Good printer for use with Powerbook?

[shazammy]

I have a tried and true Powerbook G3, 500 mhz with 680 mb of RAM and FireWire and USB ports. I'm needing to finally get a printer, and was wondering if someone could recommend a good one. I'm looking for one that is simple, not expensive, and is quiet. I'd love a color one, but the price might limit me. I'm hoping to keep this printer and use it for a long time, especially when I update and buy a new Powerbook G4 (G5? God willing?)

Thanks,

Kevin

 

[wordmunger]

I have a tried and true Powerbook G3, 500 mhz with 680 mb of RAM and FireWire and USB ports. I'm needing to finally get a printer, and was wondering if someone could recommend a good one. I'm looking for one that is simple, not expensive, and is quiet. I'd love a color one, but the price might limit me. I'm hoping to keep this printer and use it for a long time, especially when I update and buy a new Powerbook G4 (G5? God willing?)

Thanks,

Kevin

I have a Canon i850, a $150 color printer that has served wonderfully well for the past two years. The best thing about it is how cheap replacement cartridges are--around ten bucks! Don't be fooled by $50 printers with $60 cartridges!

The i850 is no more, but the i860, from what I've heard, is just as good.

 

[JFreak]

how about hp 5850 that has usb / ethernet / airport connections? it's wonderful when used wirelessly and has great drivers on osx. anyway, if you want a future-proof purchase, then buy one with a network connection. that's the way things are going...

(i'd remind that the 5850 only uses one network interface at once, so when the ethernet cable is connected, the airport is off. once the cable is disconnected, the airport enables itself automatically. works like a charm.)

 

[yoda13]

there is also a portable Canon, can't remember the model number, that my brother got over the holidays to use with his iBook and it is wonderful. But it maybe somewhat more than you want to spend and I am sure the quality is no better than the desktop Canon, already mentioned (hope we aren't talking about the same printer , as I have already said, can't remember the model number) Nonetheless, it is still a sweet printer.

 

[keysersoze]

(i'd remind that the 5850 only uses one network interface at once, so when the ethernet cable is connected, the airport is off. once the cable is disconnected, the airport enables itself automatically. works like a charm.)

Would you mind explaining this a bit further? I'm interested. So if I plug this into my LAN port on my AE base, then I can print to this 5850, but not use my WAN access? Or do you mean if the ethernet cable is connected directly to my computer (and then OS X will automatically know what device is connected and change my network settings)?

Just trying to figure out this whole Printing over Airport thing.

 

[Gherkin]

If you have an Airport Extreme base station, you can print wirelessly with any printer with a USB connection.

 

[Phatpat]

I'd love a color one, but the price might limit me.

Do they even make black & white consumer printers these days? I think even the cheapest printer you can get will be color, don't worry about that.

More to the point, I have an HP 5150 I got free w/ my powerbook, it works great, ink cartridges are small, cost about $15, seem to last for about 750 pages (b & w)

 

[heatheralane]

I have the HP 5850 and use it with my G4 powerbook. It's $150-200 depending on where you get it, and well worth it in my book. I love that it's completely wireless (well, except for plugging it into the power outlet). I have cable internet, a wireless router, and an aiport card. I'm not a big techy person, but the printer worked pretty much out of the box. I plugged it in, it searched for a wireless signal and found one; then I installed the printer driver on my powerbook and the powerbook found the printer on its network - boom, I can print!

I've printed a couple of color photos and they look good, but I've typically just been using it for text b&w stuff.