I get this question a lot and there isn’t a straightforward answer. In my experience, I have the fewest calls about Brother, with the most about HP, and Epson and Canon somewhere in the middle. But that’s not the most useful information because HP has the lion’s share of the printer market (42%) and so more trouble calls would be expected simply because more people own one. My usual advice is that if you are spending less than $150 on a printer, expect it to fail within 3-4 years. Reliability is not what it used to be and nearly any repair may cost more than the printer itself. This may sound pessimistic, but if the printer does last longer than that you’ll be pleasantly surprised! Lastly, if you can stomach the price, a laser printer provides excellent print quality and they tend to last longer. Black and white models are $150-200 and color models are $300+.
