OS X Printers

Re: OS X Printers

Originally posted by mastabri
Hey people, it's almost my birthday and my dad agreed to get me a new printer.

What I wanna know is, what are some good OS X compatible inkjet printers that DON'T have sucky drivers. My price range is $125-$200. I'd use it to print out my homework for college and maybe print CD labels. However, I won't use it to print "photo-realistic" pics from my digital camera, I'd rather use an online service like snapfish.com for that.

// I've been using an Epson Stylus 700 for 4 years and it's really starting to show it's age. The driver was okay....


My comp
* Quicksilver 1 GHz / 1 GB/ 120 GB / Jaguar

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Well for less than $150 you can get what I consider to be the fastest and best photo quality inkjet printer on the market the HP DeskJet 5550.

It is natively supported with OSX and HP has been upgrading there drivers fairly frequently. At this point the drivers for X are better then the ones were for OS9.

I personally have a DeskJet 970 which is a predecessor to the 5550. The 5550 is almost twice as fast and has twice the dpi output. Also when HP quotes there dpi it's real dpi not like some competing brands. In anycase it prints fast and the photo prints are awesome.

i can't recommend an epson unfortunately. i got one with my ti667 and it is broken. just over a year old and maybe 500 sheets through it. it is a stylus photo 820 i think.

off topic- has anyone else noticed that print center is RIDICULOUSLY SLOW!?!?!?! i mean horrible. anyone know of any updates coming that address this issue?

To add to my previous post.

I've had my HP Deskjet 970c for 3years and have printed a couple dozen photos and a few thousand regular prints. I've never had it fail or have a problem replace ink replace paper continue printing. I've recently seen the photo quality output of high end epsons against high end HPs and there is no contest HP wins hands down.

I've got a Lexmark Z42 and an Epson Stylus Color 900. There are newer versions of both of these. Up until Jaguar, I would recommend both as better than average quality printers with higher than average priced ink. Epson hasn't gotten drivers for the SC900 which are compatible with Jaguar, but Lexmark had them prior to Jaguar being available.

I really like the Canon S900 and S9000 though. I think both of my current printers are going away.

I have a HP 970C as well.

To date I have printed well over 7,000 pages in the 4 years I've had the printer.

The majority of those prints were on normal, plain paper. However about 200 of them were on photo realistic paper or transperancies.

If you want an all round printer capable of printing on almost anything get the HP 970 or any varient thereof. With great drivers for X and long ink life, it's a wonderful printer.

If all you're doing is printing homework and CD labels, you don't need to spend $125-$200. You can get a perfectly decent printer that will do this for less than $100. And you should be happy with whatever you buy, as long as it's not made by El Cheapo, Inc. or something. What's very important in a printer (more important to me than output quality or speed) is warranty and driver support.

I have an HP DeskJet 842C (replaced by the 845C), and it works just as well as it did when I bought it a year and 1000 pages ago. The 845C costs around $110, I believe.

Print Center is rediculously slow. I can't get over how no one has commented on it. It is particularly slow on a network, to a network printer. God forbid I want to print a color picture from iPhoto on the network color ink jet. Yawn.

Originally posted by alex_ant
I have an HP DeskJet 842C (replaced by the 845C), and it works just as well as it did when I bought it a year and 1000 pages ago. The 845C costs around $110, I believe.

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The current HP5550 is only $150 and is capable of twice the speed and twice the output of the HP970 series printers. The HP970s are in turn capable of twice the speed and twice the output of any of the 8 series printers.

Anybody help me please!!

In a printing repair shop they told me that HP was the best brand to buy, so Once I got my Mac, I bought the HP 5550. I agree that it is a beauty when it comes to printing graphics, but I had such a hard time trying to print a Word document aligned correctly. The margins in the paper did not even resemble the margins in my screen at all!

I was using Word for Mac version X, and I had a document that contained a simple table framed within one page. Since I was a previous PC user, I was used to Microsoft Word 2000, and I had a nightmare trying to find the margins in "page setup" and I still have not find them. Hewlett Packard implies says that their latest driver is not yet perfect for OS X and that the Page has to be configured manually to print with the deskjet 5550 every time you want to print. So dissapointing, I was goint to return this printer tomorrow. But since surprisingly I saw your recommendations I tought you might tell me if I am doing something wrong. Please help soon, any comments are welcome and worth to try. I yet don't see a better printer and I don't have a good impression about Cannon.

