Best wireless all in one home office printers for my Mac

I would appreciate some input about wireless home printers. I have had a Canon MX522 surely there is something better. I'm looking for all in one for the home that will print nice photos as well. I would like to be able to use it with my iPad and iPhone. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Welcome to our forums.

Not exactly a "Switcher" topic but will try to answer you anyway. Nowadays, printer manufacturers are more inclined to try to make money from consumables rather than build a quality printer that will last. Having said that, the newer HP all in one printers use a different method of supplying ink so that might be something to look at. Also, Epson and Brother make Mac compatible printers that seem to work well. I personally will not buy a Canon printer because of their poor customer support and difficult setup routines, but that's just me. As with anything else, shop around.

Personally have used a couple of Epson Wi-Fi printers and subject to using Epson photographic paper, they do print nice photos. Some of the cheap papers tend to be a bit gaded and maybe 'runny' in the colours. Have found the best way to set up is with a dual channel router, and in my case using the 5GHz channel to for the 'net and the 2.4GHz channel for the printer. Also whilst chscag has had success using OEM cartridges, something I have not been able to do so I use the Epsom replaceables.

Scanning is touchy using wireless.

marirag said:

I would appreciate some input about wireless home printers. I have had a Canon MX522 surely there is something better. I'm looking for all in one for the home that will print nice photos as well. I would like to be able to use it with my iPad and iPhone. Any suggestions are appreciated.

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Hello and welcome to the forum! This is an oft asked question, i.e. 'recommend the best wireless printer' that will fit all of my needs - well, as you likely know there is no perfect suggestion and a single exact response is not possible. Posters, like two of our long standing members before me, will have comments and preferences, likely matching what each of us own and have been 'mostly' satisfied w/ using; but, I find these multifunction color inkjet printers generally mediocre products, i.e. cheaply produced w/ annoying quirks and exorbitant ink costs, so you will need to deal w/ these issues regardless of which brand/model printer you purchase.

Currently, I own the Canon MX922 & the Brother HL-L2340DW B&W laser - both are cheap and work 'wirelessly' w/ my iDevices using AirPrint (make sure what you purchase has that feature) - the Canon is OK but slow, consumes a LOT of ink (that's why my wife & I usually use the Brother Laser for most of our printouts which are few these days), but has excellent output - we do few photos but would expect good results w/ the proper paper - I occasionally print directly to writable CD-Rs & DVD-Rs and the results are superb. Now, I've owned nearly a dozen inkjet printers over the years and have tried all brands, so hard for me to push one over the over?

My suggestion is to check the following four links (just my quick googling) - look at the printers that seem of interest and read the reviews closely, then make a choice based on your own needs, considerations, and budget - good luck! Dave

Best Wireless Printers 2016 (PC Mag) : Best Home Printers 2016

Best All-in-One Printers 2016 (Tom’s Guide) : Wireless All-in-One Inkjet Printer Reviews

marirag said:

I would appreciate some input about wireless home printers. I have had a Canon MX522 surely there is something better. I'm looking for all in one for the home that will print nice photos as well. I would like to be able to use it with my iPad and iPhone. Any suggestions are appreciated.

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I could write a long article to answer your question. (And I still may...)

But before I do, could you please tell us what it was that you didn't like about your Canon MX522?
(It's not a model that I ever would have recommended. But I do think highly of Canon products in general.)

Do you specifically need the ability to print photos or would you be happy with an all-in-one that was based on a black and white laser printer?

The Canon MX522 is good enough although it does seem to have difficulty often with connection. My husband is using it now and I want one for my office. I have a Mac and he is a PC man.

marirag said:

The Canon MX522 is good enough although it does seem to have difficulty often with connection. My husband is using it now and I want one for my office.

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For a color inkjet multi-function, I've been recommending:

Canon MX922 (an all-in-one)
Amazon has it for $72:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AVWKUJS/?tag=macforums0e4-20

There are over 1,000 user reviews of the MX922 here:
http://is.gd/uRljxI

Everyone that I've recommended this all-in-one to has loved it. It has both Ethernet and Wi-Fi, separate cartridges for each color (so you don't have to replace colors that aren't empty), and it is a stellar performer. I've found Canon's service and support to be exemplary.

