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Affordable All-In-One Printer

Vidd

Vidd

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 7, 2006
1,001
108
I've searched and the threads tend to be out of date or not entirely relevant.
A few months ago my Epson Stylus decided to crap out on me, succeeding the monstrous HP machine which constantly jammed due to its loading mechanism.

I've done without a printer thus far but right now a scanner has become somewhat of a necessity and so I need a replacement printer with a scanning function.

Any recommendations? I'm a bit biased towards smaller HPs and more recently Epson printers but I'd like to hear from the community. Obviously, due to my experiences, I'm also not willing to invest a great deal in these troublesome machines.


---
Slightly unrelated but what's the general consensus here on laser versus inkjet? I know it's irrelevant here due to the nature of what I'm asking but I've seen them lasers come down in price.
 
Another Canon user. Mine is PIXMA MP600, a 4+1 ink inkjet plus decent scanner/copier. Because individual ink cartridge is see through, you can easily tell when to replace (instead of depending on ultra conservative "low ink" message). And the printer head is also easily replaceable.

The photo print quality is nothing short of amazing (although you may want to calibrate for more accurate color) -- I print on super cheap Costco 4x6 paper (less than 5 cents each). Text is okay, but I use much-cheaper-to-operate and better quality HP LaserJet 1160 for text printing. Color lasers stink at photos still.
 
I just bought my first Printer/Scanner/Copier combo a few days ago.
It's an HP C5180, $169 on sale at Fry's. No major complaints so far. I test printed a few pics and they were superb, much better than my old Canon i900.

The scanner is something I'm still testing. It seems OK so far. I put multiple photos on it and it knew there were multiple pics and scanned them separately and imported the files directly into Photoshop for editing. I was impressed.

I've never owned HP products before but I will say that it does have nice Mac software. Other printers and scanners I've used before (Epson/Lexmark/Canon) had really bad Mac software support.
Pros:

Good Mac software
Excellet picture print quality
Separate paper and photopaper trays built-in
Built in network connectivity (although I havn't figured out how to get it to work yet)

Cons:

A bit slow for my taste.
No PictBridge (but it does have built-in card reader slots)
The included OCR software doesn't work very well.
Scanners Dust and Scratch removal is useless in my tests, use Photoshop instead.

I haven't tested the built in Photofix scanner functions yet but other reviews I read say they're not very good. But that's why I use Photoshop anyway, I don't want the scanner to fix my photos for me, just scan accurately.
 
I also recommend the Canon PIXMA series. I have one, and it works.

I know you didn't ask for my opinion, but I'm gonna say it anyway. I don't recommend all-in-ones. They tend to break, and tends to be inferior generally. I'd get a dedicated scanner and dedicated printer. They may eat up more space, but they will work better and more seamlessly.

But if you have to get an all-in-one, Canon is the way to go.
 
ravenvii said:
I know you didn't ask for my opinion, but I'm gonna say it anyway. I don't recommend all-in-ones. They tend to break, and tends to be inferior generally. I'd get a dedicated scanner and dedicated printer. They may eat up more space, but they will work better and more seamlessly.
Click to expand...

That's interesting as right now I need a scanner whereas a printer won't be necessary for the moment. I looked at a local retailer's options and found the cheapest scanner to be about £50 which isn't extensive but it'd be a fair chunk towards an AIO.

If not an AIO, then what would be best? I've actually never owned a dedicated printer since my very first.
 
Vidd said:
That's interesting as right now I need a scanner whereas a printer won't be necessary for the moment. I looked at a local retailer's options and found the cheapest scanner to be about £50 which isn't extensive but it'd be a fair chunk towards an AIO.

If not an AIO, then what would be best? I've actually never owned a dedicated printer since my very first.
Click to expand...

An dedicated printer. Canon comes recommended in this area again, so does HP. A laser printer would be tops, obviously, but unless you're fine with black-and-white, it'll probably be out of your price range.

A scanner, well, dedicated scanners are generally good. Go with those that has OS X drivers, of course. I don't really like Canon's scanners, surprisingly. HP's scanners are pretty good, as well as Lexmark's (in everything but scanners Lexmark suck, but their scanners are surprisingly decent from what I've seen).
 
Here's another vote for a Canon Pixma AIO. Between my wife and I we've had all the major brands of AIO's and the only reliable on has been our most recent Canon Pixma MP830 (a little more than you probably want to spend). They print very well both B&W (laser like quality) and color (beautiful prints). As others have said you can buy individual B&W and color cartridges for cheaper than other brands because you aren't buying the print heads as well (which are removable if they get broken some how). The quality of the printer is top notch for a consumer line. I really don't think you could do better.

Bottom line: Spend a little more to begin with on a Canon and save more money in the long run on cheaper cartridges. You won't be disappointed. Plus they work very well with OS X.
 
ravenvii said:
A scanner, well, dedicated scanners are generally good. Go with those that has OS X drivers, of course. I don't really like Canon's scanners, surprisingly. HP's scanners are pretty good, as well as Lexmark's (in everything but scanners Lexmark suck, but their scanners are surprisingly decent from what I've seen).
Click to expand...

Amazon UK and Lexmark.co.uk don't show any Lexmark scanners but I'll look up the HP ones. Thanks.

Hm, I'll check the Canon AIOs.
 
Is bumping a thread with a post such as this considered against etiquette?

I discovered that my old HP still scans so I'll now be looking for a stand-alone printer.
I guess I'll look at the Canons since this forum seems to really promote them.
 
ravenvii said:
Wow, that's too bad. The last time I looked for a scanner was about 5 years ago, so my comments on Lexmark is probably outdated.
Click to expand...

The scanner on the HP's quite good though so it's not a problem any more.
 
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