February 16, 2005

• Why do you need inkjet? Personally, I hate them, think they're a waste of money, and refuse to use them. I went for an HP Laserjet 1012, hooked it into my wireless network, and am a happy person. Sure, the toner cartridge is more expensive than an inkjet cartridge, but it's not more expensive than 4 inkjet cartridges (CMYK), and they last about 5 times as many prints. Downside: doesn't print color. I have other ways of printing color, though, and if I wanted to do photos, I'll go with one of the dedicated photo printing services instead. Less expensive in the long run.
• Actually Sandspider I have a standard B&W laser printer (HP 4+) which is our workhorse. I bought the thing in 1993, it's printed 35,174 pages according to the diagnostic menu, and it's STILL working great. Unbelievable. But we do need the inkjet for CD case packaging, for clients.
• Personal recommendation: I got a Canon i960 last year, and it works with Mr. Mickey's Dell and my PowerBook like a dream. We use it mostly to print our digital photos (seriously tested it after a trip to Hawaii), and the quality is really impressive. I also used it to print my last MoFi swap cd covers.
• Fair enough. Though I'm still not happy about inkjets. grumble grumble
• What do you want it to do? That's the first real question. Do you want it to be able to print photo quality shots? Or are you just looking for decent documents and graphs? What's the primary use? How many times a week do you use it? How long would you like to have it?
• Crap... everyplace near here seems to sell only HP, Epson, and Lexmark. Hard to find the good Canons. JS -- photo quality is not important... my main criteria is high quality on regular/inkjet paper without banding or serious color defects, plus durability/reliability.
• The little woman and I picked up a Epson Stylus CX5400 a couple of years back (all-in-one with a flatbed scanner). Works really well as a scanner and printer. We also used it for our Mofi cd swap last year, and were both really pleased with the results. USB connectivity, so there should not be a problem working with both Mac and Windows (and Linux/Unix/BSD) for those of you penguin lovers). I believe that this model has been phased out, and has been replaced with either the CX4600 or the CX6600. Very swanky.
• Two things. First, AVOID LEXMARK! I got their inkjet because it was very very cheap, and it was.. well, very very cheap. I bought another one for some reason; but between not printing in OSX (it is, after all a very new OS, right? [rolling eyes]) and throwing hideous lines in my documents, it became the evil beast from Hell. Second: you may want to consider a personal laser printer. I got a Brother model for $150, with a $50 rebate on the way. Yes, Brother is a cheaper brand, but it's working so far for my meager student-handout and occasional newsletter layout needs. The prices on these babies has really plummeted lately. (Of course, ink carts are still pricey, but you get many many pages out of each.) Good luck!
• Looks like we will bite the bullet and get a $100-200 HP laserjet. Epson of course is heavily criticized for its consumables, and as scartol points out Lexmark has a host of other problems. Both companies appear to play dirty anyway with consumables and, allegedly, spyware. Here's another take (though this is hardly scientific): Epson Sucks - 464 hits Lexmark Sucks - 143 hits HP and Canon are spread out into other products, so I tried this: HP Sucks & Printers - 664 hits (hmm; then again they have a lot of printer models) Canon Sucks & Printers - 59 hits
• I went with a Canon when I got an inkjet for photo printing (an older 6 colour model). If you want a resource, check out photo.net's reviews and forums, because you'll see a lot of people who are using printers in anger and have picky, picky standards. My decisions was based on quality and consumable costs. Essentially everyone selling cheap printers is taking you out back and fucking you over on consumable costs. Extra $$$ spent on more expensive (Epson, Canon) units up from will more than pay down the track when you buy ink (if you think Epson consumables are expensive, wait till you go Lexmark). Canon also allow you to replace ink tanks seperately (one per colour), when I bought, most other inkjets replaced black, and colour, but not per-colour. Which was another factor. Canon edged out Epson on the ongoing cost basis. But that was a couple of years ago, and things may have changed dsince the,.
• Ah, good one... I knew the photo people would have good reviews, but I wasn't sure where they congregated. I'm off to photo.net right now.
• Perhaps think about looking into color laser printer? They aren't cheap, but might be worth it.
• in addition to photo.net, a favourite site of mine for things photographic is the Luminous Landscape. You can find reviews and links to reviews there. It's definitely from a hardcore photographic reproduction perspective though.
• Two years ago I bought a Canon S520 color inkjet and was happy with it until the black print head clogged. The printer's utility cleaning programs didn't help. Four days soaking in 91% alcohol didn't help. An hour in near boiling water released a lot of ink, but it's still clogged. Now the print head is soaking in window cleaning solution. Hope this works. In any case, if I get a new printer, it won't be a Canon.
• Looks like my recent decision to buy a Lexmark wasn't very wise! Prints quite well at this stage though, and I won't be using it that much (so the consumables won't be a huge issue) -- I mainly got it because I needed a scanner, and I considered the printer to be a bonus. My big print jobs get emailed to the office and run off on a speedy laser.
• i got an epson sc1160 about 5 years ago ($425) and it's been pretty hassle free (had to get the heads cleaned once after it spent a few mos. in storage ($50) but then i shipped it overseas and back (by boat...looooong trip) and it was fine...go figger) It prints up to 13 inches wide (mmmm....13 inches...) which is awesome for anyone with an artistic or astronomical bent (or both) (or just bent)...the most important thing (i'd say) to look for is INK PRICE...that's where they get you...also, shelling out the 5 extra bucks for Photo Quality Ink Jet Paper (as opposed to the staples brand 500 sheets of 8.5x11) will make your everyday prints look much sharper and clearer...even at draft quality. the ridiculous amount of resolution they offer these days is pretty arbitrary for most folks 1200...2400..80bazillion dpi? i've never used anything higher than 600, myself and i do tons of photo work....only if you're a catalog or fashion photographer doing a cover shoot do you really need to go any higher....blah blah blah...where's squidranch? anybody seen him around?
• Ours is an Canon SP200 and I'm quite happy with it. The ink lasts fairly well, the printer was cheap and the quality's fine. Overall, it's...good. It'll do photos (not that it matters) but takes forever and has banding. It's USB and works with Windows, and Mac has built-in support - apparently Canons have Mac support in general.
• Make sure it has LRF support.
• I went with an HP Deskjet 6840. I really couldn't find anything better without going up into the color laser range ($$$), and it's popular at most of the office retail places. It installed great under MacOS X and my Win2K machine. PC World dinged it for print quality but with PC Mag it fared a little better, but sadly they ignored any mention of ink consumption. But I'm seeing better results than on any inkjet printer we've ever had. Now let's see how long the ink lasts.