Even better, you can print with impunity with an MX922, because you can get ink cheap! You can get a complete set of excellent ink cartridges for this printer at an amazing price!

$15 for a complete set of 5 cartridges (or less if you purchase more), with free shipping:
http://www.meritline.com/canon-pgi-...h-yield-with-new-chip-combo-5---p-107326.aspx
or
http://is.gd/nxjeLp

marirag said:

The Canon MX522 is good enough although it does seem to have difficulty often with connection. My husband is using it now and I want one for my office. I have a Mac and he is a PC man.

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Hi Marirag - I don't know if you have looked at the links that I left in a previous post? But, Randy has given you a specific recommendation, i.e. Canon Pixma MX922 (shown below) - this is the printer that I've owned for over 3+ years (as mentioned in my previous post) - this will serve your objectives if you need color, picture printing, wireless, etc. - my only complaint is that the printer can be SLOW to react to a command to print (I suspect w/ all of those 5 cartridges, cleaning the injector heads and aligning all is one of the issues) - irritating but wife & I have had the same experience w/ previous inkjet printers.

Now another issue mentioned by Randy (and I hope that he & others will reply because this has been an occasional question on the forum) is his recommendation of non-Canon third party 'inexpensive' ink cartridges - I've tried them and had problems w/ a previous printer; others here seem to swear by their reliability - I rarely print much any more and insist that my wife use our Brother Laser B&W printer if she does not need color, so we spend much less on ink cartridges, even when buying Canon's proprietary brands - NOW, if I were printing pages of color each day, then a decision needs to be made about the ink purchased. Others will likely 'chime in' regarding this issue and you may want to provide some further information regarding your own needs for color printing? Dave

.

I've owned ONE Canon printer and will never own another. It was a few years ago and it went through $90 of ink in a month, printing sparingly. I took it to a Canon repair facility, they checked it and said that the ink was being used in the cleaning cycle, which repeated every time I printed before it started to actually do pages. Their "solution" was for me to store up print jobs until I had more than 20 pages to print. They explained that the clean cycle ran at the first job of the day, and then after the first 20 pages were printed, then the next 20, etc. But because I only needed to print a few pages each day, then every day it cleaned, then printed my 3-4 pages and then the next day it repeated the clean, print 3-4, etc. So more than half my ink was being used in the cleaning process. The techs claimed they could not fix it because it was set in the software. I thanked the tech, retrieved the printer and took it to the dump, where I took great pleasure in watching it shatter as it hit the bottom of the bin. Went to a store and got an HP, never looked back.

So is Canon now that bad? I don't know and I never will. They ain't getting another dollar from me.

MacInWin said:

I've owned ONE Canon printer and will never own another. It was a few years ago and it went through $90 of ink in a month, printing sparingly. I took it to a Canon repair facility, they checked it and said that the ink was being used in the cleaning cycle, which repeated every time I printed before it started to actually do pages.............

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Hey Jake - hear your pain! Exactly what happens on my Canon printer before printing, i.e. the nozzles are 'cleaned' and the ink used ends up in a 'wasted ink tank' - I suspect that this is common for any brand of ink jet printer and not sure that some are better than others - use to own a lot of HP ink jets and the same issue was present. The solution is the technology needs to be engineered to not waste the ink - is this a possibility or will we continue to be plagued by this wasteful practice - Dave

What really drove me mad was that it would clean, print a few pages (about 20) and then clean again. I always felt that "clean every 20" process was a really wasteful use of ink. I have HP inkjets now and they don't clean as long or as often as the Can-none. I understand cleaning, but I do wish the printer companies would let ME decide when to clean.

RadDave said:

...Now another issue mentioned by Randy (and I hope that he & others will reply because this has been an occasional question on the forum) is his recommendation of non-Canon third party 'inexpensive' ink cartridges - I've tried them and had problems w/ a previous printer; others here seem to swear by their reliability...

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Third party brand-new "compatible" supplies for both inkjet and laser printers are controversial. I personally have been burned on third party ink supplies ordered from Amazon that were complete junk.

