Why are they so fucking bad...

i use this one.

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Razor and blade sales model. Think about the fact that to replace the ink cartridges in most inkjet printers, you could buy a whole new printer which comes with the ink. Sounds a little bit like blade cartridges for razors costing more than just buying a whole new razor that comes with a couple of them, yeah?

Inkjet ink is the most expensive liquid on the planet. Needlessly so. You're way better off buying an entry level laser printer, especially once you compare print speed. I used to work for one of the alphabet agencies as a "document technician" where I would split PDFs of sensitive documents into individual briefs and then print and collate thousands of pages and it is purely amazing how fast laser printers are.

Well then get some monochrome laser with or and a scanner. Pick a model with refillable / cheap 3rd party toner cartridges. Shouldn''t be too blurry.

I have an Epson XP-960 for photo printing. Works well, stunning output on good photo paper. I also have a laser for documents etc. Get with the program user.

You'd often be wrong about the new printer with new ink bit. The included cartridges are often only half-filled these days.

But you can buy Epson EcoTanks, Canon's website-only models with refillable tanks, or maybe install a CISS in some printer yourself.

I want to avoid Epson because they use fixed print-head that prone to failure.

A print head that maybe fails eventually (haven't heard anything about the ecotank heads being prone to failure) or tiny consumable cartridges that do need costly replacement immediately and all the time when you print...? For inkjets, this seems like an obvious choice to me.

If you applications are documents with minimal photography, then yes - a laser is a wonderful investment. I bought pic related in 2014 and haven't had a single issue out of it.
Inkjets, by and large, are a meme. They cost like $100-$200 and are made of cheap chinkshit that breaks easily; compounded by the fact that the ink for them runs $60 ($30 for the black, $30 for the color). You end up spending the cost of the printer after 2-3 (quick) reloads of ink, provided the hardware lives that long and doesn't fuck up for some arbitrary reason. Get a mid-level laser, drop like $70 for toner, and print a shitload of pages on it.

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I'm still using a HP F4185 from 2007, It's getting harder and harder to buy carts for it though.

Lasers aren't constructed any better and color lasers usually cost as much per page as inkjets do.

If you are buying a better laser the cost per page comes down, but not as much as with an EcoTank.

The main savings are in that you might be able to get a decent enough monochrome entry level laser that has 3rd party / refillable cartridges. Unlike inkjet's tiny cartridges you get some print volumes with these...

What is the best COMPACT laser printer?

Compact ones are shit. But if you insist, Samsung probably.

If color printing isn't absolutely necessary and you are cool with just B&W then the Canon Office and Business MB2720laser printer is $100 on Amazon.

what's the best printer that doesn't need drivers that works on every platform? (android, linux, windows, bsd, etc)

ricoh c261sfnw
it goes on sale for $180, color laser with four carts, cartridge refills are $12 apiece and since it uses a separate waste toner bin you don't need a specialized vacuum to refill the toner yourself

built in wifi, Google Cloud Print, and Apple airprint support. of course, you can just hardwire ethernet and print directly to it with PCL5c/PCL6 printer driver

if you don't need multi-function, the wifi/ethernet (but no google cloud print) regular printer version goes on sale for $69 (SP-C250DN). That's what I have, thing weighs 52lbs and has been absolutely flawless.

Thats inkjet and prints color but the deal is still sweet.