low end inkjet recommendations ?

[barkmonster]

I'm looking for an inkjet, mainly for writing letters but reasonable colour output with photopaper could be handy for some things I suppose.

The HP DeskJet 3420c looks pretty good for the price (£57.57) but I can't find any reviews of it online anywhere.

The Epson Stylus C42UX looks good on paper (no pun intended) but all the reviews slate it completely for poor output quality and lousy ink usage. The replacement ink carts are way overpriced for a printer costing only £51.69.

There's also the DeskJet 3325c for £45.00 but it's got a very slow print speed so I'm put off it a bit and like the other HP model, I can't find any reviews.

I can't find anything under £60 other than those, I'd prefer under £50 really, I'm on a very tight budget and definately can't stretch any more than that. Plus I'm running a beige G3 so there's another £13 or so on top for the USB card and that's assuming whatever printer I go for actually comes with a USB lead aswell.

I'd tend to go for the HP printers, they both list OS 9.x and OS X 10.0 or above as their mininum Mac OS so I guess they'll be fine with a USB card on my beige G3 'cos I'm running OS 9.2 anyway. I assume USB PCI card is plug n' play so the mac will see it. I intend using the card for adding an additional midi interface at a later date.

Oh, they're USB 2.0, I don't know much about the difference, is it backwards compatable with the older standard ?

Thanks in advance if anyone can help, I hope I havn't gone on too much!

 

[benixau]

HP is a good choice. lets answer your questions:

Epson is too expensive
HP output kicks and is worth the slower speed
All HP printer have USB
Not all USb add-ins are plug 'n' play
USB 2 is backward copmatible with USB 1.1

If you want a USB add-in. Get an Adaptec USB2/Firewire combo card. I dont know if they are plug 'n' play but they are good quality, and with that in mind, very well priced.

hope it helps

 

[Gus]

Epson Stylus 740

This is/was a great printer that you can get cheaply in eBay. The ink is dirt cheap on www.ink4art.com, and I think for what you are looking for, it would be great. Mine was refurbished when I bought it 2 years ago, and it still has great print-outs. It's quick and fairly quiet, and it's USB and fully OS X compatible.

Gus

 

[MacBandit]

The output of the HP will beat nearly any Epson or for that matter any other inkjet hands down. Also the quality and reliability are second to none with HP when it comes to printers.

 

[barkmonster]

Thanks for the info, HP it is!!

I've got another problem now, with the USB card I bought.

It's listed with these specs :

Features

32-Bits. 33Mhz PCI interface compliant with PCI Local Bus Specification Revision 2.2

Four Downstream USB Ports

Each USB port dedicated to providing Full Band-Width to the attached device

Full Compliance with Universal Serial Bus Specification Revision 1.1

Integrated Dual-speed USB Tranceivers

Support for up to 127 devices per port

Supports Peripheral Hot Swap and Wake-up

System Requirements

Mac or IBM PC with one free PCI slot
Windows98SE/ME/2000 & Mac OS 8.6 or higher

I've tried it on both slot 1 and slot 3, It bombed with an error 11 on start up in slot 3. I zapped the PRAM (the kid's mother wasn't pleased ) and it's re-introduced a problem with my second partition not show up on my second hard drive, it only shows up after the mac's been on for a few minutes and I restart now.

I also tried the card in slot 1 with the same type 11 error, even disabling extensions on start up wouldn't solve it.

I've got my audiomedia III card on slot 2, it prefers that slot because I had issues with it no showing up in the System Profiler or being recognised by DAE in slot 3, I never did try it slot 1.

Any idea what could be causing this ?

I wouldn't want to totally write off the card at the first sign of problems, It's listed as mac compatable and I've already installed the latest USB Card drivers this morning before I bought the card, they caused no issues when there was no USB card to find and they also appear to load last in the extension que at start up.

I suppose it could be that card is some OEM brand I've never heard of and cost half what a 2 port card from Belkin or other well known makes but it says mac compatable and has the mac os logo on the packaging and documentation that came with card.

 

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by barkmonster
Thanks for the info, HP it is!!

I've got another problem now, with the USB card I bought.

It's listed with these specs :

Features

32-Bits. 33Mhz PCI interface compliant with PCI Local Bus Specification Revision 2.2

Four Downstream USB Ports

Each USB port dedicated to providing Full Band-Width to the attached device

Full Compliance with Universal Serial Bus Specification Revision 1.1

Integrated Dual-speed USB Tranceivers

Support for up to 127 devices per port

Supports Peripheral Hot Swap and Wake-up

System Requirements

Mac or IBM PC with one free PCI slot
Windows98SE/ME/2000 & Mac OS 8.6 or higher

I've tried it on both slot 1 and slot 3, It bombed with an error 11 on start up in slot 3. I zapped the PRAM (the kid's mother wasn't pleased ) and it's re-introduced a problem with my second partition not show up on my second hard drive, it only shows up after the mac's been on for a few minutes and I restart now.

I also tried the card in slot 1 with the same type 11 error, even disabling extensions on start up wouldn't solve it.

I've got my audiomedia III card on slot 2, it prefers that slot because I had issues with it no showing up in the System Profiler or being recognised by DAE in slot 3, I never did try it slot 1.

Any idea what could be causing this ?

I wouldn't want to totally write off the card at the first sign of problems, It's listed as mac compatable and I've already installed the latest USB Card drivers this morning before I bought the card, they caused no issues when there was no USB card to find and they also appear to load last in the extension que at start up.

I suppose it could be that card is some OEM brand I've never heard of and cost half what a 2 port card from Belkin or other well known makes but it says mac compatable and has the mac os logo on the packaging and documentation that came with card.

I'm sorry but I'm not going to be of much help with the USB card. I do highly recommend starting a new thread. You will get a lot more help that way and you will keep your original thread on topic.