A bunch of years ago I noticed that there were some folks who reported that they had terrible experiences with them, and there were others that had excellent experiences with them and who were thrilled. So what I did is I started to keep a record of which vendors folks had excellent experiences with, and then I started to try them out for myself. What I ended up with is three or four vendors that consistently have excellent quality, and extremely low prices, that I've been using for years now.

Meritline is probably the best of these. They tend to have the lowest prices and their quality is indistinguishable from OEM supplies. Their one drawback is that if you order something that they don't stock in their U.S. warehouse, then things are shipped from China and they may take a few weeks to show up.

One disclaimer...you can randomly get a bad ink cartridge or toner cartridge even if you go with nothing but OEM. In the last five or six years I've had one bad ink cartridge from Meritline out of probably a few hundred that I've purchased. If you are the type that will have a fit if you get a bad ink cartridge, and blame me for it because I recommended a third party vendor, then please ignore my advice and stick with OEM supplies. (I wish that I didn't have to make such a disclaimer, but experience has shown that I do.)

Note that the prices from e.g. Meritline are so much lower than OEM prices that even if you get a bad cartridge now and then, you will still save significant amounts of money over buying OEM. Also note that Meritline has both their store brand of cartridges, and a premium off-brand of cartridges. I've tried both, and I haven't seen any difference between the two whatsoever. But some folks feel better purchasing the premium brand, which is still quite a bit less expensive than the OEM cartridges.

Also...don't confuse third party brand-new "compatible" consumables with "refurbished" consumables. At least my experience with refurbished/refilled consumables has been horrible.

MacInWin said:

I've owned ONE Canon printer and will never own another.

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There are a few things that all inkjet printers have in common, and that is that they use a lot of (expensive) ink, they have to clean their heads often to keep them from clogging, and they print in color way better than the more-expensive-in-every-way color laser printers.

The biggest problem with inkjet printers is head clogging. Epson is the worst of the bunch in this regard. HP somewhat better. And Canon's just about never clog their heads. The *tradeoff* for Canon's not clogging their heads is that they will do a head cleaning if you even look at them. It's just something that you put up with if you want a color inkjet that doesn't clog.

Recent Canon inkjets still do a lot of headcleaning, but you can cut down on how often headcleaning occurs by leaving the printer on and in standby instead of turning it off between jobs, assuming that the time between jobs is minutes and not days. They will also park and seal their heads automatically more often to keep the ink from drying out.

That's just the nature of inkjet printers. I don't recommend inkjet printers unless you need to print in color, and I don't recommend them for a lot of black and white printing, or even for a large amount of printing period. If you have an office and need to do both black and white and color printing I often recommend that you have both a color inkjet and a black and white laser printer. (Surprisingly, you can purchase excellent examples of both, and they will still be cheaper, combined, than a color laser printer.)

Color laser printers don't do as good a job with photo-realistic printing as even the cheapest inkjets. Color laser printers tend to cost much more up-front, and they will kill you with consumable costs, regularly requiring the very expensive replacement of four toner cartridges, four imaging drums, a waste toner bin, and a belt.

As far as service and support from Canon, I've found them to be superb. For instance, a number of years ago my MP750 had a problem, and I called Canon and they gave me a choice of taking it to be fixed at a local service center, or having a like-new refurbished replacement mailed to me. I chose the latter. The NEXT DAY a box arrived with a new MP750 in it (they didn't ask me to send the old one back first). It had instructions to put the old one in the box, and return postage and pickup was PRE-PAID. The new printer came with a complete set of new ink cartridges, and the instructions directed me to keep the old ink cartridges from the old printer. So, not only did I not have to pay to mail back my old printer, I got free ink out of the deal. THAT'S service!

Also note that Mac users have had problems with getting updated printer drivers for their printers when Apple releases a new version of OS X. HP is the worst at getting these out. Several members of my user group will spit on the ground when they hear the name "HP" mentioned, as they had fairly new HP printers that became useless when they updated OS X because HP orphaned the model of printer they had. In my experience, Canon and Brother have been the best at getting updated drivers out to users when they are necessary. This is one of the reasons that you take a risk when you purchase a printer from a company that isn't known for its continuous support of the Macintosh over a long period of time. You never know when they might decide to stop updating drivers.

