Printer Suggestions

stevietheb said:

My wife and I need to buy a printer (gave the old one, along with computer, to my brother). What we need is something that prints. Plain and simple. What we'd prefer to have is something that can do it all!

We'd like to have a Copier/Scanner/Printer combination that we could use to scan and print photos with decent quality (good enough to frame and hang on a wall would be GREAT!), but it will be used for black & white text 95% of the time--so that is the primary concern.

We have to stay as cheap as possible ($150 or below).

Any suggestions, comments, or anecdotes?

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Just bought an Epson RX5400 all in one printer/copier/scanner, but it hasn't been delivered yet. Seemed to me to be a reasonable printer for the price.

epson c84

ive had the epson stylus c84 for about 8 months and it's an awesome printer for the 80 bucks and fast too. but if you want an all-in-one and dont care about that much speeed, you can get a hp for $90 plus a ~6 dollar usb cable and it's pretty good, only it only does 12ppm black 10 color

I just bought a hp 5850 which is great, it is not an all in one, but it does have wireless capability. I did, however, think of getting an all-in-one that hp makes which was around the same price. I thought the hp models looked good and the 5850 IMHO prints out great pictures. I am looking at one of my kid now, and it looks great.

ToddW said:

I just bought a hp 5850 which is great.

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i second to that. i bought mine last fall and have been very happy with it. the wireless capability has become a must. image quality is great, too.

for some reason i dislike all-in-ones. they feel microsoftish. i feel more comfortable having a separate scanner, because then i have the option to make a choice: in my opinion canon makes great input devices (scanners, digicams) and hp makes great inkjets - and i'm happy to have a 50usd canon scanner together with a +200usd hp inkjet.

in real world the scanner will not have to be that expensive. most magazines are printed in about 300dpi, so why on earth would i want to scan +4000dpi images that will not look nearly as good as the 300dpi magazines. that may be the reason why many actually want to buy all-in-ones - but... something to think about... all-in-ones usually are not a great printer. there's a huge difference between a 50usd printer and a 150usd printer, let alone the hp 5850 which costs even more. print quality matters more than scan quality, because (to some point) you can fix a bad scan in photoshop, but a bad print is a bad print. it makes more sence to put the money to the output device, as long as the input device doesn't suck either.

so my suggestion: buy a cheapo canon usb scanner and a good quality printer. such a printer that you will not throw away when the ink cartridges are empty.

(the last one wasn't a joke. at least in finland there are some inkjet models available that cost less than a set of replacement cartridges. people buy a new printer when they run out of ink. that is really sad. one should really buy a good quality printer if a printer is needed at all.)

There's one that you can get, its the 299$ HP Multifunction. It has a 99$ mail in rebate if you buy it along with a mac and also has Fax, Copy, (without a mac) and of course print/scan.

Gee said:

Just bought an Epson RX5400 all in one printer/copier/scanner, but it hasn't been delivered yet. Seemed to me to be a reasonable printer for the price.

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RX or CX5400?

I've had the CX5200 and CX6400 and found both to be very capable. The CX6400 has the advantage of USB 2.0 and a media card reader built-in.

stevietheb said:

My wife and I need to buy a printer (gave the old one, along with computer, to my brother). What we need is something that prints. Plain and simple. What we'd prefer to have is something that can do it all!

We'd like to have a Copier/Scanner/Printer combination that we could use to scan and print photos with decent quality (good enough to frame and hang on a wall would be GREAT!), but it will be used for black & white text 95% of the time--so that is the primary concern.

We have to stay as cheap as possible ($150 or below).

Any suggestions, comments, or anecdotes?

Click to expand...

Canon is really good for photo and have separate cartridges by color, saving you money.

Don't go Lexmark.

Epson sounds good for you.

If you don't need color at all, a laser printer might be good for you (some start at $99-$149).

titaniumducky said:

Canon is really good for photo and have separate cartridges by color, saving you money.

Don't go Lexmark.

Epson sounds good for you.

If you don't need color at all, a laser printer might be good for you (some start at $99-$149).

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Not only are Canon printers more efficient with ink usage, but their ink cartridges are MUCH cheaper than any other brand. In the long run, cost of ownership is less for Canons than any other brand of inkjet (although non-color laser printers are cheaper yet in the long run).