I'm looking for a printer for under $200. Mainly because I'm 14 years old and am cheap. I will be hooking this printer up through my PC server. I mainly am in the market for a laser printer because I rarely print color. When I do print in color, it's a lot of color, mainly pictures. I am looking at a couple laser printers. I was also looking at the HP Deskjet 6840 because of it's wireless printing. Anybody have recommendations?
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Best Printer Under $200
- Thread starter zflauaus
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A laser printer is going to be terrible if you print color photos on it. HP has a good low-end laser printer.
If you want to keep the ability to do photos, go with something like the Epson R200 or R300, or Canon iP4000 or i960. All those will do really good with photos and a good job with text.
EDIT: the wireless printing is cool on the HP you listed, i'm just not wild about hp's print quality.
If you want to keep the ability to do photos, go with something like the Epson R200 or R300, or Canon iP4000 or i960. All those will do really good with photos and a good job with text.
EDIT: the wireless printing is cool on the HP you listed, i'm just not wild about hp's print quality.
What ever you do, think about the price of the printer cartridges.
HP cartridges are expensive in IMHO.
I bought a Canon i350 (which nicely matches my G4 iMac flat-panel) and it does very good with text and does ok with pictures, but the black cartridge for it is $7.
I have heard nice things about some of the Brother laser printers, but have yet to try one myself.
Good luck with the printer shopping. Printers are just a pain in the butt!
HP cartridges are expensive in IMHO.
I bought a Canon i350 (which nicely matches my G4 iMac flat-panel) and it does very good with text and does ok with pictures, but the black cartridge for it is $7.
I have heard nice things about some of the Brother laser printers, but have yet to try one myself.
Good luck with the printer shopping. Printers are just a pain in the butt!
I know. That's the big thing about printers, especially if I get a laser printer. $70 for toner. Uhh... No. HP is freakin' expensive. I've heard good things about Canon. I think I might take a look at them. Thanks for the help!faintember said:What ever you do, think about the price of the printer cartridges.
HP cartridges are expensive in IMHO.
I bought a Canon i350 (which nicely matches my G4 iMac flat-panel) and it does very good with text and does ok with pictures, but the black cartridge for it is $7.
I have heard nice things about some of the Brother laser printers, but have yet to try one myself.
Good luck with the printer shopping. Printers are just a pain in the butt!
Lasers are great if you are printing often, or are printing a large amount of pages at any one time. I am looking into getting one for printing my musical scores just because things like that really tax a bubble/ink jet printer. The laser jet toner cartridge will probably give you more pages per cartridge.zflauaus said:
That said, i love my Canon i350, although they may not be in production anymore.
i have the brother hl 2040 which is a consumer laser printer. i love it! i'm a student so i have papers to print out and the text is fantastic. i don't do work with color so i don't have the need. it's a really nice printer but i don't know what its like against a similar hp or samsung, it's my first laser. and although the toner may be expensive, you need to replace FAR less than with a cartridge in an inkjet.
Hi, I have a Canon i960 and it prints colors great but there is a newer model that replaced it (I think its the 8500) anyway check out Canons site for more info. I have it hooked up to my AE in a different room and it works just fine, wireless would be nice but no big deal here, enjoy your choice
Get a HP PSC. I've had mine since Christmas (the 1355) and they are excellent. They can scan, copy, read cards (i.e. from cameras) etc.
i just got the canon pixma ip3000. I love this printer. I got it for $30 after rebate.
Its quick and the ink is cheap. I think you get about 500 pages per cartridge (black ink). Online its about $10 for a new ink cartridge. ($13 at staples)
With my old HPs. My black ink went out quickly and I was paying $25 for a new ink catridge.
Its quick and the ink is cheap. I think you get about 500 pages per cartridge (black ink). Online its about $10 for a new ink cartridge. ($13 at staples)
With my old HPs. My black ink went out quickly and I was paying $25 for a new ink catridge.
I just purchased the new Samsung monochrome laser printer, the ML-2010 (I believe it's replacing the very popular 1740).
It's on its way from Amazon. The price was pretty reasonable - $107 w/a $50 MIR. Add shipping and the net price is about $75.
The toner costs ~$60 / 3000 prints, hence $0.02/page.
From what I could find on the net it seems like a solid printer - once I get it, I'll post my own review here.
Here's the link in case anyone else is interested.
By the way, as I was shopping for printers, I found the following sites all very helpful:
www.pcworld.com
www.consumersearch.com
www.cnet.com
Good luck!
It's on its way from Amazon. The price was pretty reasonable - $107 w/a $50 MIR. Add shipping and the net price is about $75.
The toner costs ~$60 / 3000 prints, hence $0.02/page.
From what I could find on the net it seems like a solid printer - once I get it, I'll post my own review here.
Here's the link in case anyone else is interested.
By the way, as I was shopping for printers, I found the following sites all very helpful:
www.pcworld.com
www.consumersearch.com
www.cnet.com
Good luck!
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
zflauaus said:
For printing, I recommend the HP Deskjet 5740. This is the best printer I have ever used and I've read that it has better quality prints than both the Canon iP3000 and the Epson C86 and R200. The only thing you might miss are the Card slots and the PictBridge port, but those weren't important to me. It's on sale from HP right now for $81. Snatch them up before they're gone. Ink wise, I JUST changed my color ink cartridge and i've had the printer since October 2004. I'm still using original black cartride. Also, I got a color ink cartridge at Wal-Mart for $20 and it also came with 50 sheets of glossy 4x6 photo paper. It was an excellent deal!
It may sound kind of biased, but I am a HP Deskjet junkie. I will buy nothing else cause HP makes the best printers in my opinion. I also own a HP PSC 1210v I've had since December 2003, and it's been an excellent printer. But if you don't want to go the HP route, I would definetly go for Canon. I've read nothing but excellent things about there printers.
I can't recommend Samsung. I bought one of their color laser printers a couple of months ago. It was a good value and the print quality is okay, but their tech support stinks.
I vote for canon. It is the best quality at the best price. Alot of people are gonna recommend the ip4000 because it is a sweet printer. I too own this model. Canon is in the process of releasing an entire new line of printers. The ip4200 (retail price of 129.99) is amazing. It uses new chromalife100 inks that not only stand up to light but also gases to resist fading, smudging, and scratching. The whole line uses their F.I.N.E printhead allowing for print resolution up to 9600x2400 dpi, with as small as 1 picoliter droplets. I was reading and found this interesting to compare the size of 1 picoliter to one liter is like comparing 1 second to 32,000 years. The newer models also include the ip5200 which is the newer roided up sibling of the ip5000 and the ip6600 which features memory card reader and a 3.5 inch screen. Not to mention all of these printers will feature 2 paper paths and 2 sided printing, which arent standard features on HP or even available on Epson. All of these should retail below $200.