Randy B. Singer said:

Third party brand-new "compatible" supplies for both inkjet and laser printers are controversial. I personally have been burned on third party ink supplies ordered from Amazon that were complete junk...............

Also...don't confuse third party brand-new "compatible" consumables with "refurbished" consumables. At least my experience with refurbished/refilled consumables has been horrible.

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Randy B. Singer said:

There are a few things that all inkjet printers have in common, and that is that they use a lot of (expensive) ink, they have to clean their heads often to keep them from clogging, and they print in color way better than the more-expensive-in-every-way color laser printers.

The biggest problem with inkjet printers is head clogging. Epson is the worst of the bunch in this regard. HP somewhat better. And Canon's just about never clog their heads. The *tradeoff* for Canon's not clogging their heads is that they will do a head cleaning if you even look at them. It's just something that you put up with if you want a color inkjet that doesn't clog.

Recent Canon inkjets still do a lot of head cleaning........

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Hi again Randy - thanks for your two thorough posts (just partly quoted above) - you have confirmed and expanded my understanding of these printers - I'm satisfied w/ my Canon ink jet & Brother laser printers (and have gotten my wife not to print out so MUCH, especially in color!) - Dave

RadDave said:

Hi again Randy - thanks for your two thorough posts (just partly quoted above) - you have confirmed and expanded my understanding of these printers - I'm satisfied w/ my Canon ink jet & Brother laser printers (and have gotten my wife not to print out so MUCH, especially in color!) - Dave

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I don't usually feel like I have to restrict the amount of printing that I have to do to save money. In color or black & white.

What I do is once a year I purchase a big sack of cartridges from Meritline for my MX922. The price goes down the more you purchase at once. I purchase about $70 worth of cartridges all at one time. That's six sets of all five cartridges That's usually enough ink for me to print in color all that I want to all year. Not a bad deal at all!
http://www.meritline.com/canon-pgi-...h-yield-with-new-chip-combo-5---p-107326.aspx
If I catch it, once or twice a year Meritline has a sale on these cartridges, and they are even less! (You have to get on their mailing list to find out about sales.)

Also, the same company, Meritline, sells toner cartridges for my Brother laser printer that are indistinguishable from OEM cartridges, but for a fraction of the price. I have a Brother HL-5450DN sitting right here near me. It takes a high capacity 8,000 page toner cartridge, the TN-750.
That cartridge is $86 at Staples:
http://www.staples.com/Brother-Toner-Cartridge-Black-High-Yield-TN-750-/product_356338
But from Meritline it is only $23 with free shipping:
http://www.meritline.com/brother-tn750-toner-compatible-black-high-yield---p-95276.aspx

For the OP, I guess you can tell from this thread that there is no such thing as the "best" printer. Randy and Dave like Canon and have disparaged HP. I have never had any problem with HP ink, drivers or any other issue with my Mac, and despise all things Canon. It's all in how YOUR experience goes.

So, find a printer that has the features you need a give it a go. If you are happy with Canon, great. If not, try a different brand until you get one that makes you happy. For me, it's all HP, all the time. Never clogs, never a problem with drivers, not terribly expensive per page.

Just be aware that your mileage may vary, however. Printers are, like religion, very personal.

Just be aware that your mileage may vary, however. Printers are, like religion, very personal.

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Do we need an AMEN??

Seriously, pick the unit with the features one needs and within their price range.

I like Randy use the much cheaper generic replacement inks for the Canon MG5620 I picked up, and it does what we need and actually more, and it was on sale and can still print if one of its separate five ink cartridges are out. Two complete sets of XL cartridges cost me about $30.00cdn from an almost local internet seller in Vancouver and works well but does seem to do some excessive cleaning, but only when we're doing some occasional printing.

Note to OP: some things the printer I chose had to do:
- network printing/scanning with all Macs and iDevices. Does this via wireless. Never even needed or used any USB cable, even for setup. (PS: Don't use Apple's suggested generic setup method.)
- separate ink cartridges, not the darn combos that get thrown away because only one ink is out.
- can use generic replacement ink cartridges. (Some chipped replacements don't always work.)
- scanning (didn't need document feeder nor Faxing)
- it also helped that it was on sale at a local store for an excellent savings.
- I tend to avoid Epson's due to their history of plugged printheads.

