Who Loves Their Printer? [Archive]

emw

Feb 25, 2005, 03:50 PM

Give me all the advice on a printer you can give me.

Well, I guess my first questions would be:

1. What do you want to use it for? Photo printing? Presentations? Newsletters? Mass mailings? Large-format stuff? We'd need to know this to know if we should recommend ink jet or laser or large-format, etc.

2. What kind of price point are you looking for? Under $100? Under $500?

3. Any thoughts on "extras" like built-in card readers, fax machine, scanner, etc.?

I think we could piece together a pretty good set of recommendations if we knew a little more about the ground rules. :)

blackfox

Feb 25, 2005, 03:54 PM

without knowing any of the specifics (as mentioned by emw), I nominate Canon.

Mark James

Feb 25, 2005, 03:55 PM

I love my LaserWriter 8500.

macdaddy121

Feb 25, 2005, 03:57 PM

Well, I guess my first questions would be:

1. What do you want to use it for? Photo printing? Presentations? Newsletters? Mass mailings? Large-format stuff? We'd need to know this to know if we should recommend ink jet or laser or large-format, etc.

2. What kind of price point are you looking for? Under $100? Under $500?

3. Any thoughts on "extras" like built-in card readers, fax machine, scanner, etc.?

I think we could piece together a pretty good set of recommendations if we knew a little more about the ground rules. :)

I guess I was thinking that you'll could read my mind. Sorry. :D

Don't want it to be too fancy. I only plan on printing Word documents and some digital pics. Nothing serious. I woudn't mind having a copier scanner all in one thing but it is not nessesary.

Price range would be under $200. I think that can get me a decent printer for what I want it to do.

Thanks and sorry for my stupidity.

sjpetry

Feb 25, 2005, 04:14 PM

Don't buy a brother printer. They are extremely hard to use.

leekohler

Feb 25, 2005, 04:16 PM

I would say Epson. I love my Stylus Photo 1280-it's more expensive, but it makes great prints. Look into a lower-end Epson.

Fourbin

Feb 25, 2005, 04:22 PM

I have an Epson, HP and Canon that all get regular use. The Canon is exceptional as a photo printer and prints extremely high-res 8x10s. It's the i960 I believe. The HP is the most reliable printer I've ever owned and print cartridges aren't too expensive.. I can find them wholesale usually for $40 both black and color. The Epson hower is the CX5200 all-in-one model and it has given me trouble everyday for the past month. I bought it 6 months ago and now it just doesn't want to print, I've tried cleaning the heads and everything. Ontop of that the Epson ink is about $80 to replace everytime for both black and color. For a great all around everyday printer get an HP, the most expensive you can get.

tykles

Feb 25, 2005, 04:54 PM

I have an Epson CX6400 (all-in-one) which I really like. It prints photos of satisfactory quality, scans very well, does everthing I need. I don't remember how much I paid- maybe $179?

atari1356

Feb 25, 2005, 05:20 PM

Hewlett Packard inkjet printers are great... I've owned 2 HP's and one Epson. The Epson was okay in the beginning but over time the printing quality went down - to the point where I just ended up giving it away.

Both of the HP's I've owned have been very reliable, and the ink cartridges seem to last a lot longer than the Epson one did.

MacDawg

Feb 25, 2005, 05:54 PM

I love my Epson Stylus PHOTO R200
Inexpensive, and great quality for me on everything, including photos

Woof, Woof - Dawg

Macaddicttt

Feb 25, 2005, 06:01 PM

mcgarry

Feb 25, 2005, 06:52 PM

I had ok-to-bad experiences with HPs (admittedly this was years ago) and more recently horrible experiences with Lexmarks. My only contact with Epson (since dot-matrix) was my father's 777i, which was a nightmare, but my personal experience with it was minimal.

A couple years ago or so (don't remember exactly) I bought a Canon i450. It was, without a doubt, the best printer I have ever owned. It never gave me any problems, I mean that. This thing was great. Fast enough for me, good text quality, and evening amazing photo quality for the price. Don't get me wrong, this was by no means a good choice as a dedicated photo printer, but it will do the job in a pinch. It's plenty sharp, but the colors are not the greatest. Best of all, I was not using it that much; as you may know, ink tanks can dry out after about six months, and whatever ink you haven't used by then can soon be useless. The i450 uses small and cheap ink tanks: $6-8 for a black ink tank rated at 150 pages. That's small, but seriously cheap for a brand-name Canon ink tank made in Japan. Assuming you use the full ink tank on a more expensive HP or something, the per-page cost comes out to about the same, but with the i450 you have a better chance of getting what you pay for. Plus, paying less per cartridge can feel better. Buying a $30 cartridge for a $50 printer just feels wrong ...

