I am planning to get a new printer in the next few days. I've always used HP products and have been satisfied. What I want to know is how do HP's compare to Epson and Canon. Any thoughts?
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Printers: HP vs Epson vs Canon
- Thread starter Fender2112
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That's a difficult question to answer, largely b/c there's no easy sweeping generalization to make about the 3 companies.
They all make quality products and different people will tell you that one of the brands is definitely better than the other.
In a way, it's like asking what's better, Ford, Pontiac or Chevy? While people may have their personal preferences, it largely depends on which models you are talking about, not the companies as a whole.
The question for you is, what will be your primary use for the printer?
Text? Black-and-white? Photos? Color graphics?
How many copies/day or copies/month are you envisioning?
What are the most important parameters that you care about?
Print speed? Network capability? Cost/page? Graphics quality? Text quality?
All of these questions go into which printer to recommend.
If you're primarily using it for text, a B&W laser printer would definitely merit consideration - they have a cheaper cost/page than inkjets and produce superb text prints.
Hope that helps some - give us the answers to some of those questions & we can hopefully help more.
They all make quality products and different people will tell you that one of the brands is definitely better than the other.
In a way, it's like asking what's better, Ford, Pontiac or Chevy? While people may have their personal preferences, it largely depends on which models you are talking about, not the companies as a whole.
The question for you is, what will be your primary use for the printer?
Text? Black-and-white? Photos? Color graphics?
How many copies/day or copies/month are you envisioning?
What are the most important parameters that you care about?
Print speed? Network capability? Cost/page? Graphics quality? Text quality?
All of these questions go into which printer to recommend.
If you're primarily using it for text, a B&W laser printer would definitely merit consideration - they have a cheaper cost/page than inkjets and produce superb text prints.
Hope that helps some - give us the answers to some of those questions & we can hopefully help more.
We use straight up epson here at school for our design labs. Well, we still have one HP plotter, but the rest are epson. The HP is nice, but the epsons have outstanding print quality and are very mac friendly. Even though HP and Apple are in bed together I still have tons of problems with the various scanners and printers I have used from them.Fender2112 said:
Disclaimer: my experience is with the pro lines from both. I'm sure personal printers are probably less buggy due to Murphy's law.
Never had a HP printer so I can't tell, but I've had no issues with my Epson. Heck, lately it's been playing nicer with my Mac than with my Windows box.
Just stay far away from Lexmark, and all will be good.
Just stay far away from Lexmark, and all will be good.
They all make decent printers, so you're not going to be really unhappy with anything from any of them.
Personally, though, my money in recent years has gone to Canon, and I haven't been disappointed. Their prints are at least close to the quality of Epson's, but as of the last time I did any research they were less prone to clogging and had MUCH cheaper (per page) ink. Same in comparison to HP--the ink is cheaper, and I haven't liked HP's drivers very much. Most new Canons also do automatic duplexing, which can be nice, though maybe this is true of HPs and Epsons, too--haven't looked.
As far as the quality, I can say that even two generations back the midrange model produced prints good enough to sell at an art show, which I have actually done. They've improved since then.
The one thing I don't like about Canon's printers is that they won't print on CDRs like some Epson models. Worse, apparently one of the 6000 series *can* print on a CDR, but only in Europe--they disable that feature in the US version for whatever bizarre reason.
Personally, though, my money in recent years has gone to Canon, and I haven't been disappointed. Their prints are at least close to the quality of Epson's, but as of the last time I did any research they were less prone to clogging and had MUCH cheaper (per page) ink. Same in comparison to HP--the ink is cheaper, and I haven't liked HP's drivers very much. Most new Canons also do automatic duplexing, which can be nice, though maybe this is true of HPs and Epsons, too--haven't looked.
As far as the quality, I can say that even two generations back the midrange model produced prints good enough to sell at an art show, which I have actually done. They've improved since then.
The one thing I don't like about Canon's printers is that they won't print on CDRs like some Epson models. Worse, apparently one of the 6000 series *can* print on a CDR, but only in Europe--they disable that feature in the US version for whatever bizarre reason.
ive had epson and HP printers. HP printers are great, drivers are bloated though. HP ink is VERY expensive.
I just bought the canon pixma ip3000 for like $40. Its an amazing printer. I don't do photo printing, which is why it gets a bad rap. But it prints quickly and nicely. And best of all, the ink is cheap!
When I print, its just black and white usually. In store, repalcement cartridge is $13 ( I would have paid $30 for HP ink!). Online its cheaper, between 6 and 10 dollars.
I just bought the canon pixma ip3000 for like $40. Its an amazing printer. I don't do photo printing, which is why it gets a bad rap. But it prints quickly and nicely. And best of all, the ink is cheap!
When I print, its just black and white usually. In store, repalcement cartridge is $13 ( I would have paid $30 for HP ink!). Online its cheaper, between 6 and 10 dollars.