My workloads are similarly bursty. I've had no problems so far; the worst I've had to deal with is splotchy printing after it's been sitting for O(months), and a quick print head clean fixes that right up.
Laser printers are great if you're doing all or mostly documents though, I can't argue with that. About half of my printing is stickers and high quality photo prints, both of which benefit from inkjet printing.
(My specific model of printer is an Epson EcoTank ET-8550)
https://epson.com/For-Work/Printers/Inkjet/EcoTank-Photo-ET-...
Also possible to schedule/automate a test print every so often with the low cost of printing on the large tank printers to keep the print heads happy.
I have an HP LaserJet Pro M402dw because I don't have a particular need for color.
I quit buying inkjets 20 years ago in southwest Florida.
It was Wikipedia that reminded me Xerox even existed. All my other research led to the usual shitlist: HP, Canon, Brother, etc. No problems on Linux and Mac (printing and scanning), which is seems par these days, but no problems on Windows either: the manufacturer app was completely optional (but was straight to the point, functional, and worth the install).
Xerox color lasers have my glowing recommendation.
Huh, won't users just blame the printer for that?
Either way after a quick Reddit search there seems to be irreplaceable parts on that printer too. For example the fuser which is allegedly not user-replaceable.
Came with replacement toner cartridges but I'm still on the set that was installed when I got it!!
Prints are crisp, fast, and it doesn't use very much power when idle. Love it!
The difference is that they're purchased separately from the ink, so as long as the original one works you can continue to use it no matter how much ink you go through.
I'd have to print hundreds of pages to even match the cost of a very cheap printer. I may never reach that threshold ever.
Best of all I don't have to worry about storing a crappy printer somewhere or have it dry out or clog up or spend time and effort on it and blocking it from accessing the internet and probably end up throwing it out and having to get a new one when I pull it out once every 4 years.
They also make one that can only print 8.5x11 but that has a document feeder on the scanner. It's otherwise the same printer.
I'd recommend either one, depending on how useful a document feeder would be for you and whether you need the larger print size of the one I have.
CIS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_ink_system ) were around for a long time, and a popular mod amongst high-volume printers, especially Epsons, after the cartridge chip DRM was defeated[1]. They definitely cost less than the printer. I suppose Epson eventually found it profitable to do it themselves and sell with a warranty, that third-party CIS often didn't have.
It's true that ink tank printers need to be used regularly or else the print heads dry out like a felt tip pen. Since the ink costs next to nothing per page, I print a full page family photo once a week and hang it up somewhere around the house if I haven't used the printer for anything else, which still works out cheaper than any alternatives. The walls look like instagram, but being reminded of loved ones might not be such a bad thing.
In order to bypass the warning, you’ve traditionally needed to use a program like WIC[0], which costs $10 per use(!) - I recommend epson_print_conf[1], which is a little more tailored to the HN crowd, but does not extract a bribe every time you use it.
You want inkjet if you print a lot, at least a few pages every two weeks.
If you only need to print once every three months, you are going to hate inkjet, even with refillable tanks. Especially with refillable tanks. Disuse clogs up the head, which takes a lot of ink to clear.
Inkjet is only worth it if you use the hell out of it. You should only get a tank printer if you expect to actually use that much ink in less than a year.
If you want a printer that does nothing other than print your resume and tax returns- and you want it to just work every time- you want laser. You can even refill the toner if you really want. You shouldn't but you can.
It has ink reservoirs rather than cartridges, and small, permanently plumbed tubes that go from the reservoirs to the print head.
Not only does that mean there's no way it can tell what kind of ink I'm putting in it, it also means the tanks are fucking massive. It's so nice being able to go O(years) without refilling.
It cost about twice what a comparable, cartridge-based printer cost at the time. To this day I still consider it one of the best purchases I've ever made.