Anyway, I was happy with it, but wanted to start printing more photos, so I decide to "upgrade" and gave the i450 to my brother. The new Canon iP4000 I bought to replace it is a whole other story ... I am still dealing with Canon on some problems with it, but that is a story for another thread. I'd tell it, but it still has to play itself out. In short, when it works the iP4000 is a great printer, but I haven't had the best of luck with it. To Canon's credit, they are working to address my issues.

The i450 has been replaced in the current Canon lineup by the $50 iP1500: it is a re-badged i450 with a fully-closing top door but no bottom tray. It used the same (by the specs / as far as I can tell) print head and ink tanks, so should perform the same. Also consider the $80 iP2000, which has the same ink tanks and print head, again, but adds more sophisticated paper handling options. Don't be mistaken, these are low-end inkjets, and I would not recommend them for even a "prosumer" level photo printer. But they should handle all of your text and occasional photo needs admirably and economically.

Mechcozmo

Feb 25, 2005, 06:55 PM

Give me all the advice on a printer you can give me.

Sadly I usually go and get what ever people advise off of this discussion board. So far you'll are 100% right on the money.

Thanks again.

I have an HP DeskJet 825C. No failures in years of usage. It is USB 1.1 but things print to it very fast. Plug and play with any Mac OS 9 and up and it works with 8.6, you just need drivers from their website. I love it. It isn't the fastest printer but it does a good job on quality vs. speed and the "economy" speed mode that it has is excellent. It is fast with little decrase in quality.
Best thing about it though...
The ink cartridges are the size of my hand, and don't run out for a long time. And they are cheap because the "remanufactured" ones (found on the 'net) work great and cost more to ship than buy. OK so thats a bit of an exaggeration but its pretty close. The cartridges are 4x bigger than the ones nowadays and cost at least half as much.

EDIT: I forgot to add that they are DIRT FREAKIN CHEAP on eBay due to their age. Those people don't know what they are missing...

Blue Velvet

Feb 25, 2005, 06:58 PM

I'll second the previous comment about Lexmark printers.

My opinions on their printers are unprintable.

mowogg

Feb 25, 2005, 07:10 PM

LaserWriter 630 Pro from 1993. Still rocks. 32Mb and networkable. Canon 560i, $49.99 after rebate at Best Buy. It's quiet and fast. Hooked up to the Airport Extreme printer port it's available to the network too. One for color, one for cheap B&W. It's a good mix. I still can't believe I bought the LaserWriter on eBay for $100 and the seller shipped it to me for $25! What a great world!

Twinkie

Feb 25, 2005, 07:10 PM

I'll toss my two cents in here and give another vote to Canon.

I had an i850 that I replaced with an i960 (my parents needed a new printer, so I figured they could have my old one), and I've been nothing short of delighted.

I never had an Epson printer I liked. They always seemed to take FOREVER to prime, when I just needed to print out a few lines of black text. And we all know that HP's color cartridges are steep, to put it lightly.

absolut_mac

Feb 25, 2005, 07:17 PM

Who Loves Their Printer?Just curious....

Me!!!

I have the Canon i960 and the photos that it prints are indistinguishable from photo lab prints. Text and documents are pretty good too, and B&W photos are mediocre.

Here's the bottom line - if you print most documents, get a laser printer, if you want top notch B&W photos, get an HP with the photo grey cartridge. If you want the best color photos, get the Canon with either 6 or 8 separate ink tanks.

daveL

Feb 25, 2005, 09:42 PM

Minolta/QMS Magicolor 2350. It's probably been updated since I bought mine. Network (ethernet) printers are the way to go. It came with a Mac printer driver, as well.

Bibulous

Feb 25, 2005, 10:05 PM

This freebie dell works great, just can't use it with my powerbook :(

I have had good results with epson, not so much with hp.

yOyOYoo

Feb 25, 2005, 10:24 PM

I love my Canon IP4000

Excellent 2 sided printing, dual loading slots, super fast, also photo prints look fabulous!!!

Artful Dodger

Feb 25, 2005, 10:49 PM

Hello, I've had a HP all-in-one (hated it), currently have an Epson R300 but only for dvds/cds, but the best printer I've had/have is my Canon i960. It prints great pictures and if the BW picture is set up right they look great. I couldn't be happier with it. :D

RealDeal

Feb 25, 2005, 11:51 PM

I pretty much skipped inkjets and went to Laser in 1992- a HP 4ML with postscipt- a good printer. Then got a 6L and a 1012- both garbage with expensive per page toner costs (round 5C canadian), and reliability issues.

