Printer Advice

[Blindinthedark]

My old printer is ready to be set free and I'm on the hunt for a new one. Does anyone have any advice on what I should look for?

I was shopping around today and looked at a bunch. I'm just not sure what I should get. I looked at bother laser and inkjet but I think the Laser printers are out of my price range (esp for a colour one).

Should I go for the high DPI? There were a few that were 5800 X 1200 that were pretty good with separate colour cartridges instead of the single unit which holds all three colours.

There were also some 4800 X 700 (I think) which also seemed ok.

Speed would be nice but not overly important to me. As long as the quality is good I don’t mind waiting for the print.

I do use my printer to do colour photos and graphics but primarily I use it for normal B&W text printing.

Any of you smart folks have any advice.


BTW I'm not interested in a multi-function machine since I already have a decent printer and fax.

BD

 

[Carnus]

I have an HP Laserjet 6PS and love it, I would storngly recommend HP laser printers, veyr little trouble and a good quality printer.

Carnus

 

[Blindinthedark]

I have an HP Laserjet 6PS and love it, I would storngly recommend HP laser printers, veyr little trouble and a good quality printer.

Carnus

Thanks for the info
Did you find that your printer was a little pricey?
Most of the printers I looked at were inkjets and ranged from $60-300.
The lasers that I looked at started at $300.

I know the quality is better but I'm not sure I can afford the price of a laser esp with ink being so expensive.

 

[Carnus]

It was a little pricey, but I have had it for 2 years still on the original toner cartridge and I use it a lot so I think it was well worth it, inkjedts eat a lot of money in ink and don't last that long


Carnus

 

[Blindinthedark]

It was a little pricey, but I have had it for 2 years still on the original toner cartridge and I use it a lot so I think it was well worth it, inkjedts eat a lot of money in ink and don't last that long


Carnus

2 yrs and you still have the original toner. That's pretty amazing. I'll be lucky if I can get 5 or 6 full colour pics for my old one before I had to buy another $40 reload.

I have noticed that I'm pretty hard on my printers so maybe the laser is the key. Like I said though I've got a pretty tight budget. I'm not sure I can stretch it to get a colour Laser

Damn I just need to win the lotto this week.

 

[TNRkitect2b]

I have a Canon model with seperate ink cartriges. It prints photos amazingly. The ink is cheap, SRP of $12 US each, but you can get them for less at OfficeMax or OfficeDepot... typically around $10... I'm not sure what the 8 1/2 x 11 runs, since I have the 11 x 17, but I found the best deal was from Amazon.com....

I highly recomend it if you want to go the color route

 

[ReadyOne]

Haven't been shopping recently, but I saw an HP laser for $100 in an Office Depot? ad couple of weeks back.

If you can be without color, and you print regularly, laser is by far the cheapest.

Watch for HP ink cartridges. The new ones aren't refillable -- they have an onboard meter that won't let much more that 1 fill of ink through the heads before it make the cartridge refuse to work. IN particular, I know the #45 and #78 are that way.

And speaking about it, some brands (Epson, Cannon?, Lexmark?) still have the print head separate from the cartridge. This makes the cartridge cheaper.

Also, concede getting a combo fax/scanner/printer machine. My spouse thought I was silly when I did, but now swears by it. I get a fax every week or so without having to turn the computer on, plus I ran a ton of court documents through the sheet feeder with my feet up on the desk just watching them automagically OCR.

I print 8x10's using 600x600 and they are almost as good as the old true photographic prints.

 

[Weird Harold]

Should I go for the high DPI?

High DPI printers are nice but not necessary unless...

You're printing publishing -- i.e providing masters for a printer to print from. Even then medium DPI should be sufficient.

OR

You're printing a lot of photos for sale or display.

OR

You use very small fonts.

There were a few that were 5800 X 1200 that were pretty good with separate colour cartridges instead of the single unit which holds all three colours.

Separate cartridges for the black and each color of ink is a good feature -- IF you like the rest of the printer's features. I wouldn't make that a prime consideration for selecting a printer unless you do a lot of color printing that uses a single color, like flyers with headlines/highlighting in red.

There were also some 4800 X 700 (I think) which also seemed ok.

Depending on other features, this is probably more resolution that you really need except for display quality photos.

Speed would be nice but not overly important to me. As long as the quality is good I don’t mind waiting for the print.

I used to feel this way until I got a printer I didn't have to wait an hour for one 8x10 photo to print! There is a point where speed becomes important -- don't go any lower than mid-range speed wise or you'll regret it.

I do use my printer to do colour photos and graphics but primarily I use it for normal B&W text printing.

Do you tend to print large photos -- 5x7 or 8x10? If not, you might consider two printers -- a monochrome laser and a specialist photo printer. The laser will give you fast, high-quality text, and the specialist photo-printer will give you true photo-quality snapshot sized photos.

