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Printers

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macrumors member
Original poster
My HP 932C is simply not working well with my iMac. No matter what my margin settings are, I get .5 and 1.5 on top and bottom, respectively, and just printing makes it about .01 and 1.99 on top and bottom. It's horrible. I've installed everything that everyone's recommended, but nothing works. I'm just going to buy a new printer.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good printer under $150? I'm a student, and all I really do is print papers and other stuff for student activities, but I can't have these formatting problems. What will work on OS X well?
 
Depends on what you want to do with it. If you mainly print in b/w you can buy a cheap one like I did. Bought a Lexmark 35Z for 70 euro (+/- $70). It is not fast but good enough for me. I occasionally print in color and I can live with that.
Just mine experience
 
I do use color on occassion use color. As long as I don't have formatting problems, I don't care. I just don't know what works well with Mac since I'm so new to it.
 
I bought a Brother 1440 for under 150 after an instant rebate. I used merchandise coupon from Staples which dropped it another 25$ US.
To get the coupon I ordered a Staples catalog, 2 weeks after it arived I recieved an email cupon.
Staples seems to be alternating between a Minolta (which is not and will not work with any Mac OS), and the Brother as their “cheap” laser printer.
I am pretty happy with the Brother printer It does slightly curl the first page if the paper sits for to long. It doesn’t have a second media tray, but does have a second media slot witch grabs the paper, labels, etc. you have chosen. The paper path is fairly simple and I havn't had a paper jam yet.

I dislike poor color prints, and I prefer good b/w resolution and speed- hence my hunt for a laser printer. Color printers just seem to cost more, even if mainly use the b/w cartridge.
 
Originally posted by Eniregnat
I bought a Brother 1440 for under 150 after an instant rebate. I used merchandise coupon from Staples which dropped it another 25$ US.
To get the coupon I ordered a Staples catalog, 2 weeks after it arived I recieved an email cupon.
Staples seems to be alternating between a Minolta (which is not and will not work with any Mac OS), and the Brother as their ?cheap? laser printer.
I am pretty happy with the Brother printer It does slightly curl the first page if the paper sits for to long. It doesn?t have a second media tray, but does have a second media slot witch grabs the paper, labels, etc. you have chosen. The paper path is fairly simple and I havn't had a paper jam yet.

I dislike poor color prints, and I prefer good b/w resolution and speed- hence my hunt for a laser printer. Color printers just seem to cost more, even if mainly use the b/w cartridge.
Click to expand...

That's cool to know - thanks - I'm looking for one right now.
 
Printers

I prefer anything from Epson. I'm not sure how it works with OSX. I've used a Epson 740, 785, 1280 with no problems. Very easy to print and make sure the formatting is correct, just 2 clicks in the page setup.

Also, with some the printers you can go to Sam's and buy two-packs of ink for a savings of about $12. I was buying single cartridges for about $23-26 each, but at Sam's I could get the same ink (by Epson) for $40 for the 2-pack. Or you can go to www.macresq.com and try there ink. I've not tried it but the prices can't be beat. I've had bad experiences with cheap ink from Walmart though, every time I tried to print I had to send it thru a cleaning cycle. So I really didn't save much by wasting so much ink.
 
Anyone mentioning positives about Epson's printers in this thread (except just to mention it) should be honored to have one more than ever.

Of course, I can't say the same for the PC techie at my H.S. 🙄 (prepares a few pies)

Epson has nothing but quality in their printers (and pro scanners). The higher model you get, the better quality you get.

I have used my Epson SC 800 for about two years now, and it still functions like it was just out of the box. Also, the ink management and cost of the carts. for the ink will save you a bundle.

To top it all off, there's no worry about waiting for the ink to dry.
 
I love epsons myself, and any new epson printer you buy will defintely work with X.
 
Just got a cheap HP 3420 for NZ$129 (US$75) and it works fine in OS X. It's not actually mine, I just tested it for a little while before it went off to its owner (my dad), but it's still working fine. But if you want to do something serious then you probably want a better (more expensive!) printer.
 
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