HP is the best printer brand IMHO. I have had my 932c for 3 years now, and my mom has had her like HP printer for 10 years or so. HP=reliability.

And they are really good on OS X drivers

Re: Anybody help me please!!

Originally posted by gusanitoverde and I had a nightmare trying to find the margins in "page setup" and I still have not find them

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In Word go to "Format" menu and choose "Document...". There you can set the document margins.

Thank you guys

I am still puzzled how come the printer is not aligning the image corectly in the paper... When I print the document it comes out like 1/2 of an inch moved, so I really have to mess around the original image in the screen to be able to get the alignment in hte physical piece of paper. Has anyone else suffered from this?

I have an HP 648C that will not die.

It sips ink, too. I mean, really. I think I got a defect off the product line, one without the "waste ink so they'll buy more razor blades" feature.

I've replaced the cartridges not twice in three years after printing at least 1000 pages. I love the little bastard.

PS the only bad thing about HP is that they use MS architecture. That and they seem to not give a damn about getting Mac drivers to market anytime before the rapture.

I wish Apple still made printers. They were works of art inside and still fetch steep prices on eBay.

I have an HP 5550C attached right now.

-Native drivers
-Fast drivers
-All features (inc. all important ink level)
-Fully compatible (with jag)
-USB 2 compatible

Only one problem. If you have sleep enabled on the printer. If your mac goes to sleep and then your printer does, your mac will wake up when the printer goes to sleep. But then this is the same for all USB devices. If my bro turns his loud and slower epson off manually after sleeping his emac then it also wakes up.
Its part of apples USB implementation, and not HPs fault.

So yeah, the new HPs (4 digit models) are all Jag compatible.

Thank you for your replies, and I agree with HP's reliability, as I said a repairman recommended them, but, so far these are the only advancements I found on my problem. The following text cold be found in the support section for this printer in the HP website:

"...The Preview function will not reflect many print settings, including layout, borders, page size and color selections."

"...Mac OS X does not automatically select the printer-specific page setup settings for the selected printer. Go to Page Setup for each document and select the printer. This will ensure correct margins for the printer."

"...The Preview application and the TextEdit application that Apple provides with Mac OS X will attempt to scale images and text to fit the page size. If the accuracy of the printed image size is important, use a different application"

I bought this printer thinking that it was the best for Jaguar... I can't even work properly with it. Comments, anyone?

Originally posted by pseudobrit
PS the only bad thing about HP is that they use MS architecture. That and they seem to not give a damn about getting Mac drivers to market anytime before the rapture.

I wish Apple still made printers. They were works of art inside and still fetch steep prices on eBay.

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My 932c is like that too. had it for 3 years, i think maybe once every 8 months i have to replace it. but that is always after push time at school, you know with all the reports etc.

Originally posted by gusanitoverde
Thank you for your replies, and I agree with HP's reliability, as I said a repairman recommended them, but, so far these are the only advancements I found on my problem. The following text cold be found in the support section for this printer in the HP website:

"...The Preview function will not reflect many print settings, including layout, borders, page size and color selections."

"...Mac OS X does not automatically select the printer-specific page setup settings for the selected printer. Go to Page Setup for each document and select the printer. This will ensure correct margins for the printer."

"...The Preview application and the TextEdit application that Apple provides with Mac OS X will attempt to scale images and text to fit the page size. If the accuracy of the printed image size is important, use a different application"

I bought this printer thinking that it was the best for Jaguar... I can't even work properly with it. Comments, anyone?

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these sound like Mac OS X 10.1
you are using 10.2. you should have no problems. I use a DJ5550C and Mac OS X 10.2 and have had none of those problems.

Just do one thing - follow the instructions on the sheet (no booklet, the setup sheet). Even though they make you feel like an idiot (especially experienced users) they will ensure that everything works out. Don't you think they spent a little time making sure that their instructions actually worked? How much time have you had to test the printer and develop install instructions?