printer options

[lavardera]

I need recommendations for a desktop printer for home. I have an Epson C86 at home which has become clogged. Its happened before and its cleared up, but this time I spent an entire brand new black cartridge while cycling through the cleaning routine. My Epson printers have always made nice prints, but I swear that if you put a third party cartridge in its going to ruin the printer. Its also very inflexible about changing cartridges - you have to change them when it says so, or you can't print anymore. I've got a Cannon at the office and so far I feel much better about this printer than any of the three epsons I've owned. I'm not too keen on HPs inkjets just from working with the plotter. I'm tired of these throw away printers.

So what to buy. Another Cannon, a small color laser, or a cheap b&w laser.

I know this is a can of worms, but any ideas?

[jasonlocher]

I got a free Canon PIXMA iP4300 Photo InkJet Printer from Apple and love it. Its the best desktop printer i've ever had. Prints very fast, very quiet, and it turns its own power off until the next print job. ink consumption is low, and quality settings are broad. I highly recommend it for basic printing.

[rjpotter]

HP PSC 1215 all-in-one was cheap and has been reliable at home for the past year. Bonus is that it can do colour copying, and can scan (preferably with VueScan). The print style is different from the Epsons we use at the office - sort of crisper.

[Nick]

Cannon appears to be making an effort to work well with the Mac.
They have been quick to update the drivers for the Apple OS where Epson has dragged its feet.

I have found the new Cannon to outperform the Epson printers and
have replaced the Epsons with them.

I use HP DesignJets for all my Large format printing.

[Rong]

I have an Canon I850 that is as old as the model. Got it soon after it was released. Getting old now but never, never misses a beat. Would love a newer faster Canon but the damn thing won't quit! Sometimes I don't need to print for several days or even weeks. It just sits there and waits. When I do print it always prints right away and does it beautifully. My Epsons, and I have had several, would never print well if they weren't used frequently. I would have to clean the heads one or more times to get good quality.

[John Cruet]

I've had these problems with the Epson 880. And I faithfully use their cartridges.

I'm constantly running the utility to fix misaligned characters or stop streaking. At the start of each day, the printer spends precious minutes going through a head cleaning operation prior to printing its stuff. I like its speed but the ink consumption is rather high, and the cartridge cost is, too.

My wife's printer, the Canon Pixma 3000, is better in every respect.

[lavardera]

Well, by the time I was ready to buy a Cannon ink-jet I found they had all been updated to the next gen cartridges - 8s - rather than the 6s my tabloid size printer ran on. So instead of adding yet another cartridge type to the cartridge-go-round I decided to bite the bullet and try an inexpensive color laser.

So today I picked up a Samsung CP300. Surprisingly small. More the size of a small business class b&w laser. It prints slowly, and quality does not match a good ink-jet. But no more clogging. I'll see how it goes.

[Peter Severin Carlsen]

Speaking of printers, does anyone have experience with Xerox phaser printers...They are more expensive than ink jet printers but not out of the question if they work, produce good color at a fast pase for doing proposals.

[lavardera]

Those solid ink printers have been around for a while. It used to be that they provided the black for free for the life of the printer, but I am not sure if they still do that. Essentially its a wax printer, but I think the supplies cost less than toner based machines.

[timada]

I own an hp laser jet printer and I am defiantly recommending it. I know it’s quite expensive compared with other printers, but trust me: it derives every penny... I bought mine one year ago and had no problems since. The quality of the printed document is great as well.

[raleighross]

I bought an HP 3600N for $250 from staples. They have them on sale now. Staples has some kind of deal with HP for prominent placement and to not compete with them on ink and toner or some such. It appears this gives them 1st rights of refusal on "deals" from HP.

The 3600 line has been replaced but they seem to have made too many so Staples it blowing them out at about 60% of the typical price when it was a standard item. At $250 you get a color laser with Ethernet and USB plus $500 in toner. I'm thinking of buying a second just to get the toner cheap for when I run out. Toner is rated at 6000 pages for black and 4000 pages for the colors. And the new printer comes with full toner.

Davdi

[Chris Black]

My 3 or 4 year old HP Color LaserJet 2550n died about 2 months ago, right after I installed two new toner cartridges...never got a single page out, talk about being pissed! (money literally down the drain). Needed a new color laser that very day.

Bought a new HP Color LaserJet CP1518ni for $299 at OfficeMax. Color is better, machine is much quieter, no rotating clunking cartridges. Overall very happy.

Methinks trying to repair my old 2550n is not worth the cost, from comments I've found in the web. Still can't bring myself to haul it out to the dumpster with 2 brand new toner carts installed.

[Howard]

Of course you (Lavadera) never indicated whether you need something bigger than 8.5 x 11. At any rate, here's my 2 cents. I recently got an ethernet capable Brother HL4040CN color laser from OfficeMax for $150 after rebate. More often found for around $200. I am happy with it. No constant ink cartridge changing like an inkjet. Decent reproductions of color photos, and fine for drawings. Cost per page, I think is under 12 cents. The 4 toner cartridges I think run about $200, and are good for 1200 pages, (or is it 12,000 pages. Setup was somewhat elaborate but trouble-free. Printer is as fast as my old b&w laser.

If you want 11" x 17" on the cheap, Brother has also come out with a line of inkjets at that size, starting around $200.