Recently got a departmental-grade HP 4200. It was a shop end-of-line demo, and HP had a mail in rebate for C$500 with any old working laser (i bought one for C$25)- so it ended up costing me just C$500 for a 35ppm, 1 cent per page toner-cost heavy duty printer. Just have to be careful with the heat setting with acetates- you can fry a toner.

HiRez

Feb 26, 2005, 12:33 AM

If you decide you can live with black and white only, I highly recommend the HP 1012 LaserJet. It's fast, quiet, dependable, space-efficient, and inexpensive to purchase and operate. Plus it produces fantastic, sharp 1200x600 (actually 600x600 optical) output. I have a Canon S300, which is a very nice inkjet printer, however it was costing me a bloody fortune in ink, and I have pretty modest printing needs. If you don't print a bunch of stuff every day, your cost per page can be extremely high as the cartridge may dry out before you even get to use all the ink. This is a problem with many, if not all inkjets, you will spend many times the initial cost of the printer in ink over the long run. The cost of a laserjet drum is higher, but you'll get thousands of prints out of it. Now the Canon is back in its box, and the HP has completely replaced it. The 1012 can be had for only $150 now (I got mine at Staples), although if you get one beware: it does not come with the necessary 6p-4p USB cable to use it, so you'll have to get that separately (I happened to have one sitting around).

BakedBeans

Feb 26, 2005, 02:37 AM

Rod Rod

Feb 26, 2005, 02:46 AM

I love my Epson Stylus PHOTO R200
Inexpensive, and great quality for me on everything, including photos

Woof, Woof - Dawg
Have you had any success printing to CDs/DVDs?

Hello, I've had a HP all-in-one (hated it), currently have an Epson R300 but only for dvds/cds, but the best printer I've had/have is my Canon i960. It prints great pictures and if the BW picture is set up right they look great. I couldn't be happier with it. :D
I wish I had the same luck with my Epson and printing CDs/DVDs. I bought an R200 just for that purpose and after much trial and equal error, following directions perfectly, it has yet to print onto a single DVD.

A couple years ago or so (don't remember exactly) I bought a Canon i450. It was, without a doubt, the best printer I have ever owned. It never gave me any problems, I mean that. This thing was great. Fast enough for me, good text quality, and evening amazing photo quality for the price.
My i450 has been great to me too. My cousin got one and she's had no troubles either.

Santaduck

Feb 26, 2005, 02:54 AM

Printers the past 5-10 years have gotten very cheap, HP & Epson alike. They are very sensitive and will be prone to subtle damage that causes permanent jamming-- at this point repair will cost more than what you paid, so I just junk & buy a new one, more expensive & a different brand hoping for quality, but I'm always disappointed.

The office laserjets of the early 90's were indestructible compared to the printers of today. They're all just vehicles for ink disposable sales.

MacDawg

Feb 26, 2005, 03:13 AM

Have you had any success printing to CDs/DVDs?

Sorry, haven't tried.
But I'm happy with the photos! :)

Woof, Woof - Dawg

russed

Feb 26, 2005, 03:51 AM

i love my Epson stylus photo R300. its quick, quiet and amazing quality. oh and it has a handy media card reader on it!!

Kirk

Feb 26, 2005, 03:52 AM

I have a Canon IP 5000 (Pixma) and it works great! I have also heard nothing but good things about the IP 4000.

CD printing, duplex printing, photos – everything works great, and the ink seems to last much longer than on my old Epson printer (880) which sadly died on me a couple of months ago . . .

russed

Feb 26, 2005, 04:05 AM

...the ink seems to last much longer than on my old Epson printer (880) which sadly died on me a couple of month ago . . .

i had an Epson stylus 880 that died on me a few months ago also, and that also used to drink ink like there was no tomorrow. also, very expensive to get refills for!

inlimbo

Feb 26, 2005, 06:21 AM

My first Epson colour printer that I bought back in 1995-1996 (When I got my first PC) was brilliant. It was giant and slow but it had goof quality (at that time 720dpi) and lasted for like 5 years. Then we bought a new Epson styles Colour printer about 1-2 years ago and it was a piece of s***. It would jam and the quality was rubbish and the ink would run out quickly and cost a fortune.

I now have two Lexmark printers a laser (E220) and an All-in-one (fax, copier, scanner, printer - X6170). They have been ok but I wouldnt rave about them. The ink for the E220 is really expensive and I do a lot of printing. I would really like a better printer. I would recommend them over Epson any day (but thats not saying much)

Stay away from Epson (especially the lower end models)!

