any other suggestions for a decent alternative (doesn't have to be Epson but preferably an inkjet)?

I've used an RX425 for quite some time now. Quite good all rounder really, even tho it's a discontinued model, but I find the original Epson inks are too expensive considering they dry out within a couple of weeks of installing if you don't use it on a daily basis.

And for printing direct from my mobile I use a Canon MP460. Amazon have them for £50.

I've got a lexmark x4550 which is also 50 pounds.
it's a wireless (good for me as I print from 4 computers) all in one and is also Mac compatible.
Had it for about a year now, easy to set up. A black and colour cartridge pack will set you back about 24 pounds though.

If colour isn't a concern, I'd recomend a brother DCP-7030 mono laser MFP for circa £74.  Would be cheeper in the long run when you factor in cost of consumables.  Even if you get a £20 colout inkjet printer and use it only for what needs colour it would still save money over time.  Of course there are space concerns, and the fact that you would be over budget by about the price of one or two inkjet cartradges...

We use a Brother DCP-540CN - may be slightly above your price range, but a similar Brother model without the (wired) network connection is probably worth considering.

I bought an Epson 8450 and am very pleased with it.  Got it on ebay for about £45 and a full set of Epson cartridges are only about £20.

I have a Lexmark P4350. Can't complain its a good little printer. Scanner doesn't quite live up to my old Epson CX3600 but the ink life is superior. I've had both my colour and black cartridges running on empty for 5 months now - yes 5 months. My epson would just refuse to print when it decided the inks were low and that was that. One colour cartridge empty and you wanted to print black and white... No, no, no. Plus the inks just didn't last. You turned on the printer and it would go through a head cleaning process every time using about 1/8 of the cartridges. You get a power cut twice a week in the night and they're empty within the month! Plus the cartridges were expensive to replace. It had 4 - black and three colours with the theory being that you just replace one at a time. In practice they all run out together and instead of buying and all in one cartridge for £15 you ended up paying out £40 instead. I think you can see why I'll never trust an epson again.

My lexmark P4350.. totally different. As stated above my cartridges have been empty for the last 5 months and it just continues to work. Ok so the scan quality is a bit lower than the epson (which for the scanner alone I regret giving it away) but the ink life itself has been superior to all other printers I've used. The only other printer that was similar was a HP deskjet 720. Those could run themselves dry too and would last a long time.

The P4350 is a bit old now but still a great piece of kit plus the software bundle for it is brilliant. I've got mine shared on the network via windows but it does support ip based network printing too (via its own software as its a usb device). I bought mine 2nd hand - cheap as chips with a laptop and despite being a 2nd hand machine it's been great. I wouldn't normally buy a 2nd hand printer (just like video recorders) but it came with the laptop - gave it a go and never looked back. Plus the cartridges aer better priced too. Ok, they're still about £13 each but £26 is better than epsons £40!

I have a 4570, again that runs on empty for a long time,   only problem I have is that it seem to have a memory chip.  Fitted Tesco Replacement, Showed nearly empty when fitted , but it keeps on running, only trouble the reapeated nags to get a new cartridge

Ah.... but when you print to it over the network you don't get the nags

Obviously if you print locally on the machine its connected to you will but not from a remote machine. Thats how I've been running it for ages. No nags and the inks just go on for ever. It's a great bit of kit and I am thoroughly impressed with lexmark for it.

Years ago I looked at getting the Canon MP360. That was another fine example of a printer but I heard rumours the inks weer a bit steep on that too. Apparently though the print quality and scan quality was unrivalled.

A little bit above the desired price range but a very good all-in-one - Canon Pixma MP610 at about £85 from Amazon. Very good printing, two paper feeds so you can load both plain and photo paper at the same time and even does duplex (Ok a bit slowly but it's quite handy). Has two black cartridges so lasts quite a while. Due to be superseded by the MP620 (I think) so could be some deals around. I've installed a few of these (and the previous MP600) and they seem to be reliable workhorses.

Mike

Another glowing canon recommendation... wish I'd bought that MP360 years ago now!

It's said that printers make little profit for the manufacturers but they make their money on their inks.  I had an Epson 600 and the cartridges were about 15 pounds apiece.  As I said earlier in this thread my new Epson 8450 costs me around 20 pounds for a full set.  I think manufacturers are coming round to realise if they don't adjust their prices they will lose their  business to the compatible suppliers.

When I was a boy you were a someone if you owned your own printer. Now they've become almost disposable because the manufacturers have made them so cheap thinking that they can rely on the cartridge sales to make profit.

Unti we stop treating stuff like its disposable this will continue. Now we've hit the credit crunch sales of things like printers will drop drastically so the whole market will have a rethink I reckon.

Now that some printers require chipped cartridges it may be worth considering chip resetters. A visit to www.nifty-stuff.com and a look through their forums may give some ideas about simple methods of refilling inkjet cartridges.

Has anyone used a HP C6380 - all in one and wireless?  Good offer on it at Comet at present.....................

I'd have to say that an HP wouldn't be top of my personal list for a consumer grade printer. The hardware isn't too bad (although I know of a few duff models - the HP3210 springs to mind) but the bundled software has been pretty dire compared to the competition's offerings. It's unintuitive, bug-ridden and has inappropriate and annoying pop-up dialogue boxes.

Pity really as their higher-end hardware used to be brilliant.

Mike