 

[Blindinthedark]

Thanks for all the advice folks

I must admit I like the quality print you get with laser. Nice crisp lines. Maybe I'll look a little harder at laser as an option. Everyone has to remember that I'm in Canada so a $100 US is a life time mortgage to us

TNRkitect2b: Do you remember the model? I was looking at Canons today and they seemed reasonable.

ReadyOne: In my case I do need a colour printer. The gf and I are making photo albums for the holidays for our families. We'll prob do some B/W but we'd want the option of doing some really nice colour prints too.
I didn't take a close look at the 3-in-1 machines either because I had been told that these machines work well but not as well as they would as separate components. However I wouldn't mind making some space on my desk so I'll definitely look into it.

Weird Harold: Like I said I need the new printer to make photo albums this year and plan on making some larger prints as well to frame. So 5X7s and 8X10s. But since you say that the 4800 x 700 will do, I think I'll use this as my guideline. Depending on price I'll stick to this range of DPI.
I certainly understand the speed issue too. There have been enough times where I've had a 25 page paper due and prayed that the printer would speed up


Again thanks for the help everyone. I'm off to Office Depot tom well armed and may come back with arms full.

BD

 

[TNRkitect2b]

OK.. the Canon I have is the S9000... last year's high-end large format version. It print's up to 13" x19" and will do a borderless 11"x17" Amazon sells it for $299.00 since this year's model the S9100 came out (doubles the DPI.. I can't see any visual difference)

The 8 1/2 x 11" version is the Canon i960 it has the same print head and 6 cartridge ink system the S9000 has, and Amzon Lists it for 199. However, there is last years version the s820, which is sold through Amazon stores (the 3rd party vendor section) for $109.99 new in box.

What you look for, is the Canon Thinktank system, which uses 6 cartridges black, cyan, magenta, yellow, photo cyan, photo magenta.

All prices quoted are US dollars, good luck in your hunt!

 

[MagicFingers]

Ink Jets

Speaking of the high cost of cartridges, can any of you experts tell me the secret to refilling inkjet cartridges? I'm on a tight budget (Cheap), and need to do this. I recently sorta succesfully got my first refill to work on the black cartridge (HP 880C), after about 4 or 5 unsuccessful tries at black and color before.
Is the secret to create a vacuum inside to hold the ink in?

As my IT instructor pointed out, you can buy a whole printer for the cost of 2 refill cartridges now!! But I'm happy with my printer.
Thanks for any input on this matter.

 

[Snowballz]

Printer Ink is so expienseve i found that when i go to the shop its around 100$ for black and 120-150$ for colour (AUSD)

 

[Blindinthedark]

Re: Ink Jets

Speaking of the high cost of cartridges, can any of you experts tell me the secret to refilling inkjet cartridges? I'm on a tight budget (Cheap), and need to do this. I recently sorta succesfully got my first refill to work on the black cartridge (HP 880C), after about 4 or 5 unsuccessful tries at black and color before.
Is the secret to create a vacuum inside to hold the ink in?

As my IT instructor pointed out, you can buy a whole printer for the cost of 2 refill cartridges now!! But I'm happy with my printer.
Thanks for any input on this matter.

There are companies around now that will refill them for you. Was in the mall the other day and saw a kiosk.

I don't know if there's a secret for doing by yourself. I think that's where some of my printer problems started. Hence the search for a new one.

I'd say I found the best results only refilling a cartridge twice and then just bitting the bullet and buying a replacement. Anymore than that and the quality of the print would degrade and it would take forever for the printheads to recharge.

The people here are right when they say that a laser cartridge lasts much longer but you do pay the price upfront when you buy the machine and overall the ink is more expensive.

 

[ReadyOne]

Re: Re: Ink Jets

The people here are right when they say that a laser cartridge lasts much longer but you do pay the price upfront when you buy the machine and overall the ink is more expensive.

I did arithmetic last year and my laser (Brother MFC 4600) was a about $.01 a page and the color (HP PS1200) was $.15 B/W and about $1.20 for quality color.

(Normally we do 2 5x7 color on a page, and I top off the cartridges, particularly blue and yellow, until the meter decides to make them non-functional.

I'm on the 3rd or 4th cartridge for the laser, which cost about $30 and get me through a box of paper (5000 sheets) and well into another.

 

[ReadyOne]

Re: Ink Jets

Speaking of the high cost of cartridges, can any of you experts tell me the secret to refilling inkjet cartridges? I'm on a tight budget (Cheap), and need to do this. I recently sorta succesfully got my first refill to work on the black cartridge (HP 880C), after about 4 or 5 unsuccessful tries at black and color before.
Is the secret to create a vacuum inside to hold the ink in?

The is a sponge inside the cartridge. You want to keep it soaked, as opposed to filling an empty chamber. When there is lots of ink outside the sponge then you get leaks at the print head. In other words, do not come even close to overfilling.

Also, seal the filler hole well, like sticky tape over the plug.