Recommendations for best MF home printer

I use (A) above: HP 6810 All-in-one.  I hook it up on Ethernet because almost all printers work better this way. It has USB, double sided printing, low cost black printing, scanning, fax and all you mentioned above. I can print to it from my iPhone. I have a Windows 7 Desktop and a Windows 8 Laptop. All good.

I would recommend a laser too, except for 1 thing: you require top photo quality. For that you need an inkjet - at its slowest speed setting, with expensive photo paper. It's much cheaper to get photos printed commercially, but if that's what the customer wants, what more can I say... There are also many more inkjets with WiFi than lasers, but I do not recommend WiFi for printers. Ethernet is much more reliable.

I won't recommend a printer here, as most of my experience is with lasers.

Robbie,

I think you are looking at your issue from the wrong perspective here.  Anytime you are purchasing something like a printer the first step is to determine the primary purpose for the device.  Whether it be day-to-day black and white or high quality color photo printing.  Once you have determined the primary purpose you can better weigh the must have features vs. the nice to have features.

For example if your primary purpose is to print high quality photos, then you need a printer that is made for that purpose, meaning it will be an inkjet of some sort or another as they produce the best color and clarity.  That also means that they may or may not have duplexing as that is not a feature commonly used when printing photos.

It sounds like you want an everyday all-in-one that also has the ability to print photos.  Keep in mind these printers will not produce high quality photo prints, the nozzles, ink and construction are just not the same as a high end photo printer.

All that aside I can speak to the HP OfficeJet Pro series extensively, as I have 3 different models being used in 3 very different ways.  My favorite among them is the newer 276dw. (HP Product Page)  I think it will meet most of your requirements, it is quite fast, produces very good quality prints (B&W and Photo), and it allows for a number of different connection types as well as supporting Androids CloudPrint and Apples AirPrint.  One of the best features for me is the supported OSs, I use Windows 8.1, 8, 7, Linux, Android and iOS to print to this printer without issue. You can also print from the cloud if you are not home or near the printer and need to print something, you can from anywhere and it will be there waiting for you when you get home, pretty nice feature.  This way I don't forget to print something from my email or text and end up being late.

Another nice feature with the HP drivers and operating system is the ability to manually override almost any setting which speaks to rindi's point about cartridges.  You can tell the printer to ignore the pages per cartridge or ink level warnings and to keep printing.  You just have to keep in mind that there could be an adverse effect on a printer if you continue printing when the ink well is dry.

Bottom line here is that you need to figure out what the primary purpose, that will help you determine features that are priority when it comes to printing, and not convenience, from there you can do a side-by-side feature comparison to see what meets your needs best.

Hope this was helpful, ended up being much longer than expected.

References:
Printing to a non-AirPrint Printer
iDevice Wireless Printing
PrintShare Mobile Printing
Android Printing
Everything You Need to Know About Android Printing

Suggested read for anyone looking for quality digital printing:
All About Digital Photos

~:TLH:~

Excellent t_hungate

I was thinking of the myself, my only remaining concent was its ability to print very good quality imaes.

Its exactly as you say, a good all round all in 1 printer with vey good connectivity ( Wi-Fi, LAN, Cloud, USB) and Smart phone printing.

But one of the bigger things is photo printing.

I am stuck between the Epson XP 820 and the HP 276dw.

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/peripherals/printers-and-scanners/multi-function-mfd/epson-xp-820-1273286/review

One thing I noticed is the difference in DPI for prining. Maybe its just the marketing material, but it appeasr that the Epson prints at ahuge amount more DPI.

HP 276dw DPI=         1200x1200dpi
Epson XP 820 DPI = 5760 x 1440 (Optimised dpi ((what ever that means)

1. What are your thoughts on the DPI issue above?
2. What are your thoughts on the comparison on those two printers in general ( same price) for the above requirement?

I probably should have said that the customer has all kinds of access to Laser printers at his work place, this is for his home computing use.

Thanks again.
Robbie

Thanks for the input again t_hungate and John.

I agree with all, but as the customer already has access to multiple printers at his work, Laser, photo, etc., he does not wish to invest in two printers for home.  He just wants a good All-In-1 that will do a bit everything for the family, in a quality way as practical, and that in so far as possible excels at "Photos" with the understanding that it will never be as good as a dedicated photo printer. Also, as its for all the family he wants it as connectable as possible, LAN, USB, Wi-Fi, Cloud Print would be very nice, (NFC optional), Android, and iOS.

Thanks for all your help and thoughts'.

What would your choice be ( given the above info) between:

HP 276dw
Epson XP 820

BTW, both are the same price from our distributor.

Thanks.
Robbie.

In that case I would go with the HP, I have found mine to be rock solid.  Divers have never been an issue and they just simply work and do what I need.

The photo printing ability isn't bad, provided you use photo paper good photo printing software and that they NEVER downsize a photo for printing. The software should take care of that though.

Best of luck.

~:TLH:~

@robbiebreslin  - Thank you and I was happy to help.