Its a pitty that no-one shows as much of an obsession/love with a brand of printer like they do with their Apple hardware. :) Doesn't anyone make good printers these days :confused:

Artful Dodger

Feb 26, 2005, 09:46 AM

Rod Rod, Have you had any success printing to CDs/DVDs?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Artful Dodger

Hello, I've had a HP all-in-one (hated it), currently have an Epson R300 but only for dvds/cds, but the best printer I've had/have is my Canon i960. It prints great pictures and if the BW picture is set up right they look great. I couldn't be happier with it.

If you want to e-mail me I will send you a pic. of the dvds I have done with the R300. Also I used Magic Mouse for a few, also I found using hub printable dvds work best. At first the line up was off/didn't work but I didn't "read" to select cd/dvd on the printer itself :o Last when you do get it to work spray some Krylon artist (clear) spray to seal the ink :D

Rod Rod

Feb 26, 2005, 04:33 PM

Rod Rod,
If you want to e-mail me I will send you a pic. of the dvds I have done with the R300. Also I used Magic Mouse for a few, also I found using hub printable dvds work best. At first the line up was off/didn't work but I didn't "read" to select cd/dvd on the printer itself :o Last when you do get it to work spray some Krylon artist (clear) spray to seal the ink :D

I believe you. I'm just envious that you got yours to work. I guess I can give it another go. I'll email you for the pictures though. Thanks! :)

dotdotdot

Feb 26, 2005, 04:36 PM

My printer got me an A+ on my last report.

HP Deskjet 5550

I used a picture and it printed amazingly well with quality set to medium, and my teacher with bad eyes saw it all perfectly.

Plus, my report was the only one besides one other person who did not have any lines in the text.

Artful Dodger

Feb 27, 2005, 09:20 AM

Rod Rod, or to anyone else that has had problems with cd/dvd printing or is thinking about one of these printers.
I went through the process last night and had some troubles myself :cool:
well thanks to my girlfriend the printer setup for "paper" size has to be set for A4 and not letter. Then choose the cd/dvd print setup, if you have the R300 one must also pick the cd/dvd print on the little window on the printer as well (3 steps instead of 2).
I hope this helps for anyone having problems or needs to adjust the prints on the cd/dvds. :)

jer446

Feb 27, 2005, 09:33 AM

I have a hp 1012, and its awesome.. the toner lasted me like a year and a half...i also have a color laser that i got like two months ago, and its pretty good, and reasonable price too..

JeffTL

Feb 27, 2005, 09:40 AM

I've had great luck with my HP LaserJet 1300n, which serves four Macs (three Panther, one Jaguar) and a PC (XP Home).

It's a pretty pricey piece of kit, but the toner is affordable compared to ink jet and it's a quality monochromatic laser.

Before it I had a LaserJet 1000 -- it didn't like Macs, wasn't network, and had a door problem, so I donated it to the university and got the 1300n, which has given me no grief whatsoever. It has Rendezvous and that works well.

Lacero

Feb 27, 2005, 09:51 AM

I have an Epson R200 printer and I love it.

I use it to print DVD's and it comes out amazing. I use Taiyo Yuden silver matte inkjet printable 8x DVD-Rs. Sometimes you have to manually guide the DVD tray into the printer for it to work, but hopefully the next printer revision will make it easier.

Epson R200 comes with the EZPrint CD software, although passable, it's a good program that needs a bit of fine-tuning.

skunk

Feb 27, 2005, 09:57 AM

I've had a series of HPs, 970CXi, 990, 995, all of which gave crap colour rendition and all of which died. I now have an ageing Epson SC3000(A2) and an Epson R800, both of which are very good with colour, and the R800 is good on CDs too. HP lost my vote years ago.

ravenvii

Feb 27, 2005, 10:46 AM

Lexmark sucks. Their drivers for the Mac? *puke*

I have an HP, it works great. The form factor sucks - very bulky - but what the hey, I got it for free, so I can't complain!

BartoK

Feb 27, 2005, 11:17 AM

I needed a bargain printer that would work with my Airport Extreme and just do basic work (i.e. no heavy duty jobs or high-end photo printing).

