I'm looking to replace an HP 7350 Photo printer which is USB attached to my G5 (10.4.8). The printer is shared out to about 3 other Mac's in the house and a few PC's. There are several accounts on the G5 and depending on who in the house is using the computer, there may be more than a few workspaces open.
My expereince with the mechanics of the printer has been acceptable. It's reasonable on the ink, and is pretty flexible for the kinds of paper I can get through it.
My expereince with the HP Mac 7350 printer driver has been -- not so good. (Driver was reloaded from HP.COM a few months ago, so it should be fairly recent). Print jobs will spool to the G5, but there's usually a 50% success rate of actually getting the print jobs out of the queue onto the printer. When the G5 and the 7350 loose each other, it usually takes a "printer system reset" or even a reboot of the G5 and the Printer to get them back in sync.
Me? I'm a computer geek since the Apple II days, so while this is annoying, it isnt beyond my capabilities or patience to reset things. The others in my household are not as patient and understanding and are about ready to mutiny over this.
As printer technologies go, I PREFER HP because of the "head change per ink cartridge" process. I have a Canon i8500 in the house, but I want to save that for real photo printing (ink costs are a little high for "pedestrian printing" and homework output). I've had bad expereinces with Epsons for several generations of printers, mostly due to head clog issues.
However, I'm willing to reset my expectations here for some good advice.
what I'm looking for is this:
1) A "good" printer expereince (really works well with the Mac). Printer should recover easily from "synch" issues (or better yet, not have them at all).
2) Printer should be "sharable" with Macs and PCs -- network happy as it were
3) 4 Color minimum, multi color (>4) considered, as long as there is allowance for more black ink than color.
4) Reasonable ink costs
5) Multifunction is ok, but not a requirement.
6) Occasional "photo" quality printing.
I'm not going to say that "price is not an option", however, I'm willing to spend a little more now to get a quality printing expereince. Now, if there's better solutions -- such as using an Airport Express to share out a USB port, other Print Sharing technologies, or getting a Ethernet capable printer (I think some of the newer HP's are there), I'm all ears.
thanks in advance for all your advice.
Mike
My expereince with the mechanics of the printer has been acceptable. It's reasonable on the ink, and is pretty flexible for the kinds of paper I can get through it.
My expereince with the HP Mac 7350 printer driver has been -- not so good. (Driver was reloaded from HP.COM a few months ago, so it should be fairly recent). Print jobs will spool to the G5, but there's usually a 50% success rate of actually getting the print jobs out of the queue onto the printer. When the G5 and the 7350 loose each other, it usually takes a "printer system reset" or even a reboot of the G5 and the Printer to get them back in sync.
Me? I'm a computer geek since the Apple II days, so while this is annoying, it isnt beyond my capabilities or patience to reset things. The others in my household are not as patient and understanding and are about ready to mutiny over this.
As printer technologies go, I PREFER HP because of the "head change per ink cartridge" process. I have a Canon i8500 in the house, but I want to save that for real photo printing (ink costs are a little high for "pedestrian printing" and homework output). I've had bad expereinces with Epsons for several generations of printers, mostly due to head clog issues.
However, I'm willing to reset my expectations here for some good advice.
what I'm looking for is this:
1) A "good" printer expereince (really works well with the Mac). Printer should recover easily from "synch" issues (or better yet, not have them at all).
2) Printer should be "sharable" with Macs and PCs -- network happy as it were
3) 4 Color minimum, multi color (>4) considered, as long as there is allowance for more black ink than color.
4) Reasonable ink costs
5) Multifunction is ok, but not a requirement.
6) Occasional "photo" quality printing.
I'm not going to say that "price is not an option", however, I'm willing to spend a little more now to get a quality printing expereince. Now, if there's better solutions -- such as using an Airport Express to share out a USB port, other Print Sharing technologies, or getting a Ethernet capable printer (I think some of the newer HP's are there), I'm all ears.
thanks in advance for all your advice.
Mike
