Can anyone recommend a cost effective AIO printer?

[.Griff.]

My father is driving me nuts yet again moaning about the running cost of his all-in-one home office printer. He uses it mainly for scanning in legal documents and converting them to pdf, some basic photocopying and of course printing lots of documents.

He's used HP (which kept breaking) and Lexmark (which costs a fortune in ink) and now he wants another printer which doesn't cost him a fortune in ink.

Can anyone commender a decent home office AIO printer from experience that fulfils his criteria?

[Rik]

Brother and Canon have always had good support, Griff. Personally, I'd recommend HP, but that probably wouldn't sit too well with your dad. Was he using a domestic or business class HP?

[.Griff.]

Just noticed I used the word "commender" instead of recommend in my previous post. How did I manage that?!? lol

Back on topic I think it was just a domestic home office HP printer he had before Rik. I'm sure it was a case of poor driver support rather than a physical problem with the printer but he got so fed up with it it literally went out the window.

I've since discovered he's been driving to PC World each time he needed new ink as "you can't buy it anywhere else". Two minutes later I'd emailed him numerous online alternatives a good 50% cheaper so he might just keep the printer he's got!

[Rik]

I'd suggest he takes a look at the Officejet 6500, Griff. It has none of the software clutter of the domestic machines, d/s printing and copying, and ADF, and a 250 sheet paper tray. On the 'half size' cartridge supplied with it, I got 430 pages, so I'd expect to get about 1500 on an XL version. It's four ink, aimed at documents, not photos, makes very high quality copies and is a good stand-alone fax machine.

[pctech]

I had a Lexmark Inkjet Printer and Scanner for a while.

I don't do that much printing these days (just the odd letter) and found that the ink kept drying out due to lack of use.

So I ended up buying a Brother monochrome laser (about £50 from Ryman) and a small canon USB scanner (about the same from Netto)

Had the laser now since about late 2008 and only had to replace the original toner last year (which was about 43 quid from Amazon but its rated for about 3000 pages)

[Technical Ben]

Just noticed I used the word "commender" instead of recommend in my previous post. How did I manage that?!? lol

Back on topic I think it was just a domestic home office HP printer he had before Rik. I'm sure it was a case of poor driver support rather than a physical problem with the printer but he got so fed up with it it literally went out the window.

I've since discovered he's been driving to PC World each time he needed new ink as "you can't buy it anywhere else". Two minutes later I'd emailed him numerous online alternatives a good 50% cheaper so he might just keep the printer he's got!

This. If you have decided you can afford to buy a new printer, you can at least afford to ruin it trying "unofficial" ink first. If it does not work, you have lost nothing (What, £7? and a page of paper?).
That and even official cartridges can go really cheap on the net. That's if they are not really good imitations from China. 

[.Griff.]

He's going to give the "compatible" ink cartridges ago and see how he gets on as his current printer is fine for his needs expect for the cost of replacement ink (which is understandable if he's been buying it from PC World each time)

[Lance]

If he is printing a lot of documents, I would recommend a laser printer and maybe just keep the existing aio for the scanning.