The Epson Stylus C86 that I got a couple of months ago fits the bill perfectly!

timmyb

Feb 28, 2005, 03:22 PM

Jaffa Cake

Feb 28, 2005, 03:38 PM

My home printer is an HP 960c and it's always been reliable enough – a good balance of value and print quality. It's fast, doesn't swallow ink like it's going out of fashion and the print quality is good enough for my exacting standards!

shane-o-mac

Mar 4, 2005, 11:51 PM

I will be going to uni this autumn and as well as getting a new iBook (when the next rev comes,) I will need a printer. What is the best cheap printer around at the moment? (Really what is the best cheap & small printer, as space will be at a premium)
Thanks for any help

With any luck Apple wil still have a good promotion on their printers with the purchase of a new computer. Right now you get a $100 rebate on certain Epsons, which equates a free printer if you get a C86. I have an epson C62 and I can not really say good things about it. My printer jams paper like it is its job and guzzles Ink like a my college buds guzzle free beer. The quality is Okay, but the ink is expensive. The cool thing with the new models is you get seperate ink cartridges, so if you do not do any or little color printing you can just worry about the black ink. I believe the new epson have larger higher density black ink cartridges which last a lot longer. Hey, if you can get one for free, you can always use the rebate check when it shows up two years later and buy a printer you really want :D

Hockeyman

Mar 5, 2005, 02:55 AM

I've heard good things about Epson, but I've had nothing but trouble with them. I've had at least two of their printers just die on me. I've always had good luck with HP. Cannon would also be a good way to go, I guess, although I've never had one of their printers. For me, I just stay away from Epson.

My epson stylus color 740i is still kicking and works great but I have to say since then I have had 3 newer epson models die within the life of my old epson which still works great. I have to say that My new love of printers is the canon line. The i960 is great and the new iP5000 (I think it is $179 regular price, but I am used to getting edu discounts) is absolutely awesome!!!!! Check it out on the apple store it has nothing but great reviews their also.

As for HP the deskjet used to be a joke a long time ago and I haven't touched it since... It used to come down to why buy more print cartridges when for about the same price you can get a new printer. Since the deskjet used to die after every 1 or 2 refills of ink. I warn anyone reading this that this is from the OLD (First models) of the deskjet when colored ink was cool. and we were using win 3.0. I now look back and laugh at those days...

pimentoLoaf

Mar 5, 2005, 03:28 AM

HP-1215 Photoprinter for me. A dog to get osX to recognize -- must repair permissions after installation -- but once fixed, everything prints wonderfully.

Make sure you have paper formulated for HP inkjet ink else you won't get what you expect.

cal6n

Mar 5, 2005, 04:06 AM

I used to have an HP 3822 (budget inkjet) which was pretty good under OS9 but the drivers for OS X are crap. There's no 2-sided printing, so trying to save paper often resulted in wasting more when the crap-box picked up 2 sheets on the "odd page" run. The utility sometimes rejects refilled cartridges, a real pain in the arse when the cartridges are as expensive as HPs. Also, be aware of this:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/23/hp_cartridges/

The solution? For me, at least, is a Canon. My ip5000 is excellent. The ink tanks have no electronics (they're in the cradle that holds them) and they're made of clear plastic so you can see when they're getting low. Not only this, but there's a seperate tank for each colour so you get to use every drop of ink, a very real advantage if you're as tight as me and as concerned about resources. I even buy the Canon inks now as they're reasonably priced. It does duplex printing with perfect results every time and prints CDs and DVDs.

AND it does all this while looking good, everything closes up when not in use to leave a sleek, dustproof, black cuboid. In short, I love it.

iPlm

Mar 5, 2005, 04:33 AM

All the All-In-One machines suck. They can't do one thing good, and make all things(scanning, printing...) with bad quality. At least this is my observation.

I love my HP DeskJet 5150! It is inexpensive and has perfect quality printing! Several years ago I had a HP LaserJet 4L, which worked for lots of years without ANY problems, and perfect printing quality(documents and stuff, not photos or graphics:)). I like HP's printers. The only thing bad about them is the higher ink costs and stuff like that...

aus_dave

Mar 5, 2005, 06:33 AM

Don't think anyone has mentioned Kyocera laser printers? I've got an FS-1010 and it hasn't missed a beat in two and a half years.

I'm not a fan of inkjets or multi-function printers - you end up buying too many cartridges, worth more than the printer :rolleyes:.

dvdh

Mar 5, 2005, 10:33 AM

Theres a spread of printers that include high image quality and life (epson) nice laser colour (xerox), and just plain cheapness (canon).

In terms image quality, nothing can beat a good inkjet printer. I have been extremely happy with my epson 2000p (bought for about $600C three years ago) As a big plus, with pigment inks, you can actually expect your images to keep looking good for more than a few months. The only downside to the epson is that it is really slow.

The Xerox. Had the 'privilege' of making the purchasing recommendation for the last architecture firm that I work for, and after test driving the Tabloid laser options from HP, Lexmark and Xerox we went with the Xerox becuase it had the best colour by a long shot at a competive price.

The Canon. Came my iBook so cost nothing. I use the cheapest generic inks in it for draft stuff. It works. Even with proper inks, though it is nothing like the Epson for print quality.