We also have a really old HP Laserjet 4ML Mac AppleTalk serial printer for large B&W print jobs. But that's a unique situation, but a having a laser should be a consideration, especially if you do a fair bit of printing. But I don't have any experience with the color laser printers.




- Patrick
======

I have never had any problem with HP ink, drivers or any other issue with my Mac, and despise all things Canon. It's all in how YOUR experience goes.

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Just be aware that your mileage may vary, however. Printers are, like religion, very personal.

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I think Jake and I must go to the same church! IMO, the only good thing Canon makes are cameras.

MacInWin said:

For the OP, I guess you can tell from this thread that there is no such thing as the "best" printer. Randy and Dave like Canon..............

Just be aware that your mileage may vary, however. Printers are, like religion, very personal.

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chscag said:

I think Jake and I must go to the same church! IMO, the only good thing Canon makes are cameras.

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Hey Jake & Chscag - LOL! Wife & I attend a Unitarian Fellowship which is pretty non-denominational so not a 'religious quest' for me at all -

As to makers of printers, I have absolutely no brand loyalty - just happens that we are currently using the Canon Pixma for our needs - could easily switch to another brand/model if a 'new' ink technology appears?

Since 1980, we've own multiple brands of printers - started w/ an Epson dot-matrix & Brother Daisy Wheel (serial or parallel ports - can't remember), then went through other brands, including HP, Epson, & Canon - probably my favorite printer over the years was the HP Laserjet 4P - of course, only B&W w/o networking in those days but we used it for 8+ years, I believe - never failed us! (pic below from the web) - Dave
.

MacInWin said:

For the OP, I guess you can tell from this thread that there is no such thing as the "best" printer.

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Here’s the deal about HP printers.

First, what I’m relating to you about this isn’t based on my personal experience alone, or that of a few users. I’ve been in touch with hundreds of HP users.

A decade or more ago HP was the go-to product. HP laser printers were *tanks*. In fact, many of those old tanks are still in use. Of course, those printers were expensive, and they were nothing like the personal laser printers most users purchase from HP now. (In fact, HP still makes those tanks, and they are still expensive. They are top-of-the-line network printers that only businesses purchase these days.)

I now strongly recommend *against* HP’s products. It's not that their hardware isn't good, it mostly is; even their consumer class stuff. It's that their support for Macintosh users is too often terrible.

As I said previosly, on certain Macintosh discussion lists, if you bring up HP, that will elicit a chorus of folks spitting on the ground at the mention of the name. All of them had previously purchased HP printers which HP orphaned while they were still fairly new. Of all the printer manufacturers, HP has been the worst about providing new drivers as necessary to have their printers work with new versions of OS X. Folks' printers became bricks due to nothing more than a lack of support from HP. Not all HP printers, not even most of them. Just a very few. But enough that it is disturbing that HP has acted so callously towards some of their Macintosh customers.

In addition HP technical support for Mac users can either be good...or it can be abominable. Several times I've heard folks complain that they called HP support for assistance and they were told that the solution to their problem was to get a Windows PC.(!) That's the last thing that a Macintosh user wants to hear.

To reiterate, I'm not saying that you can't have a great experience with an HP product (so folks don't have to bother posting that "I have an HP and it's been great!"). I'm saying that way too often folks have experiences with HP products that are the opposite, especially compared to other brands. There are other excellent choices for printers for the Macintosh from companies that are much more supportive of the Macintosh. If you are looking for a laser printer for your Macintosh, Brother is the best of these. If you are looking for an inkjet printer, Canon is the best of these. (And, yes, none the these companies are perfect. All of them offer some sub-par models, and all of them produce individual lemons now and then. I'm just telling you which companies Mac users have had the most good luck with. I'd be happy to tell you what the strengths and weaknesses of each company's products are, if you like.) I don’t see any reason to roll the dice with HP. That’s just my recommendation, based on a ton of user feedback. I provide this information in the hope that each of you will avoid some of the very negative experiences others have had.